The question for the New Zealand Herald and NZME and its shareholders is what does that mean and how is it going to do that?
Before one can understand the Treaty Principles one must know what they are, and no one really does. These Principles were created by Parliament in the Treaty of Waitangi Act of 1975, but it did not define what they were. Some argue these Principles have become well enough defined through case law and Waitangi Tribunal reports for us all to be able to embed them in to our way of life just as the NZ Herald says it will, but after reading what the Waitangi Tribunal says about them I would question that assumption.
The Waitangi Tribunal says this of the principles.
‘The principles are not defined in any way in our governing legislation. It is left for the Tribunal itself to define the principles against which Crown actions will be tested. Each Tribunal panel, as it reports on the claims it hears in any given inquiry, decided which principles are appropriate for that inquiry. No Tribunal is bound by the decisions of a previous Tribunal inquiry (or the courts). A Tribunal inquiry panel may develop principles outlined in a previous inquiry or add new principles.’
The Tribunal also said that in light of its finding that in signing the Treaty, Ngāpuhi did not cede sovereignty (this was ceded later according to the Tribunal), “it’s a starting point for reconsidering the Treaty principles.’
NZ Herald and all who want to comply with legislation or participate in organizations that have Treaty Principles embedded in them not only need to be aware of and be sympathetic to existing Treaty Principles but also any new ones that get invented along the way.
First things first though, before the NZ Herald can worry about embedding principles that have not been invented yet, it must focus on the ones that have been made up so far. Unfortunately, the Waitangi Tribunal cannot provide a list of them. It says that ‘the Waitangi Tribunal does not have a single set of Treaty principles that are to be applied in assessing each claim’.
That is not very helpful to anyone wanting to embed them into all
aspects of their business, but the Tribunal does give some helpful advice. It
says that over the years some core principles have emerged from Tribunal
reports which have been applied to the varying circumstances raised by the
claims. These principles are often derived not just from the strict terms of
the Treaty’s two texts, but also from the surrounding circumstances in which
the Treaty agreement was entered into.
It would be easier to catch a ghost than track down these principles it seems because not only are they derived from the Treaty but also from any imaginable circumstance that is even remotely connected to it.
For anyone wanting anything more than vague concepts to embed into their business and is wanting a bit more of a steer as to what these principles are the Tribunal does advise that you can find examples of them by reading its 160 reports over the last fifty years. I did not do this, but I put a search box into each report to find all the principles I could and I found 16 of them,
They are:
Active Protection
Manaakitanga
Equity
Equality
Options
Good Government
Whanaungatanga
Partnership
Reciprocity
Mutual Benefit
Retention
Kawanatanga (Crown’s right to govern)
Redress
Maori autonomy
Mutual respect
Rangatiratanga
Sometimes they even double them up and you can have a principle of a principle. An example of this is the Tribunal’s most recent report that found that John Key and Chris Finlayson breached the Treaty by passing the Marine and Coastal Area Act. The Waitangi Tribunal allege that the Crown breached the Treaty Principle of ‘active protection’ by not actively protecting the Principle of ‘rangatiratanga’.
So good luck to the NZ Herald in embedding these elusive and in some cases yet to be invented principles into every aspect of its business. If ‘Mr treaty’ himself, Chris Finlayson, could not understand them well enough not to breach them, then what chance does anyone have?
The Waitangi Tribunal is out of control and has become a law unto itself because the Government has not defined what the Treaty Principles are. These Principles can be made to mean whatever is needed for the Tribunal to find the Crown to be in breach of the Treaty on any particular claim and if by chance one cannot be found to do that, a new one can just be invented.
Time for a referendum on them Mr Luxon.
Robin Grieve, a tutor, orchardist and retired farmer, is
Chairman of Pastural Farming Climate Research HERE.
10 comments:
Let's just call it FRAUD.
The Herald's pledge would seem to eliminate the prospect of anything as rational and straightforward as the above appearing in the paper. If such articles did appear, the paper would became some semblance of its formr self, and readership would likely trend to former penetrations.
There are no other principles in the Treaty other than the three Articles written in the Treaty. The principles as stated by the Waitangi Tribunal are manufactured by the Tribunal itself. By its structure, the Tribunal demonstrates its complete bias: only Maori can bring cases to the Tribunal. If that is not racism at its most obvious then New Zealanders so not understand the definitions of racism and racist. The Tribunal needs to be abolished immediately but Luxon hasn't got the guts to do what is right. He will try to please everyone all the time and will end up pleasing no one. He'll be gone by Christmas.
So the principles are a set of "values" important to the Waitangi Tribunal. Only they can define them...or add to them...or kick old ones out they've decided are no longer of "value".
What a load of crap. We've created an overtly racist organisation which can set and change the principles of the Treaty whenever they like and are not held to account by parliament.
Could you possibly devise a more unaccountable system which is open to manipulation by entitled extremists with a racist axe to grind.
Now it's time to grow up NZ and throw this anti-democratic nonsense out.
The Herald seems intent on lowering its readership even further and discarding its journalistic independence (or what little it has left) and restricting fair and balanced reporting by kow-towing to minority activists who will tell it how to report the news.
You can’t move forward if you keep looking backwards!
That statement just about sums up where NZ is, stuck in the past , trying to right the wrongs of generations gone.
Get over it NZ. Move on to better things.
Fred H says that only Maori can bring cases to the Tribunal. This is true, however either of the treaty signatories (Maori or the Crown) can make a claim of a treaty breach. The Crown has the Crown Law Office to represent them, Maori have the Tribunal. The fact different parties have different representation is not racist.
An excellent example of the entirely elastic and malleable nature of the so called "Principles" of the Treaty.
I would just add one caution. The "Principles" in this context should always be capitalized to distinguish them from principles that are implied in any agreement.
If you speak with people on the street and talk about getting rid of the principles of the Treaty they think you are trying to actually gut the treaty of any meaning whatsoever. The idea of unifying people is both implied and expressly considered in the Treaty, and is a genuine principle. To speak of removing the principles of the Treaty is thus easily misunderstood by those who do not understand the invention of the Principles of the 1970's.
The Titiri was a deal, not a Treaty. It was akin to a Sale and Purchase Agreement in that it did not establish new principles but relied on British law and British legal principles. Afterall, Maori had only lore, and did not have law.
It offered Maori the opportunity to become British citizens as all other non-Maori residents already were. The reasons for this offer was well set out in the preamble which should be studied closely, but which most authorities seem to ignore.
Furthermore, the Treaty has been repeatedly breached so is not now an single unified agreement. The requirement that sales be made to the government and not to outsiders, though well intentioned, was breached early on.
Likewise, the rebellion by a few Iwi were serious breaches.
In any case, progress and equity is hindered by rehashing irrelevant past agreements and ancient events. For instance, it would be a nonsense if I had the right to sue the British government for land seizures made by the Normans in 1066! Move on as the world has changed. We should go forward together as a multicultural but unified country for the betterment of all. All treaties tend to have a limited life, and there are very good reasons for their demise.
This is precisely why Julian Batchelor did his tour in 2023. He is firing up again in 2024.
One of the principal weapons of pre-European Maori was trickery. If you could deceive aggressors you may not have to fight them, or fall to them, or you may even defeat them. Evolution ensured that the best tricksters survived and their descendants became talented fraudsters improving those skills generation by generation. These are the iwi of today by whom our naive negotiators are easily manipulated; complex concepts such as race are used by iwi whereas non- maori avoid them for fear of being branded racist. Skilled iwi fraudsters have been milking the system for years to the detriment of everyone else including most Maori. We seem to be saturated with more and more Maorification and common sense has fled the country.
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