To be honest, this series of modest little essays and opinion pieces has been in abeyance for far longer than anticipated.
There have been numerous attempts in the last month or so to commit some thoughts to keyboard during my travels in Europe but they always fell prey to either a pressing social engagement - usually drinks at 5pm - or another day’s travel or, towards the end of the trip, a somewhat debilitating flu which deprived me of both energy and cogent thought.
Anyway that is all behind me. I’m now back in the world’s most glorious environment – Central Otago – and returning to full health so there’s not much wrong with the world.
I haven’t posted anything on any platform for over a month, a month during which the country has voted for a change in political direction. Just how significant that change in direction will be is still under discussion, but I’m on the sidelines cheering for both Act and New Zealand First to put a rocket up a National Party that is looking as wet as a Gisborne rugby ground.
Frankly the tendency of both Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis to regularly revert to the spin doctor-invented line “strong and stable government” is both boring and cliched. It’s not even original. Teresa May started trotting out the phrase when she became the British PM until the BBC’s Andrew Marr stopped her after about thirty seconds of an interview and asked her to stop talking in soundbites.
Oh for some such sage political advice here!
While coalition negotiations are quite rightly happening behind closed doors with media kept on the sidelines, this news vacuum has allowed some of the most outrageous threats ever heard from elected New Zealand politicians to get more oxygen than they really deserve.
What Willie Jackson, Marama Davidson, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer et al have been spouting in recent times about civil unrest, mass demonstrations and even in the case of Jackson “going to war” over a proposed referendum about the Treaty of Waitangi principles, is at best irresponsible and at worst, dismissive of the concept of democracy.
The root of the issue is that ever since the phrase “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” was first inserted into legislation in 1975, half a century of parliaments and politicians have been totally remiss in not properly defining just what those principles are. It is 48 years of legislative neglect.
That time has allowed members of unelected institutions in the judiciary, academia, the civil service and at the Waitangi Tribunal to basically make up what they think these principles should be.
This is not the way a properly functioning democracy should work. As a participating voter in a democratic nation I want my politicians to legislate in a clear, uncomplicated manner whereby there can be no doubt about their intentions. Is that too much to ask for?
(Unfortunately despite Parliament’s best intentions, an activist High Court and Court of Appeal has decided they don’t like the Marine and Coastal Areas Act and have made some nonsensical judgements which go against both the spirit and the letter of the law. Surely it’s time for Parliament to make amends against this kind of judicial activism.)
But back to the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.
New Zealand First wants to dispense with the phrase completely and remove it from all pieces of legislation. While that would initially simplify matters considerably, it would only put the lid on a festering sore in New Zealand race relations which would be bound to explode at some stage in the not too distant future.
What David Seymour and Act are proposing seems reasonable and non-problematical.
They want a Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill passed in parliament which would define the principles as based on the three original Articles of the 1840 document, or documents.
The Principles as laid down by Act are simple:
1. The Government has the right to govern New Zealand.
2. The Government will protect all New Zealanders’ authority over their land and other property.
3. All New Zealanders are equal under the law with the same rights and duties.
As Act has pointed out, no society has ever succeeded when differing political and societal rights are assigned by the circumstances of your birth. All good political movements have been about ending discrimination, not entrenching it.
So what is there not to like about a Parliamentary Bill that defines the Principles of the Treaty as per above? Isn’t that what the original Articles of 1840 were all about? The Crown governs the country, one’s land and property is sacrosanct and everybody has the same rights to live and participate in society.
For the life of me I can’t see why anybody could possibly object to those principles. Aren’t they the basis of what a properly functioning elected democracy should be thinking every time it enacts new law?
Why is the National Party scared to take part in a debate about the basic tenets of democracy? Their leader’s current attitude smells of a lack of courage and susceptibility to bullying.
What have opposition politicians got to fear from such principles being defined? Do they see the end of the Treaty gravy train which has supported a taxpayer funded industry for nearly forty years.
