Sad day for rednecks – Justice Select Committee rules against ACTs racist Treaty Principles Referendum

The people have spoken…

Justice Select committee calls for Treaty Principles Bill to be scrapped

Parliament’s Justice Committee has released its report into the Treaty Principles Bill, and recommended it does not proceed.

But ACT leader and Associate Justice Minister David Seymour, who brought the bill to the House, said he would continue to push for change, regardless of what the committee said.

Sending the bill to the committee stage was part of the National-ACT coalition agreement. ACT’s policy was to take the bill to a referendum, but the compromise it reached with National was to take it to select committee.

National and New Zealand First have committed to voting down the bill at its second reading, which could come as soon as next week.

The bill received approximately 300,000 submissions, and requests for 16,000 oral submissions. In the end, the committee heard 529 submitters, over 80 hours, over the course of five weeks.

Written submissions were 90 percent opposed, 8 percent supportive and 2 percent unstated. Oral submissions were 85 percent opposed, 10 percent supportive and 5 percent unstated.

…90% of the 300 000 submissions were overwhelmingly against this hateful and racist political stunt.

The over 84 000 who marched on Parliament showed National, NZF, ACT and every other redneck that the vast majority of civil society see the Taety as unique and as a symbol of hope.

The vast majority of us see the Treaty as our shared legacy and shared promise.

There is more that binds us than separates us.

We have told the rednecks, your hate stops here.

David Seymour has responded to the Justice Select Committee advising the Government to immediately trash this dumpster fire of an idea by remarkably claiming we should just put the issue to referendum anyway.

WTF?

90% of the record submissions screamed no.

The Justice Select Committee has yelled no.

84 000 marching in the largest protest ever said no.

Yet David who has caused all this race war tension asks us to just do it any way?

Why are we doing favours for Cracker Town?

After all the racist pus drenched nonsense raised in support of this stunt, David asks us to do it anyway, just ’cause?

I’m sorry David, Homie don’t play that game no more.

Here was my submission against the Bill:

Kia ora Comrades

I wish to thank the Committee for the opportunity to speak on this most crucial of Bills and recognize the privilege of being able to do so when 300 000 others also submitted. To everyone, regardless of which side you supported, thank you for engaging with our democracy, we need more democratic interaction from our citizens and I congratulate you for participating.

It would also be remiss of me to not acknowledge the many, many, many women and men who have argued so scathingly and brilliantly against this appalling piece of legislation.

There are far too many to mention, but I can not begin without saluting the criticisms of Professor Jane Kelesy, Hilda Harawira, Chris Finlayson, Dame Jenny Shipley, Helmut Modlik, Kiri Allen, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Unions, Māori organisations, Churches, academics, political scientists, the incredible voices of our young people – you have all in your insight and oversight – done us immense pride in articulating the egalitarian values of this Nation in a way that will echo down the corridors of time.

You are speaking to the future of our nation when our childrens childrens children look back into the annals of time to hear your words, your fierceness and your righteousness.

It is an honour to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in this fight.

To the Committee: I am here to speak against this appalling piece of legislation that is an affront to everything we believe in a liberal progressive democracy with the egalitarian values that New Zealand is founded upon.

I believe that many of my fellow citizens do not know that there were two treaties.

They do not know that the two Treaties mean different things and they certainly do not know that New Zealand is signed up to UN obligations that state that when in this exact situation occurs, where there are two versions of a Treaty, that the indigenous version takes precedence.

Comrades, many of our fellow Citizens do not understand that means Māori never ceded sovereignty.

Let me be clear – I am not suggesting for one millisecond that the NZ State is not sovereign, of course it is.

It has a tax system, a judiciary, the police, the military – the NZ State is sovereign, BUT the indigenous people of this country never ceded sovereignty, so how does a liberal progress democracy with Universal suffrage, the 40 hour working week and Nuclear Free values respect a Treaty with the indigenous people who didn’t cede sovereignty?

As per usual, dear old New Zealand’s number 8 wire pragmatism created the Treaty Principles, a rough amorphous spongy set of legal values that allowed for the relationship between the crown and Māori, who hadn’t ceded sovereignty, a means of pragmatically working together and sharing the legal rights guaranteed to them in the Treaty.

By replacing the Treaty Principles with ACTs ludicrous mutilation, the State would no longer be under obligation to engage with Māori.

