Treaty of Waitangi (Principles) Bill

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) Link to this

I move, That the Treaty of Waitangi (Principles) Bill be now read a first time. I expect everyone in the House to support this bill, because what New Zealand has in its legislative structure is a glaring, glaring hole that is causing strife, uncertainty, and chaos. It goes back to 1986, when the Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer inserted into the State-Owned Enterprises Act a section—section 9—that states: “Nothing in this Act shall permit the Crown to act in a manner that is inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.” It is one of those great phrases that lawyers use that sound great—that sound as though they mean a lot.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, I think, wanted to imply that. I am reliably informed that he told his Cabinet colleagues not to worry, because the phrase was meaningless—that it could just sit there and mean nothing. Well, of course, it is very hard to pass a clause in a bill, and then have judges say it means nothing. Lord Cooke of Thorndon got hold of this and it was like “make his day”, because he was then in a position to decide what the principles of the Treaty were. There was no direction from Parliament, no accountability to the people of New Zealand—

Hon MARK BURTON (Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) Link to this

He Tirohanga ō Kawa ki te Tiriti o Waitangi: A Guide to the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi is a good text. I recommend it to the member speaking previously, and I want to start my contribution on this bill by reading a short piece from it. This is a book that really is about understanding perhaps some of the complexity of the Treaty and how it evolves. It states: “The differences in the Māori and English text of the Treaty of Waitangi have led to different understandings of the meaning of the Treaty. These differences, coupled with the need to apply the Treaty in contemporary circumstances, led Parliament to refer to the principles of the Treaty in legislation, rather than to the Treaty texts. It is the principles, therefore, that the courts have considered when interpreting legislative references to the Treaty. As Justice McKay noted in the Broadcasting case (1992): ‘It is the principles of the Treaty which are to be applied, not the literal words. The English and Māori texts in the first schedule of the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 are not translations the one of the other’ ”—I say to Mr Hide—“ ‘and the differences between the texts and shades of meaning are less important than the spirit.’ ”

I also want to draw to the attention of Mr Hide that, as usual, he has failed completely to do any real homework on this very inadequate legislation. He referred tonight to the Court of Appeal and to Sir Robin Cooke. I refer the member to the lands case in 1987, in which the Court of Appeal elaborated the principles of the Treaty, as required by section 9 of the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986 he referred to. What he did not refer to was the judgment of the President of the Court of Appeal, Sir Robin Cooke, who wrote of the principles of partnership, acts of protection, and redress. Later on, in 1989, the fourth Labour Government, drawing on the principles that had been delivered to date, included past judgments from the courts and published—I say to Mr Hide—a set of five principles to assist the Government when making decisions about matters related to the Treaty. I have referred to those previously in this House. I have made them available to the member, and to all members. Clearly again, despite putting legislation before this House, that member has not bothered even to refer to that document.

In April 2002 the then Attorney-General, the Hon Margaret Wilson, advised Parliament that the following are the principles that the Government considers to be relevant—and they still are. I ask members who do care, and who keep referring to them and asking what they are, to please take note: first, the principle of Government: the Government has the right to govern and make laws; second, the principle of self-management: iwi have the right to organise as iwi and, under the law, to control the resources they own; third, the principle of equality: all New Zealanders are equal under the law; fourth, the principle of reasonable cooperation: both the Government and iwi are obliged to accord each other reasonable cooperation on major issues of common concern; and finally, the principle of redress: the Government is responsible for providing effective processes for the resolution of grievances, in the expectation that reconciliation can occur.

I turn now to Mr Hide’s bill. The bill, we are told, is being introduced to provide greater certainty of, and to reduce confusion about, the principles of the Treaty. Unfortunately, in my submission, it does quite the opposite. Just as the courts have been required to establish what the current principles are, the principles in this bill will also require significant interpretation by the courts and, like any bill, they will get it if it proceeds.

The bill could have a particularly significant impact on the Waitangi Tribunal by removing its ability to consider claims against its understanding and application of the Treaty principles. That in turn would change the basis on which future claims were considered, and lead to inconsistent treatment of those claims that have already been heard compared with those that are still to come. Furthermore, the compensation requirements in the bill may leave the tribunal to apply a standard of full market consideration in exercising its binding powers. Consequently, the compensation requirements would pose a significant risk to the affordability and durability of previous Treaty settlements. Settlement claims could be compromised to such an extent they would need to be renegotiated.

