Brown Mafia Contractors Limited

Rorts at council troughs continue unabated.

• In order to recognise and respect the Crown's responsibility to take appropriate account of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and to maintain and improve opportunities for Māori to contribute to local government decision-making processes, Parts 2 and 6 provide principles and requirements for local authorities that are intended to facilitate participation by Māori in local authority decision-making processes.

The above clause 4 from the Local Government Act contains fancy words about giving them a place at the council trough supposedly to assist in decision making, but nothing about awarding council contracts to the bros. Others interpret it differently, seeing a sound business case to be awarded council contracts if you are of the appropriate skin colour.

conduct its business in an open, transparent, and democratically accountable manner

undertake any commercial transactions in accordance with sound business practices

Councils are duty bound to conduct their business as stated above. Contracts awarded on "requires local authorities to consult with Maori and involve them in decision-making processes" would surely be open to legal challenge. How one gets from consult and involve in decision making to awarding contracts requires a seriously warped and stretched imagination.

But knowing the tendency of councils to oil squeaky wheels with my taxes, I suspect that the brown mafia pushing TOW principles and the like will be awarded the cream of the contracts. Sure all the fair and principled boxes will be ticked by the council to the detriment of the current contracting federation. Still I expect nothing less in this PC world of the councils endowed with the 'power of general competence'.

KG over at Crusader Rabbit has a similar post.