New Zealand Parliamentary Debate

Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill [4457]

As I said, in accordance with the supply and confidence agreement with New Zealand First, the Government intends to support this bill through its first reading. That will enable it to go to a select committee, which will allow debate on the appropriate place of the Treaty principles in legislation. It reflects the fact that constitutional principles are often the subject of debate. The Treaty is a constitutional document. The principles that underlie it are therefore points of debate, and we are willing to go to that point. But let me make it unequivocally clear: the Government supports this bill in its first reading only, because it has genuine concerns about the need for this legislation and about the negative impact it will have on promoting an enduring and positive, cooperative relationship between Crown and Maori if the bill is allowed to proceed beyond the select committee. That is our view; that is clear.

My colleagues from the Maori caucus have made clear that they do not see this bill as having a positive impact on any of the relationships that we have been at pains to build up between Maori and the Crown. Therefore, while the debate can be held, we will not ultimately be supporting the bill. The concerns we have are obvious. This bill, if it goes forward, will have an adverse impact on relationships between Maori and the Crown. In recognition of the important place of the Treaty, successive Governments have put the Treaty's principles in legislation; that has been something that successive Governments have done and have respected. In fact, most of those pieces of legislation were passed during the 1990 s under a National Government.

In terms of removing the references, I say that that would not obstruct what is going on, anyway, because we would undoubtedly find that the courts would simply continue to operate as if the references were there, because they need to refer to the principles of the Treaty. They have been referring to those principles for some time. They will continue to do so because it is in the practice of the courts to do so. So nothing would change. There would, of course, be a risk of litigation, because people would then begin referring back to what courts have already done, and going back to those rulings to say: Let us litigate these decisions because they exist.

There are inconsistencies in the bill. Other legislation, for example, would be disturbed by this bill. It contains no consequential amendments to other legislation, and there are other inconsistencies in it. The bill removes a whole set of substantive rights. For example, the deletion of the reference in a section of the Treaty of Waitangi Act would remove the power of the Waitangi Tribunal to order the resumption of the Crown Forest Lands Act. In other words, if we did that kind of thing we would simply contradict a whole range of other legislation.

All these arguments have been traversed before. The Government's clear position is to send the bill to the select committee and no further.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER

: The first two speakers had 10 minutes, as they have on all members' bills. All other speakers have 5 minutes.

METIRIA TUREI( Green):

The Green Party will oppose this bill, as we have similar bills. It is amazing how often this issue keeps coming up and being stopped dead in its tracks. We are really concerned for Labour, and we certainly look forward to hearing from its Maori MPs as to their views on this legislation. What do they think about it, given that their party is going to support it? It is a very sad situation.

Poor old Doug Woolerton. What has to be remembered here, when he says that the whole point of this bill is to get rid of the industry, is that his leader has been saying to get rid of the industry for years and years. Now Doug has taken up the mantra. Well, I tell Doug that it is just too late. We have had the principles in legislation in this country for 31 years. For 31 years we have had a massive amount of jurisprudence on the issues around the principles-not that it is all good, and not that it is all a good thing, but there