Clause 7 prevents the Crown from interfering with property rights without good cause. First, that would require the courts to define what is included in the definition of property. Using the two texts of the Treaty—which are included of course as schedules to the bill—as aids to interpretation, as the court would, a court could reasonably apply a very wide definition to that term to include things such as taonga. The strong property protection proposed in the bill would apply to things such as language, Māori family structure, and Māori customary knowledge. The member included those as part of his bill—at some unknown cost, of course—to all of the above, which would mean more uncertainty generated by the bill.

Secondly, the courts would be required to define the term “without good cause” or, rather, what constituted sufficiently good cause. Members can imagine a court being asked to review a decision to take land under the Public Works Act, and trying to decide whether the proposed public work was worthy enough to meet the requirements of this bill. As a matter of fairness, the courts would be bound to apply the property protections in clause 7 to any matter involving property rights. In other words, the principles of the Treaty as set out in the bill would apply to more situations than they do at present. I seriously doubt whether that was Mr Hide’s intention.

Clause 8 sets out a number of very worthy rights, shared by all New Zealanders equally. Many of these rights mirror those already contained in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. However, whereas the rights affirmed in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act are subject to other enactments, the rights in this bill have no such restrictions. Parts of existing statutes that require references to the Treaty, and are inconsistent with rights in this bill, could therefore be impliedly repealed. Surely, I say to Mr Hide, that is not the intention of his bill.

Clause 9 tells us there are no Treaty principles other than those included in the bill, but it is unlikely that that will truly restrict the courts to those principles alone. Other principles articulated by the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal, such as good faith and the duty to make informed decisions, have their roots not only in the Treaty but also in general principles of common law. It will require more express language from this Parliament to extinguish such fundamental concepts of the common law. I am not surprised that Mr Hide wants to do that; I am sure that the majority of members in this House do not.

If it is not the intention to remove these principles from consideration, then one is forced to wonder whether this bill serves any purpose in the first place. If passed, the bill would create uncertainty about the interpretation of existing statutes, and about the extent of private property rights. Most of all, it would seriously undermine the Treaty settlement process, and most certainly delay it. In the end, the only equality the bill will generate for Māori and non-Māori alike is that both will be equally confused about its purpose and effect. For all of those reasons, the Labour Party will oppose this bill.

GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) Link to this

I have often asked myself how this country ever got into the state it has when it comes to consideration of matters around the Treaty of Waitangi. As Rodney Hide explained to the House earlier, the Treaty itself is an extremely short and concise document. There are a few points where there are interpretive differences, but it was obvious that we have got into this trouble because of stupid governance when the Hon Mark Burton stood up tonight and said that the best thing Rodney Hide could do was to start reading some of the many volumes that have been written on the Treaty.

He then proceeded to give us a diatribe that could be described as being nothing more than utter rubbish. When he spoke this evening about the five principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, he did not mention property rights, he did not mention freedom, he did not mention the right of people to be able to express themselves freely whenever they like; rather, he talked about the right of the Government to tell people what to do and when to do it. Then he manufactured the idea that, somehow, a treaty written in 1840 with goodwill and looking forward, had an implicit redress clause or principle embedded in it. What utter garbage! It is that sort of woolly thinking that will lead National to support this bill going to a select committee.

We have our reservations about it, and one reason is that if we consider the Treaty of Waitangi, and even look at the way in which Mr Hide has laid out the three articles of the Treaty in his bill and made some explanation of them, we see it is a crying shame that it ever had to be referred to in any legislation at all. I would have thought it obvious that all New Zealanders accept that we have one Government, that we have freedoms and property rights, and that we expect to be treated equally by the law. Because New Zealanders accept those things, we have embarked on the Treaty grievance process. We have embarked on the Treaty grievance process because we believe that New Zealanders should be treated equally, because we believe in property rights, and because we believe that there is one Government that should undertake this so-called redress.

The Treaty is a document that has relevance and meaning for all New Zealanders. I would not mind the Resource Management Act referring to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi if that meant that my rights as a property owner were upheld just as much as those of someone who is Māori. But no, that phrase is there to convey some extra duty, or to impose some extra duty on local authorities, because a group happens to be Māori. One of the consequences of this sort of woolly thinking is that the Māori group in this country is now over-regulated, overlegislated, and over-controlled by Government. Anyone who wants to close his or her mind to the possibilities that a select committee may come up with in considering this bill, is signing up to the idea that a Government should control people’s lives. It really is that simple.

