It took 24 hours, but Labour cleaned up their response to the Māori Party…
Labour open to considering Parliamentary Commissioner for Te Tiriti
Chris Hipkins says he is open to considering a Parliamentary Commissioner for Te Tiriti as proposed by Te Pāti Māori, but has ruled out the role having veto powers.
Te Pāti Māori Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer rejected the notion the party ever wanted “veto rights” as reported by media last week, and said the two potential coalition partners, Labour and Te Pāti Māori, were “pretty much in the same camp” around protecting Te Tiriti.
Last week at Waitangi, Te Pāti Māori re-committed to the policy, which it said would ensure the Crown was held accountable for its obligations under the founding document.
Asked whether the commissioner would be a bottom line, Ngarewa-Packer said protecting Te Tiriti and putting it at the centre of every decision had always been a critical factor of who the party was.
ACT leader David Seymour put out a press release at the time saying Labour and the Greens needed to rule out ever being in government with Te Pāti Māori if “breaking democracy is a bottom line” for them.
In response Hipkins initially told RNZ he was “open to conversations” about how to better ensure the government is living up to the promise of Te Tiriti, “not just for Māori, but for all New Zealanders.”
He explained a Parliamentary Commissioner “can’t overrule parliament”.
“They provide advice to Parliament, but there is only one Parliament, and it can’t be overruled. It can’t be overruled by the courts either.”
In response to questions from the media that the policy might be viewed as a “Māori veto”, co-leader Rawiri Waititi said it should be a “Treaty veto”.
“The Treaty should always veto any decision made in Aotearoa, it’s the very reason why everybody is here – Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
“Te Tiriti o Waitangi must be at the centre of every decision made here in Aotearoa.”
Waititi pushed back during the media conference on the use of the word “veto”, saying that was introduced by the media.
Hipkins was asked about a “veto” power the next day on Morning Report, and indicated the “Labour Party would not support a parliamentary commissioner with a veto that would allow them to overturn rules made, or laws made by the parliament”.
A spokesperson for Te Pāti Māori then clarified their proposed commissioner would not have these powers.
1News reported on Monday night the Labour leader had ruled out the policy idea for a Te Tiriti commissioner, saying “we have to have some bottom lines.”
Asked again on Tuesday morning to clarify his position, Hipkins explained he would not support a veto power, but walked back the bottom line.
“Parliamentary commissioners do not have veto powers the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, for example, cannot overturn Parliament’s laws. The Supreme Court of New Zealand cannot overturn laws passed by the New Zealand Parliament. So that’s an absolutely clear line. We would not support that.”
When it was put to him the commissioner would not have those powers, Hipkins said again “we’re always open to those kind of conversations.”
“I think the conversation we would have for them is how that would relate to the Waitangi Tribunal, whose job it is to do the things that a parliamentary Commissioner might otherwise do.”
Later Tuesday afternoon Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was asked again about the issue and said the “veto word actually came from the media.”
…what a convoluted and poorly managed political stunt.
Labour slammed the idea because they wanted to look tough in the Polls, Chippy made the point of saying he won’t be pushed around like Luxon is with Seymour and Winston, which is fine and dandy, but it was over a misunderstanding because the Māori Party didn’t seem clear what they wanted in the first place.
yes we should have a Treaty Commissioner for the Treaty but no Current Commissioner can veto anything so the idea is good, it just needed refining.
Instead of that we got a bun fight.
Two things are telling in this:
The first is that despite provocation, the Māori Party didn’t take the bait and tried to explain their position, this mirrors what Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was saying in the Weekend on Waatea when she talked about the Māori Party wanting to move from being an oppositional voice in Parliament to part of the Government.
The second is that Labour went off half cocked without looking ahead to where such a bun fight could lead.
There is a chunk of Labour who get very nervous about the Māori Party and want NZF instead, but those Labour Party members need to ask themselves how many genuine solutions can they get under Winston?
Voters want solutions, not more handbrakes and that’s all a Labour led Government reliant on NZF would be.
It’s good clarity came to this, but it was the Māori Party making the peace making.
What this episode shows is that the Greens and TPM really need to sit down together to thrash out a unified front to Labour.
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Very good to have clarity around this and all three left party’s need to coalesce around policy and a united front. NZF is not the correct partner for Labour any more due to all the environmental rollbacks in this government. We need a truly left party and Labour better get on board and not screw things up again. They still do not seem to get why they lost the election and by such a margin, very very troubling. In fact they almost seemed happy about it, to have a break. Soooo stupid.
It doesn’t matter. At this rate they’ll get back into power without doing a thing, and once they’re there you can expect the same level of performance as last time
The first 3 years will be spent cleaning up this coalition mess after the way Luxon and Willis have broken the economy
Clearly a time has arrived for a 3 way hui .Then press on next year with clear policy on Race ,wellfare ,the economy ,taxation and the well being of every person in NZ .
We need policy change around NZ super means testing for example along with a major review of all benefits including corporate wellfare .
If we under took that hard look we would find we dont need more taxes we just need to spend it differently .We may be able to halve the NZ super bill over night with the right approach .
The 3 parties need to get it sorted this year and save the announcements for next year .
Never let NZ first and the river of filth into any government again .
As governments go a Labour Green TPM coalition must be better than the obscenity we have now but it will still just be the lesser of evils.
We need to break out of the rut we are in.
Media Making Mischief.
Chippy needs to be speaking to both TPM and Greens privately, to get his plan straight. He has lots of experience, but I still think someone else is needed. Someone with acknowledged skill in debating.
Chippy got into trouble with the Aussies once for saying something he hadn’t thought out properly.
Debbie seems to be the voice of reason and we know we don’t want Winston involved ever again. His dalliance with the feral anti-vaxxers takes him off the serious politician list. And, he brings with him the big Jones problem and other clowns who happily damage peoples’ health for money and advantage.
Despite their ups and downs the Greens hold a good lead over Act. They have a serious base which isn’t put off by their odd antics. They are real green supporters, James Shaw-type supporters. They hope the party still holds true to the Fitzsimons, Donald, Norman, Turei, Bradford values.
Problem is the CoC has added vastly to our debt for tax cuts. Labour would need to be fairly austere to mitigate that damage so we wouldn’t go back to where we were when Robbo retired. At least we’d know that the health system would be safer and the leeches employed to sink it would be sent packing.
More should be expected of state tenants, those few who are hopeless, give them all a bad name.
More should be expected of children at school but still no-one is addressing learning obstacles properly. All Erica’s fancy new books won’t fix those. Go back to the old lunches.
Put the Treaty on a safer footing and this time, make it unassailable. There’s no need to crush TPM. It’s not inhabited with dangerous narcissists. Work with them.
Media made mischief. Treat the media carefully. Some have sold out.
“Voters want solutions, not more handbrakes and that’s all a Labour led Government reliant on NZF would”.
Interesting view to take when we just recently had three years of Labour with a majority under MMP. The evidence of which was that Labour themselves were the handbrake and bereft of any solutions rather than their previous coalition partners in NZF and the Greens.
Labour when in charge was like a learner driver who had just past their test but were afraid to take their foot off the brake because they had no plan of what to do next . While I have no time for Shane Jones the person his was one of the better performing ministries in their term working with Labour.
‘Labour when in charge was like a learner driver who had just past (sic) passed their test.’
Yes Trevor, but you continue to want them to go right – which is what the present pack of bastards are doing.
Genuine Labour supporters want them to go hard left and run right over Tories.
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