Richard Prebble
Columnist, former cabinet minister and ACT Party leader.
ACT will complete the historical Treaty claims filed before 1 September 2008, end the Waitangi Tribunal’s contemporary jurisdiction, and wind it up once its historical work is finished, announced ACT Leader David Seymour.
I was a member of the Lange Government that extended the tribunal’s jurisdiction back to 1840. Despite the difficulties that decision created, on balance I think it was the right decision.
We should be proud that New Zealand was founded not by conquest, but by treaty.
For a naval officer, it is a good statement of our founding principles.
The Crown — today, all of us — is sovereign. Property rights are protected. And the people of New Zealand enjoy the rights of British citizens: access to the courts and equality before the law.
I was later appointed to the tribunal. I read its decisions and its strategic plan.
The tribunal has reinterpreted the Treaty in ways that Hobson and the chiefs would not recognise. The tribunal is heading towards the construction of a radical new constitution, in which unaccountable iwi leaders would become permanent partners in the government of New Zealand.
I was not willing to lend my name to that project. I resigned.
I have given a great deal of thought to how the tribunal might be reformed. It should always have been headed by a High Court judge.
I have come to the conclusion that David Seymour is right: the tribunal is now unreformable.
That does not mean that Māori and non-Māori should lose the ability to hold the government of the day to the Crown’s Treaty undertakings.
Here is my suggestion.
Abolish the Waitangi Tribunal. Make it clear that parliament is sovereign, and that no tribunal ruling which has not been accepted by the Crown is a legal precedent.
Preserve the right of any citizen to bring a Treaty-related case to the High Court and seek a declaration on whether the Crown has honoured its Treaty obligations.
That would preserve the Treaty as our founding document without allowing our constitution to be rewritten by a body that has no democratic mandate.
This article was originally published by I’ve Been Thinking and republished by RCR Media.