What is wrong with declaring that the principles and articles of the Treaty exist to deliver rights to all New Zealanders? What do Māori have to fear from that—Māori, who are not even allowed by the current Government to control directly their own fishing assets, who cannot have a Treaty settlement unless they convince this Government that their governance arrangements are appropriate, and who cannot get their hands on a Treaty settlement unless the settlement is hog-tied by an Act of Parliament? That is no way for this country to progress. This bill allows the select committee to have a good look at those issues. We will participate in that process fully. We do not agree with every aspect of the bill, but we do think it is time this country got past the sort of woolly woofter thinking expressed by Mark Burton on behalf of the Government tonight.

PITA PARAONE (NZ First) Link to this

Ā, tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker, ā, tēnā koutou e noho nei i roto i te Whare i te pō nei. Tēnā koutou! Hari te ngākau mō tēnei wāhanga i hōmai ki a au, ki te whakamārama atu ngā whakaaro a te Rōpū o Aotearoa Tuatahi i te kaupapa i mua i a tātou i tēnei wā.

I am delighted to be able to take this opportunity to express the views of New Zealand First on this bill.

I want to say straight off, so that it is clear to everybody in this House and to those who are listening, that New Zealand First will oppose this bill. Unlike the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill sponsored by my leader and by New Zealand First, this bill does not seek to remove references to “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” from legislation. Instead, it seeks to define what those principles should be. However, I do not believe that this comes from any genuine desire to provide clarity for the judiciary, who have to interpret our laws.

Instead, the purpose of this bill is to put property rights at the forefront of any Treaty negotiations or claims. References to property rights that I have heard in this House tonight certainly do not take into consideration the property rights of iwi, hapū, and Māori as such. All the references to property rights have been to those of the individual. This bill extrapolates the ACT party’s own principles and incorporates them into the three articles of the Treaty. I note that the articles used are from the English version. I remind some members that Māori signed the Māori version. When we look at schedule 1 and schedule 2 of the bill we see quite clearly that the versions do not match. This should not surprise anyone, given that the ACT party—of which this bill’s sponsor is currently leader—is right wing, market-driven, and individualistic. Perhaps that party knows it is on a hiding to nothing with its policies, so it is trying to dress them up in a more altruistic guise in an effort to make them more palatable.

New Zealand First is concerned that, should this bill pass, the progress of current and future Treaty settlements will be impeded and past settlements may, in fact, be called into question as well. I think most of us in this House want nothing more than to see fair and enduring Treaty settlements and believe that no impediments to that end should be allowed.

In June last year when New Zealand First’s bill was being debated Stephen Franks, a member of the ACT party, said that the ACT party had consistently maintained that there is no such thing as “Treaty principles”. Now we find that the ACT party is trying to define what those principles are. I know that Mr Hide would be the first to say how consistent his party is in matters such as this, but quite clearly there is no foundation to that assertion.

I suggest to the House that, should this bill proceed into legislation, the expensive and never-ending litigious programme that surrounds the existing legislation over Treaty principles in legislation will continue. Members may recall that that was one of our concerns regarding the original bill. With the retention of the references to Treaty principles in any legislation, we will continue down that track.

Under our confidence and supply agreement with Labour, whereby we will ensure stability and balance over this parliamentary term, New Zealand First has negotiated an agreement with the Government that it will support a New Zealand First bill relating to Treaty principles going to a select committee for consideration. For that reason, we oppose this particular bill.

NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) Link to this

The Greens oppose this bill absolutely. It represents just one more attempt to rewrite history and to subjugate the political aspirations of Māori to Pākehā hegemony. It seeks to unilaterally redefine the Treaty in accordance not with Māori values or the values of the Pākehā community but with ACT party values: private property rights and extreme individualism. It is designed to insult Māori and to inflame Pākehā anxieties—and there is considerable Pākehā anxiety about the place of Pākehā in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This anxiety has been accentuated by the growing inclusion of Māori in political and cultural affairs. A growing awareness of the injustices of the past and the effects of our historical civil war has threatened many people’s conception of a nation built on peace. In part, this is because the myth of our exemplary race relations and the “one New Zealand” catchcry have been demonstrated to be false. In the past, many Pākehā were simply unaware of the decades of calls by Māori for their right to cultural, political, and economic self-determination. Today no Pākehā is unaware of this history of wrongs and attempts to right them. This awareness makes some people feel guilty, and some people go on to resent that guilt. A common response to the cycle of guilt and resentment is to return to the historical amnesia that fuelled the problem in the first place.

