In my view the strongest part of the Bill is the central place it gives to te Oranga o te Taiao as a concept. This is defined in the legislation as:
(a) the health of the natural environment;
(b) the essential relationship between the health of the natural environment and its capacity to sustain life;
(c) the interconnectedness of all parts of the environment;
(d) the intrinsic relationship between iwi and hapū and te Taiao.
(a) to (c) inclusive warrant support, however the wording in (d) needs reconsideration. As drafted it implies that the only New Zealanders with intrinsic relationships with the natural environment are Māori who are affiliated to specific iwi and hapu tribal structures. This excludes the 84% of New Zealanders who are not Māori, and those Māori for whom iwi or hapu tribal structures are not paramount in their identity.
The weakness in the Bill is its overly dominant focus on Māori iwi and hapu interests and world views. This weakness is so pervasive within the Bill and so profound in its impacts that it requires a rethink of the whole new legislative package.
The Bill refers to Crown obligations and Treaty principles, leaving the impression these were stated in the 1840 Treaty/Tiriti. In fact, they were invented from the 1980s by judicial, political, and tribal activists. They are constitutionally untethered, lack fidelity to the Treaty/Tiriti text, and imply Māori lack agency and capacity for self-determination (tino rangatiratanga).
The Bill seems to tacitly assume that resources are best managed using Māori customs (tikanga) and traditional knowledge (mātauranga Māori) rather than modern scientific methods and disciplines such as ecology, geology, planning, surveying, architecture, building, infrastructure, and property and contract law.
The legislation seeks to make Māori custom or tikanga sources of law within New Zealand. For example, the NBE Bill states that: “All persons exercising powers and performing functions and duties under this Act must recognise and provide for the responsibility and mana of each iwi and to protect and sustain the health and well-being of te taiao in accordance with the kawa, tikanga (including kaitiakitanga), and mātauranga in their area of interest.”
This might imply that tikanga (customs) and mātauranga (Māori ways of “knowing”) are fixed in time and by tradition and should not be open to challenge.
Inevitably there will be conflicts between tikanga and mātauranga Māori assertions, and evidence from modern, universal science. The former may depend on custom backed by authority and the latter on evidence that is always open to challenge. Shakespeare over four hundred years ago warned against too much belief in unchallenged customs:
“What custom wills, in all things should we do it,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heaped
For truth to overpeer.”
Shakespeare, Coriolanus
It is evidence rather than customary beliefs that must prevail in environmental and resource management in a modern, open, and secular society.
Compared to the current Resource Management Act the proposed new system erodes democracy and accountability to voters. It shifts much decision making to non-elected tribal representatives who may wield power far beyond their capabilities to exercise.
The proposed National Māori Entity will be powerful and pervasive. Organizations with such heft and with few statutory constraints require a strong accountability regime to perform well. This accountability regime is yet to be developed.
The Regional Planning Committees will be making significant decisions that will impact on the lives and wellbeing of citizens. These committees should be subject to democratic accountability, probably through requirements for election of key people. However, as the legislation now stands there is little electoral accountability, and none in the case of Māori members of the Regional Planning Committees.
The proposed legislation is overly complicated and will generate such interpretative and operational costs that it may prove unworkable. The Government would be wise to withdraw the proposed Bills and replace them with enabling legislation that does not discriminate on race lines.
This legislation should vest decision-making in local communities and focus on improving the speed and lowering the cost of local decision-making processes. It should acknowledge the role of property rights and reflect understanding of the economics governing externalities and how public goods may be best provided. Decision-making must be accountable to affected communities, including but not limited to Māori.
Dr Peter Winsley has worked in policy and economics-related fields in New Zealand for many years. With qualifications and publications in economics, management and literature. This article was first published HERE
2 comments:
It is a strange modern western country that prescribes animism into law over actual science.
We have become our own demise as a recognised liberal democracy, whose science is world leading (Rutherford/Hollows etc among the many) when we fall back to a state of belief that was last seen in 1200AD to formulate our forward thinking.
We will fade from a global society faster than salt dissolves in water if this become true.
Well said Peter, and Anonymous. Like the 3 Waters fiasco, I suspect your very sound submission will, regretfully, fall on deaf ears. That is why it behoves every voter to ask their local political candidates for an unmitigated clear direction on what they/their party intends to do about this racist nonsense? If you, the reader, are in any doubt about its ramifications, read Chris Trotter's latest column.
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