There is no plan to disestablish the Waitangi Tribunal, so iwi can continue to make claims for breaches of the Treaty. One may ask how much longer it needs to continue, but while outstanding issues, which are probably intractable, remain surrounding Nga Puhi, the Tribunal has a reason to exist. One would like to think though that it will have a natural life span which might end sometime around 2040.
What Act are proposing is long overdue. But if the Bill can go to the House and through a full Select Committee process, it can be discussed, debated, submitted on and refined. There are three years to complete the process before the final version is put to the people in a referendum in 2026.
That is what democracy is. Participation in the process. And at the end, the people decide. There have many times I didn’t like the outcome of democracy in this country. What happened between September 2020 and October the 14th this year is but one example. But because I accept democracy is the will of the people I put up with that until I had a chance to change it.
New Zealand is the oldest continuous full democracy in the world. We accept outcomes. Let’s put these undefined Treaty Principles to a democratic process and let’s see what the democratic outcome will be.
Until then, it is grossly irresponsible to suggest violence in response to a democratic process.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
Frankly the tendency of both Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis to regularly revert to the spin doctor-invented line “strong and stable government” is both boring and cliched. It’s not even original. Teresa May started trotting out the phrase when she became the British PM until the BBC’s Andrew Marr stopped her after about thirty seconds of an interview and asked her to stop talking in soundbites.
Oh for some such sage political advice here!
While coalition negotiations are quite rightly happening behind closed doors with media kept on the sidelines, this news vacuum has allowed some of the most outrageous threats ever heard from elected New Zealand politicians to get more oxygen than they really deserve.
What Willie Jackson, Marama Davidson, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer et al have been spouting in recent times about civil unrest, mass demonstrations and even in the case of Jackson “going to war” over a proposed referendum about the Treaty of Waitangi principles, is at best irresponsible and at worst, dismissive of the concept of democracy.
The root of the issue is that ever since the phrase “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” was first inserted into legislation in 1975, half a century of parliaments and politicians have been totally remiss in not properly defining just what those principles are. It is 48 years of legislative neglect.
That time has allowed members of unelected institutions in the judiciary, academia, the civil service and at the Waitangi Tribunal to basically make up what they think these principles should be.
This is not the way a properly functioning democracy should work. As a participating voter in a democratic nation I want my politicians to legislate in a clear, uncomplicated manner whereby there can be no doubt about their intentions. Is that too much to ask for?
(Unfortunately despite Parliament’s best intentions, an activist High Court and Court of Appeal has decided they don’t like the Marine and Coastal Areas Act and have made some nonsensical judgements which go against both the spirit and the letter of the law. Surely it’s time for Parliament to make amends against this kind of judicial activism.)
But back to the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.
New Zealand First wants to dispense with the phrase completely and remove it from all pieces of legislation. While that would initially simplify matters considerably, it would only put the lid on a festering sore in New Zealand race relations which would be bound to explode at some stage in the not too distant future.
What David Seymour and Act are proposing seems reasonable and non-problematical.
They want a Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill passed in parliament which would define the principles as based on the three original Articles of the 1840 document, or documents.
The Principles as laid down by Act are simple:
1. The Government has the right to govern New Zealand.
2. The Government will protect all New Zealanders’ authority over their land and other property.
3. All New Zealanders are equal under the law with the same rights and duties.
As Act has pointed out, no society has ever succeeded when differing political and societal rights are assigned by the circumstances of your birth. All good political movements have been about ending discrimination, not entrenching it.
So what is there not to like about a Parliamentary Bill that defines the Principles of the Treaty as per above? Isn’t that what the original Articles of 1840 were all about? The Crown governs the country, one’s land and property is sacrosanct and everybody has the same rights to live and participate in society.
For the life of me I can’t see why anybody could possibly object to those principles. Aren’t they the basis of what a properly functioning elected democracy should be thinking every time it enacts new law?
Why is the National Party scared to take part in a debate about the basic tenets of democracy? Their leader’s current attitude smells of a lack of courage and susceptibility to bullying.
What have opposition politicians got to fear from such principles being defined? Do they see the end of the Treaty gravy train which has supported a taxpayer funded industry for nearly forty years.
