Category: Constitutional Reform
New Zealand has reached a defining moment in race relations. On one hand, the aggressive demands of iwi for ownership rights to water, wind, and other natural elements that are public good resources, are not only without foundation, but are now preventing you from governing according to your electoral mandate. And on the other hand, the promoters of Maori sovereignty – which includes members of the Maori Party - are pushing ahead with their plan to replace New Zealand’s constitution with one based on the Treaty of Waitangi as supreme law. As you will be aware, this move would give un-elected Judges superior powers over our elected Members of Parliament.
In any mature society, the issue of having, abiding by or amending, a country’s constitution is of national significance and importance. This facet of national life determines not only how political power will be exercised but also how it will be kept in check - matters of profound significance and therefore to be exercised with great diligence and care. A constitution is the source of ultimate or supreme law of a country, to which all other legislation is subservient.
The absurd Treaty of Waitangi claims being made by iwi leaders for the ownership of pubic good resources that are the foundation of life itself are driving New Zealand towards a race relations tipping point. In spite of the general goodwill of the public towards finally settling all genuine Treaty claims, naïve and self-interested politicians have instead taken the country down the path of appeasement. Appeasement is based on making concessions, but the problem is that over time demands incrementally become more unreasonable.
Our crisis is one of character. We are in the situation we are in because of the sort of people we are. Any solution must spring out of our own energy and faith in ourselves, out of a shared understanding of the world and of our hopes for the future, and out of a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood which impels us to care for each other but which also impels those who are cared for to desire that they pull their weight in striving for the common good. ‘Without vision the people perish.’ Most of all, we must have faith in ourselves.
Last week it was water. This week it is wind. Having successfully taken ownership of the foreshore and seabed from the Crown - and with the embedding of the Treaty of Waitangi into a new New Zealand constitution well under way - Maori leaders are casting around for new public resources to claim as their own.
In recent years iwi have been extremely successful in pursuing their demands for public resources and political power. The intriguing question is how to explain such total success given that many New Zealanders, both Maori and non-Maori, are increasingly concerned about the run-away juggernaut of iwi ambitions.
In the lead up to last year’s referendum on our voting system, New Zealanders were re-assured that if MMP was successful, the system would be reviewed and improved. This promise persuaded many people who were considering voting for change, to stick with the status quo and vote for MMP.
The New Zealand public have been duped. Kiwis supported keeping MMP at last year’s referendum in a large part due to the promised “MMP Review”. We were told that MMP would be improved by the Electoral Commission. We were promised an MMP 2.0, a version that would address its weaknesses. Instead, what we’re likely to get is an MMP more suited to the interests of political insiders, worse at holding MPs to account and even more susceptible to tails wagging dogs.
The Waitangi Tribunal finding that Maori have property rights to water was predictable, but is nevertheless a reminder of how well organised the tribal elite have become. They have their own political party, with political leverage through a coalition agreement with the government. They have the taxpayer-funded Maori Council, which is able to organise activists into substantive claimant bodies. And they have the taxpayer-funded Waitangi Tribunal, to re-write history and deliver quasi-legal deliberations in favour of tribal claimants.
As you will be aware, ever since the New Zealand Centre for Political Research was first established in 2005, we have been fighting against racial privilege. We firmly believe that all New Zealanders should be equal in the eyes of the law. There should be no special treatment based on race. With the Maori Party spending $4 million to convince New Zealanders that a new "written" constitution based on the Treaty as supreme law, is in the best interest of the country, we are taking a stand.
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