Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says the Government will not agree to Treaty settlements that dispute whether the Crown is now sovereign.
Goldsmith made the comments to the Māori Affairs select committee this morning amid ongoing negotiations with East Coast iwi Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and hopes a settlement can be reached with the country’s largest iwi, Ngāpuhi.
Under the previous Labour Government, an initial deed of settlement with Te Whānau-ā-Apanui was drawn up.
It includes the first case of a clause agreeing to disagree on who holds sovereignty. . .
Allowing any individual or group other than the government to have sovereignty is an invitation to anarchy.
The deed notes Te Whānau-ā-Apanui consider they are a sovereign nation that never ceded sovereignty to the Crown and retain that sovereignty today, while the Crown considers its sovereignty today as incontrovertible.
The differing views are not reconciled in the deed and nothing in the deed is to be taken as the iwi relinquishing that sovereignty.
Goldsmith said the Government is uncomfortable with this agree-to-disagree clause and it is not prepared to progress the settlement without that being removed.
“It makes it difficult in the sense that you’re signing up to a full and final settlement, but the entity fundamental doesn’t acknowledge the authority of the Crown to do it in one respect, and we weren’t comfortable with that,” he says.
“The Crown’s position is clear; the Crown is sovereign. The Crown is simply the representation of the democratic will of the people of New Zealand.” . .
The democratic will is for full and final settlements in acknowledgement of past mistakes and Treaty breaches.
It is not for different rights and laws for different people, nor is it to allow the government to cede sovereignty.
The government is right to draw this line in the sand and it is one no future government should attempt to erase or cross.
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
As Trump would say you have no cards to play. So NO DEAL.
At last a firm line in the sand. Far too many loose words have been allowed in the past, including the original Treaty.. The WT and other artful maori rejoice as does the justice industry
You can 't have a sovereign entity within a sovereign entity. This is what makes talk of a treaty between e.g. the Australian federal govt and Aboriginals an absurdity (if we apply the rule in international law that a treaty must be between two sovereign entities; otherwise, call it something else). Likewise any talk of awarding Maori sovereignty status is absurd. However, international law allows for groups of people such as indigenous people to exercise self-determination within the framework of national sovereignty (i.e. the sovereignty of NZ, Australia, Canada, whichever). An agreement leading to this could be called a 'First Nations Treaty' (a term first used in Canada in 1871) while acknowledging that such a 'treaty' does not actually come under international treaty rules as spelled out by the Law of Treaties 1969.
Actually the statement was the government is uncomfortable with the clause. This is far from a line in the sand and can easily be walked back to be - if there are enough votes in it we will sign anyway.
Hmmmm, a line in the sand.....................BUT?
All good stuff Barend, and others, with sovereignty implying a form of united government and peoples, which maori did not have in any shape or form. But if self determination is the aim, how about self funding? There is no need for separatists, who don't like the rest of us and our systems, to be paid for by us or even have access to our technology. I suspect the blinkered activists in this country have not thought things through.
Thank you for the article, Ele.
It is mind boggling that it should have got this far.
The Minister should bullet point his requirements in writing and end with a statement that negotiations will not proceed until they are addressed to his satisfaction. He holds the cards, as mentioned above.
The first point would be that the hapu accepts sovereignty of the Crown. If the Crown is not sovereign, the Minister does not have the authority to negotiate the settlement.
We need stronger people representing us in Parliament.
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