There is no plan to disestablish the Waitangi Tribunal, so iwi can continue to make claims for breaches of the Treaty. One may ask how much longer it needs to continue, but while outstanding issues, which are probably intractable, remain surrounding Nga Puhi, the Tribunal has a reason to exist. One would like to think though that it will have a natural life span which might end sometime around 2040.
What Act are proposing is long overdue. But if the Bill can go to the House and through a full Select Committee process, it can be discussed, debated, submitted on and refined. There are three years to complete the process before the final version is put to the people in a referendum in 2026.
That is what democracy is. Participation in the process. And at the end, the people decide. There have many times I didn’t like the outcome of democracy in this country. What happened between September 2020 and October the 14th this year is but one example. But because I accept democracy is the will of the people I put up with that until I had a chance to change it.
New Zealand is the oldest continuous full democracy in the world. We accept outcomes. Let’s put these undefined Treaty Principles to a democratic process and let’s see what the democratic outcome will be.
Until then, it is grossly irresponsible to suggest violence in response to a democratic process.
Peter Williams was a writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines. Peter blogs regularly on Peter’s Substack - where this article was sourced.
11 comments:
Will the NZ people be offered the opportunity to speak in a referendum?
This is long overdue already. If not, why not?
Luxon needs to decide whether he is a man or a mouse.
To date, he has acted like a mouse.
meanwhile the next undefined Trojan horse has been rolled out - Co-Governance
another Labour invention
Peter I agree with everything you say, but we also need to discuss the other P.
Partnership. Our activist courts have introduced this concept which gets no mention in the Treaty.
Jackson and his ilk instantly conclude that means all partners as equals which then legitimises the concept of Co Governance.
The fact is that partners can be unequal, look at any law firm.
Both P words need to be expunged.
Back in the last century we were told that all indigenous rorting would be settled by 2001, within a "fiscal envelope" of one billion dollars.
That's small change now, and the extortion continues (now with menaces if we don't comply).
Luxon won't deal with the expansion of apartheid - hence the Nats lamentable outcome when they should have had a landslide. And if the bald Wokester denies us a referendum, Peters and Seymour should walk away and force another election. In which, with any luck at all, the Nats would join Labour in the dustbin of history, and we'd have a chance to start again. Otherwise you might as well emigrate - or get used to being a second-class lackey to the master-race.
New Zealand does not need a referendum! What New Zealand needs, desperately, is policians who understand that they are employees paid to represent the people of New Zealand, not to boss them.
I agree 100% with peter williams. I listen to his rants on reality radio and I always agree. We should definitely have a referndum to say whether everyone, no matter their race or religion should be treated equally. If two little babies are born in nz today, one with indian parents and one with maori parents, then both should be treated equally from day one. The indian baby is no more a colonist than a liitle white or mixed -race or chinese baby. For the activists in the greens and te pati who say otherwise, and threaten violence and even war, they are nothing but a disgrace to themselves and to democracy. .Bring on the referendum.
Right on Peter. You have been missed.
I wonder how many New Zealander's understand, or are aware, that should Winston Peters "not get what HE wants", that Master Luxon maybe forced to ask the Country to "enter the voting booth and recast their votes".
Should this happen -
a/- I sincerely hope that the Electoral Commission are better prepare for such an event, than they where for the last Election.
b/- that the People of New Zealand see Winston for what he is and once again cast NZ First (just like they did in 2019) into the abyss.
Lord Normanby was tasked with overseeing the arrangements for the Treaty and prior to the signing he issued instructions (i4 August, 1839) which include settling the questions of principles and partnership in one sentence :
1. "must be conducted on the same principles of sincerity, justice and good faith"
2." the recognition of Her Majesty's Sovereignty".
No confusion about concocted principles or partnership here.
Since the signing the simple Treaty has been elevated into a form of Holy Writ and spawned an "industry" enabling self-interested parties to use it in the manner of a blank cheque.
Hopefully a referendum will allow the actual words of the Treaty and Sir Apirana Ngata's explanation of what it means, to be seen by all Kiwis, they then will be able to see how they have been distorted by those who rant, rave and threaten as a means of getting their own way.
Post a Comment