WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: Human Rights Commission ignored over latest Treaty attack
In the latest attack on the Treaty, the Human Rights Commission’s warning has been ignored as National, ACT and NZFirst time their legislative attacks in time for the Election.
We are seeing a lot of culture war performance art being rammed through Parliament at the moment.
English before Māori, defining a woman and removing the Treaty from legislation have all been timed just before the election so the Right can point to their legislative mutilations as a reason for angry reactionary voters to re-lecturing them, despite the economy being in the pits.
Rather than focus on their economic vandalism, National, ACT and NZF want to play to the worst angels of their voting base and attacking anything to do with Māori or the Treaty is what they believe will win them votes.
It is a sad and cynical politics that are as ugly as they are corrosive.
The Human Rights Commission says, “The government said it wants clarity, but many Māori, legal experts, the Waitangi Tribunal, the Human Rights Commission, and international bodies say the review risks doing the opposite: weakening protections, reducing accountability, and increasing conflict.
“Achieving clarity – if that is the aim of the exercise – doesn’t require watering down obligations to the bare minimum.
“Certainty and clarity are better achieved by following agreed human rights standards which support honouring treaties and respecting Indigenous peoples’ human rights.
The reality is that despite the Government’s claim that these changes will bring legislative certainty, the Commission concludes it is more likely to increase, not reduce, uncertainty and litigation risk.
So there is no actual point to this other than provide raw meat to those voters who obsess over Māori political; aspiration.
If this Government wins a second term they will cement into place this 19th Century white settler privilege.
We all deserve better than this.