This bill is a classic example of that historical amnesia. It is an expression of deep-seated denial of the purpose of the Treaty, which was in part to give Pākehā a right to be in Aotearoa. Along with that right came concomitant obligations. This bill sets out one view of the rights and entirely ignores the responsibilities. It perpetuates the myth that Māori gave up a thousand-year history of political and economic sovereignty without a murmur, and it creates a new myth that the Pākehā of this country believe in the individualistic, dog-eat-dog, money first and people second values of the ACT party.

The Greens are not in the business of defending such a redefinition, and a weakening of what the Treaty actually means. I consider this bill to be an attempt to belittle what many New Zealanders see as a covenant between two peoples, and to turn it into a hollow shell of itself. Pita Paraone referred to the two language versions of the Treaty, which are contained in the schedules of the bill. Yet the bill shows no sign whatsoever that Mr Hide is aware of the meaning of the Māori version. Maybe that is why there is no translation of it in the bill.

The Greens consider this bill to be a disgrace, and we hope that it fails immediately.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) Link to this

Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker, tēnā tātou katoa. E kī ana te kōrero mā te Tiriti o Waitangi anō, āna kōrero e kawe. There is a saying: “The Treaty of Waitangi conveys its own message, but it may mean different things to different people.”

We are pleased to see the House giving consideration for Te Tiriti o Waitangi to guide the nation as its founding document. This bill seeks to give greater clarity to the phrase “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”, which is included in more than 30 different statutes, by specifying what those principles are. We welcome the new lease of life from our colleague Mr Hide to ensure that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is preserved and maintained as a taonga for nation building as well as ensuring power-sharing between tangata whenua and the Crown. To do that, we must ensure that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is fairly represented in the constitutional and legislative framework, and in the minds and actions of all peoples of Aotearoa. I commend Mr Hide for his courage in bringing this bill to the House, and his commitment to ensuring that New Zealanders gain exposure to and acquisition of sound knowledge about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and our history.

The Māori Party strongly supports the need to see Te Tiriti o Waitangi as a recognition of indigenous rights. It recognises that through Te Tiriti o Waitangi those rights would be further enhanced and guaranteed by the Crown. At its core, the Treaty acknowledges Māori existence, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs confirmed yesterday. He said that Māori have been here for over a thousand years prior to the formalising of a compact between the Crown and Māori. The Treaty is a blueprint to guide the nation; a blueprint on which, we are pleased to see, parties on all sides of this House place value. The Prime Minister described the Treaty as “providing the foundation of this nation”, and her Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, Mita Ririnui, has said in this House that the possibility that “the Crown should simply walk away from its duties under the Treaty of Waitangi, … [is] both deliberately ignorant and morally repugnant.” The National spokesperson on Treaty of Waitangi issues and Māori affairs, Mr Gerry Brownlee, has raised the prospect of changes to his party’s existing Māori policy. Maybe that is a softening of approach. So now we welcome our friend Mr Rodney Hide to this new environment of enlightenment—and thank him for his kai this evening.

However, sadly, this bill does not do it. Amongst our people there has always been caution about the involvement of politicians in rewriting and redrafting the principles of the Treaty. They have seen this obsession with nailing down the principles as an opportunity for the Crown to reinterpret the Treaty to suit its own needs. We have seen a time line of change in the acknowledgment of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It started with Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which stated that the settlers could govern themselves. That was in response to the lawlessness of the settlers at the time. There was an absolute acknowledgment that Māori retained rangatiratanga—absolute authority over our resources. It is interesting to reflect that conservative population estimates tell us Māori numbered around 200,000 at that time, which was in stark contrast to the 2,000 settlers. Now, what do members think possessed those 200,000 people to permit 2,000 strangers to rule them? Does that not sound rather stupid?

