New Zealand Parliamentary Debate

Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill [4455]

There are four aspects of the legislation I wish to refer to that are contained in Mr Woolerton's bill: first, general legislation; second, private Acts; third, settlement legislation; and, fourth, two important Treaty statutes that deserve special attention. I refer first to general legislation. The National Party cannot see any reason why there needs to be specific Treaty references in legislation like the Crown Research Institutes Act, the Crown Minerals Act, or the Crown Pastoral Land Act. These pieces of legislation have general applicability; there is no need for a Treaty reference there.

I have greater difficulty with private legislation, and there are at least three examples of private Acts that are referred to in Mr Woolerton's bill-namely, the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind Act, the Royal Society of New Zealand Act, and the Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu Act of 1996. These three Acts contain Treaty clauses, but private Acts are passed for the benefit of particular individuals or persons and sometimes exempt individuals from requirements of the general law. An example of a private Act is the Sydenham Money Club Act, which reconstituted the Sydenham Money Club from a credit union to a building society. As a matter of principle, I have a few doubts about whether Parliament should unilaterally be interfering with private legislation. If individuals have agreed on the substance of the legislation and the legislation is then passed by Parliament, I do not know that Parliament should necessarily be deleting Treaty provisions from those Acts. But that is something the select committee can look at in closer detail.

Then we have settlement legislation, and Mr Woolerton's bill refers to a number of pieces of settlement legislation-for example, the Ngati Tama Claims Settlement Act of 2003, and the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act of 1998. Interestingly, the member, or the person who was the author of this legislation, failed to refer to a number of recent pieces of settlement legislation, such as the Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Act of 2005. Many of the references to Treaty principles are contained in the preamble or in the formal apology of the Crown that has been incorporated in the statute. As a matter of legislative drafting, I do not know that it is particularly wise to incorporate apologies in the form of the statute, but, that having been done, I have some doubts in relation to settlement legislation about whether particular references to principles of the Treaty, or the Treaty, should be removed. Again, that is an issue the select committee can look at when it comes to consider this bill.

Two other important Treaty statutes need specific reference, and these are the fourth category I identified. The first is the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, from which my friend Mr Woolerton seeks to remove any reference to principles of the Treaty. But such an amendment would remove the very jurisdiction of the tribunal, which was established to investigate breaches of the Treaty, and I cannot see that this Parliament can responsibly and, indeed, sensibly-if New Zealand First does not want to be sensible, it should be at least responsible-delete the proposal that the Treaty of Waitangi Act be amended by deleting those provisions. Then there is the Treaty of Waitangi( Fisheries Claims) Settlement Act of 1992, particularly the references to section 10, which Mr Woolerton refers to, where, for example, a provision requires consultation in accordance with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. That is an example of where the phrase is simply meaningless, adds nothing to the section, and could be deleted.

So, as can be seen, quite a lot of work needs to be done on this legislation, but I believe it provides the select committee with an opportunity to clean up a bit of legislative mess that has developed over the years, and I would not have thought the Government would necessarily be opposed to that. Indeed, once upon a time, we had a Coordinating Minister, Race Relations. It was only Mr Mallard, and he held the portfolio for only a short period of time. I think he was as effective as Coordinating