Occupiers of private property must be told to clear off [updated]

Appeasing idiocy only rewards more of the same.  Here’s today’s lesson.

Last Waitangi day Wikitana and John Popata assaulted Prime Minister John Key as he was entering the Waitangi marae, for which they were convicted and (after glowing encomia from the likes of Hone Harawira) each sentenced to the hard labour of 100 hours' “community work” for their violence.

The lesson for the two thugs was that high-profile violence pays: a moment of violence against the Prime Minister bought them fame, headlines and mana amongst the braindead—at the price only of some risibly supervised “community work.”

Clearly emboldened by their fame and the “mana” bought at so cheap a price, less than a year later and short of a headline they’re doing that “work” in their community right now, occupying someone else’s private land in the Far North to protest . . . oh hell, who cares what they’re protesting: There they sit on someone else’s land (with the blessing of the local tribe, Ngati Kahu, and the iwi’s “negotiator” Margaret Mutu) chewing chicken bones, spitting venom and sending the rightful owner broke.  And here’s what these thugs “demand” for trying his patience:

"No land to be sold at Mahaetai [Taipa], so you property investors or house buyers don't buy land here, and we want our land returned to Ngati Kahu for nothing."

“Success,” say the thugs, “might be measured in buyers keeping away.”

Our success, the local police are never likely to say in response, will be measured by the extent to which we uphold the individual rights of rightful land owners.  That’s what the police should be saying, but never will.

They should have said that the very moment these thugs first trespassed.  Their “occupation” should never had hit the news: the police should have done the job they’re paid for at the precise time they were notified of the trespass. Instead the thugs have only become further emboldened by the ease with which they’ve discovered they can thumb their nose at the law, and they’re now hosting the country’s journalists on someone else’s lawn.

It’s time for Mr Key, the man who brought Hone Harawira’s party into coalition, to take a stand on one thing above all a civilised government is obliged to do: to protect the property rights of a citizen who’s been made a pawn in the power politics of a pair of idiots-a citizen who is, no doubt, losing big money every day that those vermin are out sitting on his lawn and he can’t sell off his subdivision as he planned to. (This selection of properties in the area will give you some idea of the money that is now hostage to these lunatics.)

For twelve months now John Key and his Government have tried to be all things to all people. He’s been given accolades for bringing the Maori Party “inside the tent”: flying their flag; doling out ministries; giving Maori Party leaders billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to spend.

And in return . . .  taxpayers, have got nothing. In return, Hone Harawira offers the country the Maori Party Salute. In return, they demand a a swathe of the Conservation Estate to buy their votes for a $100 billion cap-and-tax scheme.  In return, they give their imprimatur to any rag-tag Gog & Magog able to mutter “post-colonial traumatic stress disorder.”

Time for Mr Key to realise what he’s bought with his appeasement and our involuntary largesse. Time he tells Hone to bring his thugs into line.  Time he tells Margaret bloody Mutu that any “negotiations” she’s engaged in will be extinguished if she doesn’t get her thugs off someone else’s land.  Time to tell them all that’s not negotiable. And time he tells the police to do the job they’re supposed to do, instead of wasting it harassing noisy but harmless bloggers.

Time, in other words, he does the bloody job he’s supposed to do.

UPDATE: “Shades of Caledonia,” says Eric Crampton.