Finally, article 3 referred to Māori having the same rights as British citizens, and the ability to practice our own tikanga. Of course, the nub of the issue is wrapped around which of the Treaty versions that one might abide by. I am sure that all members of this House are aware of the notion of contra proferentem, where the Treaty in the indigenous language is the document that takes precedence when treaty versions are in conflict. But successive Governments have, for political convenience, referred only to the English version, where Māori were said to have ceded sovereignty. That is a staggering view.

Moving quickly through history, I remind members that the Lange Government of the 1980s introduced a new animal called the “principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”. That confused the public even more. It was an attempt by politicians simply to appease Māori protest. And here we are again, giving piecemeal debate to what is clearly a very important discussion.

Although the Māori Party will vote against the bill, we commend the member for bringing te Tiriti debate to the fore, where it should be once again, and we in the Māori Party will rise to the challenge of keeping this constitutional discourse on the agenda, for sure.

JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) Link to this

I rise to speak to the first reading of the Treaty of Waitangi (Principles) Bill, and I will be upfront and say that United Future will not be supporting this bill. I will begin, though, by commending the member, because we believe that his approach in this bill is preferential, in our thinking, to that of removing and deleting all references to the principles of the Treaty from the law, as has been suggested by other members. However, that is about as far as we can go in terms of our support for this bill, because we believe that the member’s attempt is shallow.

United Future has always been very clear in its policy, even leading up to the last election. Our preference in regard to this matter is to support the establishment of a royal commission on New Zealand’s constitution, and to include within its scope a very thorough look, by ourselves as a nation, at the Treaty. One of our concerns is that within New Zealand right now there seems to be an overshadowing of the importance of the Treaty by the fact that we are very focused on the historical grievance process. We support the need for the grievances to be addressed, but that process has overwhelmed the discussion that should be had about the current relevance of the Treaty and its future application. We think that a very thorough discussion of those issues needs to be undertaken over a sustained period of time. It is not a process we would encourage to be rushed, but one that should be deliberately undertaken. We believe that it started in the last term of this Government, with the establishment of a select committee to look at and take a stocktake of our current constitutional arrangements. Beyond that, we believe that much more work needs to be done and discussions need to be held, up and down this country.

Although Mr Hide has made what I consider to be a shallow and brief attempt to give his definition of what the principles of the Treaty mean—and I guess he is prepared to admit that it is a starting point—when I compare his three points with some of the other attempts that have been made by groups like Te Puni Kōkiri and others to bring a sense of definition to that term, I find there seem to be some real gaps in what is written. For instance, Mr Hide mentions us being one sovereign nation, but he does not have any reference to the principles that Te Puni Kōkiri has talked about: things like the principle of partnership. When there is no reference to partnership, which implies that one or more parties is involved in the process, then we are all blandly merged into one nation and we lose a lot of the richness of what the Treaty stands for. That is just one small example of our concern about what is proposed in this bill.

The speaker from the Māori Party has just alluded to the fact that more discussions do need to be had. United Future is concerned about the confusion that exists around at least 30 pieces of legislation with references to the principles of the Treaty. We note that there are currently general concessions within the judiciary that the differences between the texts of the Treaty are not as important as the spirit of the Treaty, yet there remains a lot of misunderstanding and a lack of connection when we have discussions on that matter. There is real room for an improvement in our understanding of the Treaty. However, this bill is not the way to do that, so we will be opposing its first reading.

Hon MITA RIRINUI (Associate Minister in charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations) Link to this

Hoi anō kia ora tātau. Kia ora tātau te āhuatanga o te pire kua takoto nei i runga i te tēpu. Mihi ake ana au ki ngā rōpū tōrangapū i tū atu ki te whakahē.

Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) Link to this

National supports this bill to select committee, not necessarily because we believe in everything it proposes, but because we think that it presents an opportunity to consider what the impact of the insertion of the phrase “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” into legislation means. It is timely in this sense. We have seen over the last 6 years references to the Treaty of Waitangi inserted everywhere by the Labour Government, and we have come to the conclusion that it has been put in so many places now that it has been rendered almost meaningless. For that and a number of other reasons, some of which were covered by my colleague Gerry Brownlee, we support the bill to select committee. What we do beyond that will depend on the outcome of the discussions and deliberations that go on in the select committee.

