NZCPR Newsletter: A High Stakes Election

Thursday 6 July marked 100 days until the most important election of our lifetime. 

For many New Zealanders, the return of Labour to government along with the Greens and the Maori Party would be the final straw.

It is no exaggeration to say that if this occurs significant numbers of Kiwis will decide their future is no longer in our country.

Our only hope is a change of government and a new administration determined to not just halt the social and cultural revolution that has divided our society and eroded the fundamental principles of our democracy, but to reverse it.

This is no idle musing. Over the last five and a half years, Labour has put in place the foundations for He Puapua and totalitarian tribal rule.

With three more years at the helm, Labour would introduce a new written constitution based on the Treaty of Waitangi, which would embed tribalism and Maori rule into our society forever.

It’s not the original Treaty that Labour is pushing, that established the Queen as our sovereign, protected private property rights, and gave Maori the same rights and privileges of British citizenship as every other New Zealander. Instead, they are forcing a fabricated version onto the country that claims the Treaty is a ‘partnership’ between Maori and the Crown. This is what’s being taught in schools, underpins our racist health system, is being used to justify co-governance and tribal control of Three Waters, and is even being forced onto the private sector.

The NZCPR is currently delivering Sir Apirana Ngata’s 1922 explanation of the ‘original’ meaning of the Treaty into households across the county to counter Treaty ‘partnership’ propaganda. For details of this project, please click HERE.

The drive for a Treaty-based constitution comes from iwi leaders, supported by Maori supremacy advocates in academia and the public sector. Labour ensured the media has also played a crucial role in conditioning the country for constitutional change by requiring all recipients of the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund to promote their Treaty ‘partnership’ fabrication.  

While that Fund has now wound up, the media propaganda continues – as an article by a senior Stuff journalist Andrea Vance promoting “a written constitution” for New Zealand indicates.

What is particularly disturbing in her article is her derogatory condemnation of a key democratic safeguard – the use of binding referenda to determine major constitutional change: “Referendums are also a dreadful way to decide constitutional matters, subjecting them to the vicissitudes of political controversy, stripping out nuance and encouraging dehumanising language and distorted realities. They are a demagogue’s dream.”

Such dictatorial sentiments are dangerous – as constitutional law expert, Professor James Allan, explains when he points out that the only legitimate way to change a country’s constitution is through the approval of voters: “For a country in today’s democratic era to change its constitution without in any real way asking its own citizens would be a disgrace, the sort of thing one might expect after a military coup in Pakistan.”

The reason the public’s approval must be sought for major constitutional change is that the effects can be profound. For New Zealand, a new constitution based on the Treaty would literally signal the end of Parliamentary sovereignty – and democracy as we know it!

Let me explain.

New Zealand’s ‘unwritten’ constitution consists of a collection of statutes, conventions, and common law rights that together set out the basic rules by which our country is governed. With supreme law-making power held by elected Members of Parliament who can be sacked if they lose the confidence of voters, New Zealand has one of the strongest parliamentary democracies in the world.

If a written constitution is introduced, that ultimate law-making power would be transferred to unelected judges who are not accountable to the public. Given the hierarchy of Courts in New Zealand, it would be the five Judges of the Supreme Court, who would hold supreme power. They would in effect, be our rulers – and if we did not like anything they decided, there would be absolutely nothing we could do about it.

Given that the Supreme Court Justice Joe Williams – the former Head of the Waitangi Tribunal – has already stated his preference for “decolonising the law”, and the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Winkelmann and Justice Glazebrook want to see Maori custom or “tikanga” as part of our common law, tribalism instead of democracy would be our future.

As the former Canterbury University Law Lecturer David Round explains: “Once we had the Treaty in our constitution, we would be sunk. No matter how mild the references to the Treaty might be, we can be certain that they would be used, not just by politicians but by politically activist judges in the courts, to impose apartheid on us for ever.”

David also warns against the government practice of inserting the ‘principles’ of the Treaty into legislation. Since there are no principles in the Treaty, they are open to re-interpretation, as he explains: “The principles, of course, are a blank cheque. The latest announcement from the Waitangi Tribunal is that they require ‘co-governance’ ~ in other words, an end to democracy and racial equality. That’s not what they meant even a few years ago ~ and for all we know, we may discover a few years down the track that the ‘principles’ require complete Maori control of our country. That is, after all, what some radicals are saying right now.”

Given how widespread this practice has become under Labour, the situation is concerning – especially as the Panel reviewing New Zealand’s electoral law has recommended inserting Treaty principles deep into the heart of our electoral system: “Upholding the Treaty must be central to the administration of the electoral system. One way to facilitate this is to include an explicit requirement in the Electoral Act for decision-makers to give effect to the Treaty and its principles when exercising functions and powers under the Act… We are also recommending that this obligation is explicitly included in the Electoral Commission’s statutory objectives.”