It would sever that relationship, snuffing out the self sovereignty and agency promised by the Treaty to implement a banal list of words masquerading as fairness.

ACT are manipulating many voters ignorance to endorse legislation that would gut the very fairness they pretend to fight for!

The tyranny of the majority deciding the legal right of the indigenous minority is the very antithesis of the democratic values this country was built upon.

The cavalcade of political circus freaks who have spoken on behalf of this Trojan Horse abomination have mounted an intellectual and philosophical defence that borders on a cross burning, banjo twanging, redneck jamboree.

Not one argument in favour of this legislation stands up to any scrutiny and highlights the truth that this is a bad faith debate and that is ultimately what shames every single one of us!

Do we need a constructive debate about the constitutional arrangement of our nation?

Sure do!

Is this bad faith false narrative political stunt process being paraded around through Select Committee a constructive debate about the constitutional arrangement of our nation?

Certainly not!

We should all be ashamed of this bitter and wilfully ignorant race baiting stunt that has only proceeded because the great negotiator and corporate deal super hero – Chris Luxon – was so desperate to become Prime Minister that he allowed himself to be snookered by David Seymour into agreeing to this.

The yellow quick fox has jumped all over the lazy blue hog.

Chris Luxon’s craven incompetence at allowing a David Seymour political stunt to get this far while admitting it has no chance at all of passing is needless cruelty to our nation!

We have brothers and sisters and whanau who are just holding on in this never ending cost of living crisis. 400 000 are on benefits and 160 000 kids are suffering in poverty and that community is asked to step up and fight a needless act of malice!

It is emotionally exhausting to people already vulnerable and compounds the cruelty of this.

Too many Kiwis are just trying to pay the Bills to survive without having to fight this spite all because Christopher Luxon wanted to tick ‘Prime Minister’ in his CV.

This Bill isn’t a divisive dog whistle, it’s a racist canine trumpet!

A bad faith process for a bad faith government that will enable corporate interests at the cost of indigenous rights at a time when they are attempting to open the country up to more exploitative resource taking.

Māori have cultural memory of the first wave of white settler capitalist exploitation resource taking, they have the flax roots knowledge of what sustainability and environmental protection looks like, it is no wonder that international right wing think tanks always aim to attack indigenous rights first to enable the next generation of exploitative resource stripping.

On a global warming planet, the Treaty can protect all our rights when corporations come with their vampire capitalism.

Newsroom reports the Hikoi on Parliament at 84 000, that incredible turn out tells us a vast cross section of Aotearoa New Zealand Civil Society: Pakeha, Pacifica, Asian-New Zealander, Indian New Zealander, the rainbow community, the disabled community, working class, middle class, Churches, Unions, NGOs – a majority of us see the Treaty as a unique symbol of hope and optimism that should be celebrated, not weaponised into a race baiting divisiveness.

I’m a 51 year old heteronormative pakeha cis male, not once in my life have I been negatively impacted by any legislative policy that enables Māori to have the same agency I enjoy in our egalitarian country.

My daughter is a Kiwi and because I believe the Treaty grants me access to this country, I felt she as a New Zealander had the birthright to access the toanga of the Māori culture, so she’s been enrolled in Māori immersion classes all her life and when she does a karakia in the mother tongue of my country, it connects me to this land in a way unlike any other.

70% of Māori are under the age of 40, the future is younger, browner and prouder. The next generation of Māori won’t accept being second class citizens in their own homeland and they will grow up beside pakeha, Pacifica, Asian and Indian Kiwis who are culturally secure enough in their own identity that they don’t see the celebration of Māori as a lessening of their own self.

The next generation deserves a debate far more respectful than this race baiting political stunt.

The Treaty is to be honoured, not settled.

In solidarity

I yield the rest of my time to the Committee for questions:

Today is a sad day for Rednecks.

Give that Uncle you don’t invite to Christmas anymore because they listen to The Platform and Reality Check Radio a cuddle because he’s going to be feeling pretty stink.

Don’t forget Aunty Anti-Vax Karen, she’ll be feeling bitter today as well.

Dear rednecks, you are the minority and we aren’t going to tolerate you and your ilk no longer.

Your petty bigotry is the past, our hope is the future.

70% of Māori are under the age of 40. You picked the wrong generation to shit on!

The future is browner, younger and prouder.

