Having clarified that, I recently came across a YouTube video published about nine months ago by Dr Duncan Webb, Labour MP for Christchurch Central, called ‘The Problem With ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill’. It’s worth watching to marvel at how a need to toe the Party line can cause such cognitive fabrication and how such a poor thinker could ever be voted in to parliament. It was staggering for its misleading and irrational content. It was so concerning that it needs to be called out thoroughly. Below are representative excerpts from it and a response in each case.
"It twists the words of the Treaty..."
No it doesn't. The Treaty Principles Bill suggests no alteration to the words of Te Tiriti. Why did you lie Dr Webb?
"...and tries to make them something they're not and were never intended to be."
What Te Tiriti was intended to be is pretty clear from the words in it, from the English version that was translated for the chiefs, from the understanding shown by chiefs in the debates prior to signing, and from speeches recorded by some of those chiefs in the few decades following the signing. Those intentions are quite consistent with the Treaty Principles Bill.
"The first and most basic error is the claim that the Treaty is about individual rights"
Who made that claim? It's not in the Treaty Principles Bill.
"A treaty defines the relationship between peoples or nations; that's what a treaty is"
No it isn’t and that's generally not what treaties do. Treaties are simply agreements between groups, usually nations, to do or not do certain things, such as discontinuing war or conducting trade under certain agreed rules. Treaties seldom define a relationship between the parties beyond the undertakings agreed to in a specific treaty.
"(The ACT Party) want to relegate the Treaty to an historical charter..."
Perhaps that's true but nothing of the sort is indicated in the Treaty Principles Bill and neither is it the stated intention by ACT spokespersons. It seeks to define principles to enable Te Tiriti to be honoured into the future in ways that are based on Te Tiriti's actual wording and the historical evidence pertaining to its meaning and intention.
"...about the interaction of individual Maori with individual non-Maori and the Treaty Principles Bill doubles down on that"
Seymour hasn't said that and nothing of the sort is included in the Treaty Principles Bill. You're making this up Dr Webb in lieu of any valid criticism of the Bill.
"It's simply false to suggest that any treaty including the Treaty of Waitangi creates individual rights between citizens"
Article 3 of Te Tiriti specifically grants every individual Maori all the rights of British subjects. Dr Webb’s implied claim is simply false. But what does the term 'rights between citizens' mean? Rights are accorded to individuals, not 'between' them. And Dr Webb’s insinuation that anyone has suggested Te Tiriti creates 'rights between citizens' is a straw man; who has ever suggested that or even used the phrase 'individual rights between citizens'?
"No document creates an entire relationship"
But that directly contradicts what you said earlier Dr Webb, that "a treaty defines the relationship between peoples or nations".
"The Treaty was agreed between Maori as first inhabitants of Aotearoa and English immigrants"
No it wasn't. It was between 542 chiefs and the English monarchy through its representatives.
"That imbalance is at the heart of the emergence of the principles of the Treaty"
What imbalance? Dr Webb, you had made no reference to any imbalance.
"The idea of an absolute cession of their rights as rangatira or chiefs was fundamentally at odds with the world they lived in"
Another straw man. Te Tiriti didn't bring about 'an absolute cession' of chiefly rights and the Treaty Principles Bill does not call for or imply that at all. In Article 2 Te Tiriti gave chiefs rights according to the European concept of ownership and control of their lands and possessions. Only a sovereign government could grant and protect such rights. Chiefs did not have such rights prior to Te Tiriti; their rights to occupy and control land and resources were only on the basis of their ability to defend against other invading groups wanting to displace them (or worse). Translations of Te Tiriti have varied regarding chiefs' rule beyond ownership and it may well be that there was an intention to allow them to manage their people as they saw fit in their own areas, but that was always going to be temporary and under an overriding sovereignty of the Crown. At the Hokianga signing, Hobson made it clear that the Crown could only protect chiefs' rights under British law which could only be only be exercised "on English soil".
"The third sleight of hand is that the Treaty is the same now as it was in 1840"
Wow, so Te Tiriti magically changed its wording? No, the sleight of hand is by Te Tiriti revisionists who claim such nonsense. If an agreement can be reinterpreted to suit one party's preference at any time, then it's not a worthwhile agreement.
