Category: Constitutional Reform
Sir Geoffrey Palmer dismisses Citizens Initiated Referenda - an important element of our democratic process - stating that we (the people) are deluded (!) if we think that referenda will improve the quality of New Zealand’s democracy.
A polite “thank you but no thank you” was the official response to a request for a meeting with Ministers Bill English and Pita Sharples to discuss constitutional issues detailed in the report A House Divided. Did the Iwi Leader’s Group get to discuss such issues directly with the government? No and yes! The next meeting is on Wednesday at Waitangi and constitutional issues may be on the agenda.
Auckland’s unfortunate political experiment in having an Independent Maori Statutory Board is being held up as a model for the rest of New Zealand’s fragmented local bodies considering amalgamation into unitary authorities.
We have pleasure in presenting "A House Divided", the newly released report by the Independent Constitutional Review Panel. The ICRP was convened in October 2012 when it became clear that the Maori Party was using the government’s constitutional review in an attempt to entrench the Treaty of Waitangi into a new written constitution as supreme law
"A House Divided" is a new report by the Independent Constitutional Review Panel, that examines New Zealand's constitutional arrangements, and highlights the threat to race relations posed by the Maori Party's constitutional conversation. We urge every concerned New Zealander to read our report.
The problem for the wider community is that through this process, the government has become captured by the naked ambition of a race-based tribal aristocracy to co-govern the country. That this undermines the government’s commitment to a democratic society based on equal rights - relegating all other citizens to second-class status - appears of little consequence.
The case for ‘co-governance’ between the government and iwi is justified according to cultural recognition and social justice beliefs. However that is to make a fundamental error, one that ignores the dangers of including ethnicity into the political arrangements of a democratic nation.
New Zealanders will soon get a chance to participate in the Citizens Initiated Referendum on asset sales. The referendum is required under law after the promoters (Grey Power, the Green Party, the Council of Trade Unions, the Labour Party, NZ Union of Students' Associations, and Greenpeace) secured sufficient signatures in a petition to Parliament this year.
Tribal leaders continue to make on-going demands for new rights and privileges based on claims of Treaty partnership and Maori sovereignty. The question that needs to be asked is whether such partnership and sovereignty claims are valid. The first example, which uses the Treaty partnership argument, is the situation in the Far North where iwi leaders are claiming guardianship rights over the region - “as affirmed in Te Tiriti o Waitangi as Treaty partners”.
This paper is concerned solely with the question of whether or not there is anything in the Treaty of Waitangi that requires it to be incorporated into a written constitution, and having the effect of conferring sovereignty in and over New Zealand on twenty first century Maori.
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