Mike Butler: Panel ignores nation’s pulse

While the Constitutional Advisory Panel claims its final report, released on Thursday, is simply taking the pulse of the nation, this separatist-dominated group pushes its view on the Maori seats, the Treaty of Waitangi, and appears to have renamed the nation "Aotearoa New Zealand".

Despite receiving a large number of submissions wanting the Maori seats to go, the panel recommends against their abolition, saying “it is inappropriate for the longstanding rights of a minority to be taken away simply because the minority is outnumbered”.

Mike Butler: Extra time for constitution scrap

You now have to the end of next month to tell the Constitutional Review Panel whether you agree/disagree/ don’t care whether New Zealand entrenches a system of government that could split the country into “Maori” and “the rest”. The panel this week extended the closing day for submissions, from July 1 to July 31.

Bruce Moon: 20 constitutional questions

Since the Constitutional Advisory Panel may be holding meeting at a place near you, sometime soon, it would be a good idea to prepare some questions to fire at the visiting panellists. Given that much Nazi-style propaganda about the meaning of the Treaty continues to receive publicity, e.g. that Maoris are a "sovereign Treaty partner" (Danny Keenan, Wanganui Chronicle, March 16, 2013), one question would be whether the panel makes its best efforts to deny such falsehoods at every opportunity, and if not, why not? I have prepared a list of questions which some of you may think worth asking, should opportunities arise. No doubt others would use somewhat different wording. They are in no particular order and for your consideration:

Mike Butler: Historian caught twisting history

Propaganda from the Constitutional Advisory Panel provides an easy lesson on how our history has been twisted. “Maori focus on constitutional moves”,(1) an op-ed piece written by Dr Danny Keenan and published in the Wanganui Chronicle on Saturday, appears intended to give readers a treatyist nudge before a visit by the Constitutional Advisory Panel on Thursday.

Elizabeth Rata: The treaty is not New Zealand’s founding document

I was surprised to read in Deborah Coddington’s recent Herald column that the Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s founding document. Of course some New Zealanders mistakenly believe that is the case. Where the belief becomes a problem is when a member of the government appointed and funded Constitutional Advisory Panel such as Deborah Coddington states that this is so. In describing the treaty as our founding document she has jumped the gun somewhat in anticipating the Panel’s recommendations about the status of the treaty. And she is certainly premature in gauging New Zealanders’ opinions on the subject.

Mike Butler: Review fudges two-world treaty push

The Queen is sovereign and Maori are her subjects, with the rights of subjects, including possession of property is a widespread interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi that goes back 172 years. Another interpretation that goes back about 30 years is that it confirmed Maori sovereignty over all things Maori while giving to the Crown limited power to control new settlers. Which interpretation are you familiar with?

The Constitutional Advisory Panel is reviewing the role of the Treaty within New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements without mentioning that there are two opposing views about the meaning and intent of the Treaty, one of which asserts Maori sovereignty and limits government control to non-Maori who have been written out of the treaty.

Mike Butler: The hunger for a special Maori deal

At some stage demography will trump the apparent insatiable appetite for a special deal for Maori, and there is a hint of this in ethnic projections near the beginning of “New Zealand’s Constitution – the conversation so far”, a discussion booklet released by the Constitutional Advisory Panel on September 11. The mid-range population projection by self-identified ethnicity, shown on page four of the booklet, expects Europeans or other to make up 70 percent of the population in 2026 with Maori making up 16 percent, the same as Asian, and ahead of Pacific Island at 10 percent. Aside from the curious unexplained fact is that these figures total 112 percent, the notion of an equal partnership deal between the government and 16 percent of the population based on an 1840 agreement looks increasingly quaint and poorly founded.

Such a demographic doomsday appears not too far away considering the panel leading a Constitutional review was been told a bicultural focus on the Treaty of Waitangi won't be fair to Pacific and migrant communities, according to a Radio NZ report on August 21, 2012.

Mike Butler: Constitution 101 questions to ponder

Our Bill of Rights Act, the number of MPs, the term of parliament, election date, the number and size of electorates, electoral integrity legislation, and whether we should have a written constitution are all up for discussion and the Constitutional Advisory Panel released a booklet on September 11 to introduce the issues.

The booklet, titled “New Zealand’s Constitution – the conversation so far”, is an easy-to-read introduction to our constitutional make-up and includes the sort of information that would be helpful in a compulsory civics class at high school.

Mike Butler: Advisors' 'rangatiratanga' error

Open letter to Bill English

I am writing to you as one Minister in charge of the Constitutional Advisory Panel to let you know that “New Zealand’s Constitution – the conversation so far”, released last week, includes a fundamental error in the assertion on page 9 that: "The treaty records an agreement that enabled the British to establish a government in New Zealand and confirmed to Maori the right to continue to exercise rangatiratanga".

This is incorrect. All the treaty actually says is that the Queen is sovereign and Maori are her subjects, with the rights of subjects, including possession of property. That is all, in both English and Maori versions. Since then, moreover, the Queen and her successors have exercised sovereignty for 172 years.