WAATEA NEWS COLUMN: My Oral Submission to the Justice committee on the Treaty Principles

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: