Republished with Permission
Peter Williams
Writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines although verbalising thoughts on www.reality check.radio three days a week.
The prime minister’s statement at his Monday media conference this week was quite staggering.
In response to a question from the Platform’s Sean Plunket, Christopher Luxon said about the Treaty Principles Bill, “There isn’t anything I like.”
Read the bill and then consider Luxon’s statement.
According to his own words the prime minister doesn’t like the full power of the Executive Government of New Zealand having the right to govern, or the Parliament of New Zealand having full powers to make laws in the best interests of everyone, in accordance with the rule of law and the maintenance of a free and democratic society.
Furthermore he doesn’t like everyone being equal before the law and everyone being entitled without discrimination to the equal protection of the law and the equal enjoyment of the same fundamental human rights.
Because you see, those are the actual words lifted from clause six of the bill.
The other principle laid out is one giving iwi and hapū the same rights they had under the Treaty of Waitangi at the time they signed it, unless there are different rights prescribed already in a settlement under the Treaty of Waitangi Act.
What’s more, there is a specific clause in the bill which says “Nothing in this Act amends the text of the Treaty of Waitangi/te Tiriti o Waitangi.”
So David Seymour’s bill which finally legislates to define a vague phrase inserted into badly written law nearly half a century ago is straightforward and easy to understand.
It’s incomprehensible that the prime minister says there is nothing about the bill that he likes.
How can a prime minister not believe in the right of the government to govern and not like every citizen and resident in the country being equal before the law?
The counter factual would be that he thinks other entities can make law and some people have different rights to others.
His attitude is appalling and bordering on, well, treasonous.
During his media conference he went on at length about the “modern MMP environment” and how his National Party had to do a deal with Seymour’s ACT Party to get a coalition agreement in place. The deal, as we know, was to support the bill through first reading and then to select committee but no further, even if select committee submissions and public opinion are overwhelmingly in favour of the bill.
He talked about the bill having an “aeration” at the select committee but doubled down about why his party won’t support it because it is “divisive” and “we see no need for it”.
“We do not like this bill,” he re-iterated.
Asked, again by Plunket, about whether he was confident that New Zealanders are happy with the principles as they stand at the moment, about how they’ve been arrived at and about how they’re applied he gave an answer to make Kamala Harris proud.
“There’re a range of views about the principles. The Treaty of Waitangi has served us incredibly well.”
Plunket went hard again.
“What is it in the Treaty Principles Bill that will stop that in the future?”
Luxon could hardly have been any more evasive.
“It’s a very simplistic interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi, which has served us incredibly well and to simplify it down to this is a disservice to the Treaty of Waitangi.”
He’s totally confused.
This bill is not about reinterpreting or re-writing the Treaty. It says so in clause nine.
It’s about defining principles which were first mentioned in legislation in 1975 and then in many subsequent enactments.
Who can disagree with the principles of a government having the right to govern, of iwi and hapū maintaining all their rights as laid out in legislation and of every New Zealander being equal before the law?
There was more than a hint of what the problem is with the bill when former MP Hone Harawira appeared on 1News.
“We will keep marching till we get our sovereignty.”
What does that mean? Does he expect some yet to be determined Māori entity to govern or go-govern the country? Or does he expect two separate nations to emerge and live harmoniously side by side?
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said, in the same news story, “we will be paving our own future”.
Again, what does that mean? Does he want a separate Māori nation inside the current New Zealand landmass?
This is the issue with opposition to the Treaty Principles Bill. It’s full of ill-defined headline phrases but with no specific objections stated apart from the fact that it’s divisive and will cause tension in race relations.
The beauty of Seymour’s bill is its simplicity. Voters like straightforward and uncomplicated law. This bill could hardly be easier to understand.
Opinion polls suggest the majority of New Zealanders think it’s about time these half-century-old principles were finally defined.
Christopher Luxon hasn’t read the room.
For him to tell the country’s voters that he doesn’t like anything about the Treaty Principles Bill is one of the worst prime ministerial derelictions of duty in modern times.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