The Independent Electoral Review Panel proposing this radical course of action consists of six members: Chairman Deborah Hart is also chair of the Consumer Advocacy Council; Professor Maria Bargh is the former head of Maori Studies at Victoria University; Professor Andrew Geddis is a public and electoral law specialist at Otago University; Associate Professor Lara Greaves specialises in Maori and Indigenous politics at Victoria University; Alice Mander is the co-president of the National Disabled Students’ Association; and Robert Peden is a former Electoral Commission chief executive.

Under the guise of better upholding the Treaty, the panel has gone to great lengths to recommend a series of electoral law changes that would advantage Maori.

One is entrenching the Maori seats to make it harder for them to be removed.

Another relates to prisoner voting. Before 2020, anyone committing a crime against society serious enough to result in a prison sentence, forfeited their right to vote.

Labour restored voting rights for prisoners with sentences of less than three years, ahead of the 2020 election.

Now the Panel is recommending all prisoners should have their voting rights restored: “The ongoing disqualification of some prisoners disproportionally impacts Maori who are overrepresented in the prison system as a result of systemic bias and social and economic disadvantage.”

According to the Panel, Maori are over-represented in prison, not because they commit more crime, but because they are victims of oppression!

Altogether the Panel has made 98 recommendations, including lowering the voting age to 16, extending the term of Parliament from three to four years, lowering the party vote threshold to enter Parliament from 5 percent to 3.5 percent, and abolishing the one-seat threshold.

Submissions on the Review – see HERE for details – close on July 17 and will be considered ahead of a final report being delivered to the new government in November 2023.

One of the issues raised in the report is the complexity of the Maori Electoral Option. As a result, Electoral Commission meetings have been held around the country to explain the details and help facilitate change.

Another group that’s been holding meetings to ‘help’ Maori voters with enrolment is the Mongrel Mob. As long-time Mob member Harry Tam explained on his Facebook page: “Another election hui done in Dunedin today. The local Labour MP heard about our hui and gate crashed. She said my name comes up in parliament so they’re a bit hesitant to be associated with me. I told them they will be more concerned when they realise that we are targeting the marginal seats and mobilising our people to get off the Maori roll and go onto the general roll so we can vote in those marginal seats. So best don’t worry about me now just worry about me if we get you in because you will know that we can get you out too.”

He explained their objective is to vote strategically to keep National out: “Electoral vote Labour and party vote Greens so Labour has a coalition partner.”

It should come as no surprise that the Mob is organising its membership to support Labour to keep National out of Office, given they are promising to crack-down on gangs. 

It was Labour’s Ingrid Leary, the MP for Taieri, that “gate crashed” the meeting. She claimed she thought it was an Electoral Commission meeting, and “in no way” condones the actions of the Mongrel Mob – even though in 2021, Labour gave the Mob $2.75 million supposedly for a drug rehabilitation programme.

The rise of criminal gangs and the disastrous impact their drug trade is having on society is a concern of most New Zealanders – including this week’s NZCPR Guest Commentator, former Judge and Law Lecturer Anthony Willy, who reminds us it was not the FBI that brought down the notorious American gangster Al Capone, but the Inland Revenue Service! He suggests that along with strengthening Police powers, the application of the Income Tax Act could prove an effective weapon against gangs:

“The current Income tax legislation was amended in 2007 making it clear that any property arising from the conduct of a business activity carried on with a view to profit is amenable to income tax. The Act is also clear that a criminal enterprise is within that definition. The Act covers not only money but also any property such as motor vehicles necessary to, and used in, the business.

“It is for the person to explain to the Commissioner how the money or property was acquired. There is no onus on the Commissioner to prove anything other than it exists and is found in the possession of the party concerned. In those circumstances the Commissioner then applies an assets accretion exercise and arrives at an amount of undeclared income that would have been necessary to purchase such items. In this way he calculates the amount of income tax evaded, adds penalties, which can amount to three times the tax, and levies the enterprise accordingly. If the ‘taxpayer’ does not have untainted money available from which to pay the tax, then the property is forfeited to the Crown. He is also able to bring criminal proceedings against the defaulter which can result in imprisonment and or a fine.”

The former Judge believes the use of the income tax procedures on a regular basis would not only make it hazardous for the gangs to continue trading but, “It would also make it more difficult for them to survive as a gang and this would stem the flow of new recruits.”

Anthony Willy’s suggestion is another weapon that could be included in the arsenal against criminal organisations that profit from the misery of others.

There are so many burning issues to consider in the lead up to the 2023 election, that the consequences of another three years of Labour don’t bear thinking about.

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THIS WEEK’S POLL ASKS:

*Do you believe there will be a significant exodus from New Zealand if Labour is re-elected?

Dr Muriel Newman established the New Zealand Centre for Political Research as a public policy think tank in 2005 after nine years as a Member of Parliament. The NZCPR website is HERE. We also run this Breaking Views Blog and our NZCPR Facebook Group HERE.