Treaty Principles Bill Submission
An appeal to the spirit of the adventure we are on.
What on EARTH are we doing here? This attempt to redefine the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi is nothing short of constitutional vandalism, a desperate and ill-advised insistence that by redefining what the Treaty of Waitangi means when it’s employed in legislation and law it somehow does not affect the text of the Treaty itself. This is such a breathtaking falsehood that it swamps all of the other equally ridiculous claims that have followed it.
I have a pōhutakawa in my garden, it’s beautiful and about to bloom in the next few days. It has been there for about fifty years, so about the same length of time the Waitangi Tribunal has been established in 1975, or ten years longer than it’s been able to address historic claims from 1985. It has grown, flowered, extended branches and sunk its roots deep into the soil during that time.
If the pōhutakawa was Te Tiriti o Waitangi, then this bill is the axe, the chainsaw, the invasive fungus attacking the roots. It’s an attempt to distort reality, an attempt to place a sign upon the tree telling us is that it is a Norfolk Pine, an Oak, an Elm, something that is not quintessentially Aotearoa — but merely something average, like everywhere else.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and our democracy founded upon honouring it is nothing short of exceptional. It is not average. It is not like everywhere else. It is something which makes our nation remarkable, special, and a continual work in progress to understand, recognise and honour the treaty.
That the main advocate for this bill would also claim that what makes our constitutional arrangement unique is somehow an error, a mistake that only this legislation can rectify, is equally ridiculous.
This despite all evidence to the contrary over the fifty years that attempting to amend and repair the 135 years of failing to honour has provided — treaty settlements, legislation which respects and identifies Te Tirit and its principles, the Maori cultural renaissance, and efforts to ensure biculturalism in practice and aspiration.
Our nation is viewed as a example to those who have failed to address the colonial devastation wrought on indigenous peoples. We don’t always get it right, but we get it right a damn sight more than many other former colonies.
What also concerns me about this bill is the sheer amount of misrepresentation regarding the current Treaty Principles, and how Te Tiriti o Waitangi is honoured. I have repeatedly heard that Māori in this country have different human rights to myself, which is false — patently and obviously false.
My human rights are protected by the Human Rights Act, and the Bill of Rights Act. I am equal before the courts, before the law, in the same way as Māori. Both of these acts are underpinned by the agreement between the Crown and Māori, Te Tiriti o Waitangi. My rights are not infringed by Te Tiriti, they are fundamentally secured by its existence.
This bill proposes to wash away fifty years of careful consideration and reconciliation of nearly a century and a half of failing to honour the treaty, and does so with some toxic rhetoric accusing the judiciary of being biased because they interpret individual cases on their merits, employing precedent and legislation to do so.
That is not bias, it is the function of their job. Judges are appointed by the Attorney-General, to criticise them as “unelected” is to deliberately and maliciously paint them as anti-democratic when a functioning and effective judiciary is essential to modern democracy.
So we have a slate of misinformation about how equal rights operate in Aotearoa, a smear on the judiciary and the legal profession, and a sustained effort to make what makes this country exceptional, what makes our constitutional arrangement and Te Tiriti o Waitangi, out as a mistake.
As I said when I started this submission, what on EARTH are we doing here folks?
Te Tiriti o Waitangi, its failure to be honoured and the fifty year journey of the Waitangi Tribunal so far are not a mistake that can be scrubbed or painted over. The proposed principles of this bill relate or understand the text and intention of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the same intellectual and constitutional way that a dog barking would relate or understand to the writings of the great Moana Jackson, Michael King or Ranginui Walker.
I urge you to end this process, take this bill back to the house and consign it to the same fate as the 135 years preceding the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal — to be viewed as another folly of those who could not understand the beauty, exceptionalism and grace of a constitutional arrangement that Te Tiriti of Waitangi presented to Aotearoa New Zealand.
Those who cannot see that honouring the treaty is not a process that ends, it is one that evolves, and does so in a manner entirely unique to this country — and provides the opportunity for beauty, exceptionalism and grace for those who are intellectually and morally equipped to continue the great journey this country embarked on in 1840.
Ensure we continue on this adventure, reject this bill in its entirety.