"The reality is that the Treaty relationship evolves and so does its spirit"
'The Treaty relationship' is another version of 'the Treaty partnership'. It's not a valid representation of Te Tiriti which is simply an agreement made in 1840 about governance. Even if one were to accept the false idea of a Treaty relationship between Maori and everyone else, if it evolves then such evolution surely should be influenced by everyone else, not just Maori and not just activist judges and politicians representing Maori preference. As for Te Tiriti's 'spirit', there's no such thing; it's just a document. There is interpretation by people, too often to suit themselves.
"The Treaty, as with all of our constitution, flexes and adapts as it must to changing circumstances"
No it doesn't. Only certain people's interpretations of it flex and adapt according to their self-interested preferences. Also, any constitutional role of Te Tiriti is unclear; NZ was created as a colony then a state by royal decree, not Te Tiriti. Anyway, NZ doesn't have a constitution.
"but equally the Treaty is always speaking and remains relevant and modern"
Te Tiriti of course has never spoken but metaphorically many people claim to be able to hear it. Others claim to hear godly entities speak to them. This provides a conveniently unfalsifiable authority to their preferences. Wait, I hear Te Tiriti asking to be laid to eternal rest because its so tired of being used and abused for factional political purposes.
"The fourth, and perhaps the real flaw at the heart of the Bill is the fallacy that the partnership relationship between the Crown and Maori means unequal treatment in some way"
If a sovereign government establishes a partnership with one group of its subjects, by definition that will involve that group receiving unequal treatment compared with all the other subjects. The claimed 'partnership relationship' is the fallacy. There was no mention of partnership in Te Tiriti, its preamble or in the speeches of the chiefs whilst deciding whether to sign. Almost 150 years later, one Waitangi Tribunal judge mentioned that Te Tiriti created something 'akin to' a partnership, and activists and some Courts extrapolated from that and have tried to establish as accepted reality the idea of a race-based partnership in our government. It's preposterous nonsense.
"The principle of partnership...is just a duty to act in good faith fairly and reasonably"
Well, you can make that up if you want. Why not invent ever more 'principles' to suit your politics? We're not seeing some Maori MPs behave fairly and reasonably in parliament despite believing their race is in a partnership with government. Many partnerships will agree on what might seem unfair arrangements and will tolerate some degree of unreasonableness, as long as the partnership meets enough needs for both parties.
"The fact is that Seymour's Bill seeks to re-write the Treaty"
An obvious untruth, one might say a blatant lie. At most, the Bill seeks to re-write recent, politically motivated interpretations of Te Tiriti's meaning invented on behalf of one group of New Zealanders. Those recent inventions disregarded the interests of everyone else and the future stability and welfare of New Zealand.
"The Treaty Principles Bill is a dishonest cherry-picking and reframing of snippets of the Treaty"
Nonsense. The Bill encapsulates everything in and promised by Te Tiriti. Show us all the other parts of Te Tiriti than those 'snippets' you refer to Dr Webb. Point to any section of Te Tiriti that is not covered by the Bill. It’s easy to assert strong allegations but where’s the evidence?
"...imporant parts of the Treaty disappear in a puff of dodgy drafting"
So what are those parts? No specifics or evidence of course because this claim is no more than a fabrication.
"Sixth. Underlying the entire approach is the delusion that absolute equality results in fair outcomes"
I'm not aware that 'fair outcomes' has been any underlying approach of Seymour's Bill. It seeks to establish equality as a principle that accords with the wording of Te Tiriti and the recorded understanding of the chiefs who signed. Besides, it's not a delusion to believe that 'absolute equality' would lead to fair outcomes. It wouldn't lead to ‘equal’ outcomes but they would be fair, based on effort and achievement. In fact, it's democratic inequality and inequality of opportunity that will lead to unfair outcomes. 'Absolute equality' of course is impossible but we can strive to approach it. Dr Webb appears to prefer the society Orwell warned us about where 'some animals are more equal than others'.
