New Zealand Parliamentary Debate

Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill [4453]

that is what this bill is about. I do not think everybody has understood that across the country up until now; certainly when talking to me, people have not understood that clearly, but that is what the bill is about.

We understand-as the country does-that the Treaty of Waitangi is an important historical document. It gave all New Zealand citizens rights and protections as British subjects-

Rodney Hide

: Even me?

R DOUG WOOLERTON

: It gave them even to Mr Hide. It gave rights and protections as British subjects and contained a shared vision for the peoples of New Zealand to live in harmony, which, by and large, we do.

Almost 30 years ago, it was understood that past grievances would need to be addressed, and we have done that under the Treaty claims process. I believe, for the large part, that it has been done honourably and done properly. The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 was well intentioned but it laid the foundations for an industry that, to some degree, has become self-serving and self-perpetuating. The situation was exacerbated in 1986 when ill-defined Treaty principles were added to statutes. I think it is important to say that when Sir Geoffrey Palmer was asked what the principles actually meant, he said the principles were a flourish. They added a simple flourish. In his view, they added something to the Treaty of Waitangi but he did not define what and described them as a simple flourish.

It is important to remember that these principles were never part of the original Treaty. They became something of a judicial experiment, in our view, because Parliament chose not to define them. Some experiments work and some do not; in our view this one clearly does not. The consequences of their inclusion, in our view, from the very beginning has seen an ongoing process of protracted and expensive litigation that has done little more than fill the coffers of several large law firms and, in particular, of lawyers.

Rodney Hide

: How did Geoffrey Palmer get on?

R DOUG WOOLERTON

: Geoffrey Palmer-with due respect-has done quite nicely out of it as well.

Their removal, in our view, will end this ridiculous situation. More important, the existence of the word principles has not led to any tangible benefits for Maori. As we have said many, many times in this House, Maori progress, like progress for non-Maori, is based on a strong economic base, and high-quality employment, education, health, and housing. Inserting undefined principles into legislation does not achieve this. In fact, what it does do is divert time and resources away from valuable programmes and projects into the types of activities described hitherto. We believe this must stop.

There is a simple reason why the principles of the Treaty have not been defined. That is because they cannot be defined. One simple but fundamental solution to sort this out is to remove all references to indefinable and nebulous principles of the Treaty from our statute book. That is the purpose behind this bill that I am introducing to the House today. Most people in the House will remember that countless questions have been asked over many months-in fact, over the last 18 years-about this. My leader and colleagues have asked questions in the House seeking an adequate definition of these principles, but no affirmative answer has been forthcoming. With due respect, the questions that I asked today and the answers I received from Michael Cullen on behalf of the Minister of Justice proved my point. This afternoon in question time, I read out previous answers that the Prime Minister herself had given to those questions back in 2002.

So we have not had adequate definitions of those principles to date. Even further, we have gone to academics and other legal experts and asked them, but the same reply has