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.
I submitted to the Justice Select Committee on the Treaty Principles Bill, or rather, a sub-committee of the Select Committee.
It was via Zoom. The chair was Labour MP Duncan Webb. In attendance were Steve Abel from the Greens, Tākuta Ferris from Te Pāti Māori, and National MPs Jamie Arbuckle, Carl Bates and Rima Nakhle. There were no representatives from either ACT or New Zealand First.
I watched a few submissions prior to mine and one afterwards. Of the three prior to me, two were vociferous in opposition. One from an American asked that the committee not just throw out the bill but also get parliament to apologise to Māori, the people of New Zealand and to King Charles for the insult delivered in introducing this bill to the House!
(Obviously a former Democrat!)
Another from Whakatāne District Councillor Toni Boynton dismissed the bill as divisive by not giving mokopuna a chance to be Māori in the future.
(Yeah I couldn’t work that out either!)
So what I had to say at about 11.20am on Friday the 14th was never going to go well considering the makeup of the sub-committee.
I was given five minutes. Here’s what I submitted:
My name is Peter Williams. I’m retired from a career in the media industry. I live in Central Otago.
I speak in support of the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill. This is my personal submission.
My ancestors arrived in this country in 1848. My great-great-great grandparents Robert Stewart and Margaret Smith came from Glasgow on board the Phillip Laing in April that year, nearly 177 years ago.
So my attachment, my heritage and my love for this country, and especially for the Otago province, is deep seated.
We are a nation of immigrants. Like others whose ancestors landed on these shores from far off places over time from the 13th to the 21st century, I know no other nation I could call my home.
Yes, a saliva test taken through Ancestry.com says I am 91 per cent Scottish. But that’s patently ridiculous. I should be graded 100 per cent New Zealander.
Or if you like to be colloquial, full-blooded Kiwi.
I am tangata whenua. This is my land. I am privileged to share it with more than five million other Kiwis.
My ancestors were poor. They were crofters: subsistence farmers forced off the land during the infamous Scottish clearances.
They looked for places like New Zealand to escape to, to start a new life, a life based on freedom and on equality of opportunity.
Millions followed in their wake. Yes there were some people already here, although where I live not many.
A census taken by Edward Shortland in 1844 suggested just 302 Māori then lived in the southern part of the South Island.
But a negotiated Treaty was signed to ensure that all residents of this land would live together peacefully as subjects of the Queen of England.
Life in this country since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi has not been perfect. Like many emerging nations in the years since the Enlightenment, justice, property rights and the rule of law have not always been followed as they should have been.
So The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 put in place a system for reparation for treaty breaches.
From the late 18th century, all immigrant groups to this country have mingled and merged, intermarried and interbred. We are a veritable melting pot of peoples. We are all New Zealanders, all Kiwis, all people of this land.
The phrase “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” in that 1975 act and in subsequent legislation has confused and confounded us for five decades.
Even the late King Tūheitia said of the Treaty “there are no principles, only articles”. He was right.
But if the phrase is to remain, then we the people, the voters, the electors, through our parliament, must decide what those principles are.
On Waitangi Day this year Ngāi Tahu’s kaiwhakahaere Justin Tipa said “the articles of the Treaty are clear: the right to govern, protection of tino rangatiratanga and same rights and duties.” He then went on to say “that is our starting point”.
Our starting point for what? The articles were what was signed in 1840. That was it. There was no more. Once the Treaty was given legislative status in 1975, the words of 1840 should have been applied in a contemporary context.
That is the elected government governs for all of us, that we shall all have control over our property in accordance with the law, and that we all have the same rights and duties under the law.
In that same speech Mr Tipa talked of the “unique constitutional identities of iwi Māori.”
I don’t know what that means. Does it mean iwi Māori having more representation on decision making bodies than non-Māori? Like happens with his iwi’s appointments to the Canterbury Regional Council?
I think that is wrong in a democracy and an insult to the people of Canterbury.
How can those of Māori descent have a “unique constitutional identity” in a land where we are all supposed to have the same rights and duties? A land where a modicum of Māori blood, can give some people political and economic advantage over others?
It just does not make sense and must not be allowed in a modern New Zealand.
That’s why I support this bill.
We are all New Zealanders no matter where our ancestors came from.
No ethnic group matters more than others. We must look forward as one nation, one people.
Thank you
There was one follow up thought, inevitably from Tākuta Ferris, the firebrand who is the Te Pāti Māori MP for the South Island, Te Tai Tonga. He started a rant about how it was the Treaty of Waitangi, not the democracy of Waitangi! He then said you don’t have to answer the question if you don’t want to.
As I said back to him: “I don’t know what your question was Mr Ferris.”
He said “Don’t worry.”
Mercifully for him, the chair Duncan Webb closed my submission as the time was up.
I doubt what I said will make a blind bit of difference. But I feel better for having done it.
I’m open to be challenged on anything I said.
The National Party is scared of Māori interests. In the time I was on line their MPs looked as if they would prefer to be anywhere but in front of their computer screens. The only ones who showed any animation were Ferris and Abel, especially when they were listening to the submitters opposed to the bill.
The bill will be thrown out. But the issue will not go away.
David Seymour has done the nation a major favour by getting us to talk about the matter.
It’s time the National and Labour parties faced up to a few realities of the culture war.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