"...to say that Maori must be treated exactly the same when the statistics tell us that there are differences that desperately need addressing is both unfair and inequitable"
Different rights and provisions on the basis of race are not necessarily a good solution and Dr Webb has not explained how that might be the case. Intervention based on need, not race, will be more fair and equitable than interventions based on race. Maori MPs, lawyers, doctors won't need such interventions but non-Maori mental health patients and homeless people will, for example. This issue forms a major ideological difference between our political parties.
"The seventh problem is the scaremongering suggestion that recognising Maori as first people in New Zealand is inconsistent with fundamental human rights"
Another straw man argument. Who suggests that? There is nothing of that nature mentioned in the Treaty Principles Bill. (We can all recognise that Maori came to live on the islands of this archipelago before British and Europeans but that has no relevance except that Dr Webb seems to believe that being somewhere first necessarily entails 'fundamental human rights' beyond what are accorded to those who come later.)
"So we need to work at not just accommodating customary rights but embracing and empowering them"
Do we? This is just an assertion of a belief Dr Webb believes is superior. And which customary rights shall we embrace and empower? Utu? Slavery? Absolute chiefly power to order miscreants or outsiders to be bashed to death with a mere? Surely Dr Webb wouldn't be so racist as to decide which customary rights are acceptable in a civilised democracy? And if he thinks it's ok to do so, then so be it for the rest of us.
"Tino rangatiratanga was the fundamental principle of authority that the Treaty preserved for Maori"
"...the preservation of tino rangatiratanga is the right of Maori to self-determination"
"...adhering to and honouring the Treaty is part and parcel of adhering to the rule of law"
Come on Dr Webb, you can't have it both ways. Either Maori have a right to self-determination under chiefly authority or Maori have to follow the laws and decisions made by parliament. That is never addressed by the race activists. What we see is some Maori MPs showing contempt for the rules made by parliament and that doesn't bode well for Dr Webb's contradictory claims.
"To throw the Treaty in the trash and replace it with some platitudes would be to overturn 150 years of legal development and progress..."
(This is Luxon’s line; perhaps he will defect to the Labour Party.) Seymour is not calling to throw Te Tiriti in the trash; quite the contrary. Another straw man. Also, 150 years is significant only because for about 150 years nearly all Maori and non-Maori in NZ maintained sensible and well-founded understanding of what was promised and agreed to by Te Tiriti. Sir Apirana Ngata's 1922 translation of Te Tiriti into English and his explanation provided a sound basis for that understanding. It's only in the last 40 or so years that revisionists have distorted that understanding for political purposes.
"Finally, debate is healthy, so let's have an honest one"
Wow, incredible in light of the inaccurate and misleading content throughout your little talk Dr Webb.
end
A.E. Thompson is a working, tax-paying New Zealander who speaks up about threats to our hard-fought rights, liberties, egalitarian values, rational thinking and fair treatment by the state.
10 comments:
It seems to me a lot of politicians and academics are hugely naive, having never lived or observed Māori in day to day situations. They blindly accept the so-called grievances as though the exact same circumstances exist today. Time to end the Treaty Settlement Process and return NZ to a country where you flourish if you put in the personal effort.
What a Webb of untruths ...?
"Finally, debate is healthy, so let's have an honest one".
And let's use "the 3 honest documents" to have this debate, ( the 1840 Maori language treaty, the 1869 official back translation of the Maori language treaty, and Busby's final draft (Littlewood) used to translate the meaning and intent of the treaty into the Maori language.
As Duncan Webb told Dr Sharma, 'the party comes first'. How are people like this ever elected as the people's representatives. New Zealand, under the last Labour government, tragically slipped close to becoming a corrupt little s***hole. Not the Kiwi way.
Hear, hear and amen to that!
Excellent article, debunking a multitude of myths.
Dr Webb could be of great assistance to the Keir Starmer Labour government. Haere ra.
Unfortunately Webb is sitting on the Justice Committee which will examine submissions - so that is one seriously skewered viewpoint.
Should this disqualify the chap? An 'honourable' person would recuse themselves!
My word what a truly stupid and dishonest man is Duncan Webb. I am ashamed to have him in the parliament of my country.
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