The phrase “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” to my knowledge first appeared in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. As far as I am aware, that is when it was first used. As a person who sat on the Waitangi Tribunal for 10 years endeavouring to interpret that phrase, I can appreciate, I think, exactly why the Parliament chose to include that phrase in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. That Act set up the Waitangi Tribunal to inquire into acts or omissions of the Crown that were seen to be in breach of “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”. The legislature at the time could just as easily, I suppose, have made reference to the Treaty of Waitangi. But given that the Treaty of Waitangi, and what it stands for, is to be found in both a Māori version and an English version, I probably agree with the approach at the time of recognising the underlying thrust of the Treaty being found in two versions—in the Māori language and the English language—that someone in his or her wisdom decided to insert the phrase “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”.

Having sat on the Waitangi Tribunal for that length of time, I think it was the right approach, simply because, if one thinks about it, most Māori signatories actually signed the Māori version. The aspirations of the British Government, I imagine, were put to Māori at the time of the signing in terms that they understood, and looking back and leaving to one side the difficulties that have arisen over the years, I think that was probably a wise decision.

I think where we come to now, though, is that we have seen under the current Labour Government a tendency to put the Treaty everywhere. I say that that is actually a cop-out. In a moment I also want to say a few words aimed at te iwi Māori—Māori people. It is a cop-out because in a way it hides a hundred shades of meaning. If one keeps inserting “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”, then we have what has arisen, which is everybody has difficulty trying to understand what that is.

I remember when the Labour Government put through its reforming health legislation, I think in 2001, I stood here in this House and said that rather than insert a reference to the Treaty, one should say instead what it is that one wants to achieve.

If what members want to achieve is that Māori be consulted because they think that that is one of the principles, then they should say that. But they should not put into legislation a clause that everybody then ponders over and nobody knows what it means.

Coming to this present bill, I say that there are a number of reasons why I think we should support it. It gives us an opportunity to think about the way that the clause has been used and demeaned over the last 20 years. Māori people refer to the Treaty as he kawenata, which is a sacred pact. We have to ask ourselves, Māori, if we can allow the legislature to put that clause everywhere, then how sacred is it? Because if everybody can say what they think it means, then ultimately it means nothing. So National supports the bill to select committee.

HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) Link to this

I rise to support the first reading of the Treaty of Waitangi (Principles) Bill. I hope that members in the House who have said that they will not support the bill will reconsider their position, because it is a very good bill.

The Green Party member stood up and talked of self-determination and lots of other things. In fact, I think the essence of his speech was that the ACT party is trying to inflame Māori. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was very pleased when the Māori Party member spoke on the first reading and said that the party was very pleased that the matter had been raised in the House and that debate was happening. It is a shame that parties are saying that they will not support the bill to select committee, because that is the place where we could have proper debate and proper discussion and could investigate fully the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. It is an opportunity that has not arisen. The United Future member wants a commission of inquiry. Goodness knows where we would end up with that. The select committee is in fact the right place to debate and discuss the principles and the role that they have in New Zealand today.

The bill is necessary, because there is a lot of confusion. The phrase “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” has been included in many Government statutes—over 30, I believe—but the courts have been given no guidance as to how to interpret those principles. We have had all sorts of things in more recent times. What we need is greater clarity and certainty with the interpretation of the Acts of Parliament where references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi have been made. Select committees are the places to discuss those fully. The bill is in the name of my colleague, Rodney Hide, who said that maybe he had not got the principles quite right. That is why we present bills to Parliament and send them to select committee, so that discussion can be held. As he said, he would nominate the bill to go to the Finance and Expenditure Committee, where every party in this Parliament is represented, with the exception of Jim Anderton.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) Link to this

I thank everyone for their contribution. I especially thank the National Party for supporting this bill. The ACT caucus is totally united behind this bill, and with National Party support I calculate that we have 50 votes in the House. I have 5 minutes to drag another 11 votes across; indeed, I am hopeful of getting the full 121.

If we cannot define what rights Māori have, then they have none. I was very interested to hear the Hon Mark Burton give a lecture on jurisprudence. He was a member of a Cabinet that voted to take away the ability of Māori people to have their day in court. I understand perfectly why he would be against defining the principles of the Treaty. He is absolutely against Māori people having rights. He is against anyone having rights, because he is a socialist. So I understand perfectly where Mark Burton is coming from. Gerry Brownlee made a good point when he said that when he heard the principles being read out, he heard not one right for Māori in any of them. It was all about how a socialist Government would run one’s life.