Professor Robert MacCulloch: Maybe NZ's Minister of Justice is Right......

Maybe NZ's Minister of Justice is Right. When Parliament Can't Make Laws, the people have no choice but to take the Law into their Own Hands.

Not so long ago, the Labour Party's Deputy PM Sir Michael Cullen stated in no uncertain terms in Parliament that sovereignty was ceded in the Treaty of Waitangi. According to his Labour Party, "The power of the NZ Parliament to change the law is central to the exercise of sovereignty and therefore the contemporary exercise of Article One of the Treaty". That was in 2004. He did so in the context of the Foreshore & Seabed Act. Now current Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has formally contradicted him and stated the opposite in Parliament, saying “Māori didn’t cede sovereignty in signing the Treaty”.

Meanwhile the National Party revoked the Seabed and Foreshore Act because, under Sir John Key, it sided with the Waitangi Tribunal that NZ's Parliament had no right to pass such an Act. However, a few weeks ago, National PM Luxon told Parliament, "The Crown is Sovereign", in apparent confirmation of Sir Michael Cullen's view that also held it is Sovereign and has the right to pass laws by majority vote. ACT voted against the Seabed and Foreshore Act, with Richard Prebble saying at the time, "I say to the Minister again that the ACT party would have left the matter to the courts .. they should go ahead with court cases. Let me make that clear".

However now National and ACT are vociferously complaining that the court cases are unfair - that activist judges have hijacked them by making too generous awards of coastal lands to Māori claimants. Justice Minister Goldsmith blames Parliament, saying, "During the past three decades, Parliament has not always been clear about what specific Treaty provisions meant or were trying to achieve .. That’s left the courts, and the agencies themselves, and businesses and local councils all to free-range as to what it does mean and doesn’t mean". In order to clarify things, ACT has proposed legislation, in the form of its Treaty Principles Bill. However, the PM and his National Party don't want to clear things up, so say they will not support ACT's bill, nor even amend it. What a shambles. A shambles courtesy of our elected Parliamentarians - both Labour and National - the lot of them.

Having said that, the Justice Minister is right. When Parliament can't do its job and pass clear, intelligible laws, then the courts & people are left with no choice but to make rules & laws on their own. So schools & universities have decided how to interpret the Treaty their way, including how pupils are taught in this regard. Government departments have ruled on how employees must act, as have Councils, and private firms. Real estate authorities have ruled on obligations of agents regards the Treaty. Meanwhile judges have gone & done their own thing. And maybe you & me, next time we swim near the foreshore, or stand on a sea bed, should make our own rules & judgements, in negotiation with others, as to what we can, or can't, do. Maybe it should be sorted out by private bargains. After all, Parliament has failed to lead. Perhaps it doesn't deserve to be called "sovereign", when it can't pass proper laws anymore. Maybe its best to leave things up to the people & their organizations to make their own laws. Parliament is looking inept, embedded in a City where water pipes burst around it, red cones block streets, broken ferries are berthed nearby & few people want to go into work anymore. Maybe power should go back to the people.

Sources:
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/waitangi-tribunal-report-disappointing

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.