The next generation of Pakeha, Pacifica and migrant Kiwi are secure enough in their own cultural identity to not see the respect of Māori culture as a demeaning of their own.

We share this beautiful country with the indigenous peoples of it respectfully and in partnership.

This is not about and has never been about ‘special race rights’ for Māori.

It has always been about legal rights Māori have because of the contract they signed with the Crown!

Watching Right Wingers who fetishise property rights twist this away from a legal contract rights issue into an existential race war against apartheid is demeaning of the intellectual worth of the Political Right.

Now this obscenity has been dealt with, we must immediately rally against what the Government’s real agenda has always been – The Regulatory Standards Bill!

The Treaty Principles Referendum is the distraction, but the Regulatory Standards Bill is the real win for the Neoliberal Right…

The long neoliberal con

While all the media and popular coverage seems to have been directed towards the Treaty Principles Bill, David Seymour and Act are poised to achieve another substantive victory that has been over 20 years in the making.

The Regulatory Standards Bill, first introduced to Parliament in 2006 and reintroduced last year by Seymour in his role as the Minister for Regulation, is under the public consultation phase (quietly started on the day of the arrival of the hikoi in Wellington).

It will be taken up by parliament in early 2025.

As detailed by Melanie Nelson, the passage of this bill (an agreement in the coalition Government’s negotiations) will help Act to realise a longstanding goal of their neoliberal policy agenda, which is to enshrine the rights of individuals, particularly property holders and business owners, over the collective good of all New Zealanders.

“The focus on the Treaty Principles Bill risks overshadowing its dull but dangerous cousin, the Regulatory Standards Bill, which is currently open for consultation,” she writes. “The Regulatory Standards Bill is the brainchild of the Business Roundtable (now the New Zealand Initiative) and has been attempted three times previously by the Act Party.”

If passed, the bill will establish a hand-picked regulatory board to ensure that law-making complies with its regulatory “principles” and to deal with complaints of violations (the public can even call in their complaints via a newly established tip line).

…ACT have tailored an economic straight jacket that will make it impossible to counter corporate interests ever again.

If this passes, Corporations will be able to stop any environmental or taxation policy they don’t like.

The radical nature of this should terrify every New Zealander.

What is most concerning is that this legislation is the Atlas Network playbook…

And who, in turn, are the junktanks? Many refuse to divulge who funds them, but as information has trickled out we have discovered that the Atlas Network itself and many of its members have taken money from funding networks set up by the Koch brothers and other rightwing billionaires, and from oil, coal and tobacco companiesand other life-defying interests. The junktanks are merely the intermediaries. They go into battle on behalf of their donors, in the class war waged by the rich against the poor. When a government responds to the demands of the network, it responds, in reality, to the money that funds it.

…Oil, coal, tobacco, right wing billionaires, the fucking Koch brothers, dark money influencing our political system so much so that we see the exact same agenda being rolled out here!

I didn’t believe most Kiwis voting National, NZF or ACT had much idea what exactly they were voting for and I don’t think the vast majority of Kiwis have any comprehension just how far right this Government actually is.

Setting up a legislative body dominated by corporate interests to test future laws against would be the end of NZ as a functioning democracy.

It would be the replacing of human rights for property rights.

Sure it would be Government elected by the people, but it be run by law decided by corporations…

This regulatory board would have sweeping oversight over all proposed government regulations, with the ability to make non-binding recommendations.

Furthermore, all proposed legislation or ministerial statutes (with a compliance review of all existing laws within 10 years) would fall under the purview of the new regulatory board, severely curtailing the ability of the government to regulate harmful business practices or corporate exploitation, even if such regulation is in the public interest.

More seriously the current version of the bill has removed any role of the courts to provide regulatory oversight or interpretation; a move that seems to be explicitly targeted at blocking any incorporation of Te Tiriti into the regulatory discussion.

…so the Courts would be effectively bypassed by this new regulatory board.

If you stood against this Government’s anti-Treaty agenda, then you must stand again against it’s anti-worker, anti-beneficiary, anti-disabled, anti-environment, anti-Renter, anti-working class agenda via this Regulatory Standards Bill!

What is the point of standing for the Treaty if the Government hands power over to the corporations?

Celebrate our victory here with this decisive win, but understand the war still rages.

With the Regulatory Standards Bill, the real battle begins comrades.

 

 

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