𝔸 𝕓𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕒
𝔸 𝕓𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕡𝕚𝕕 𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕒
ℕ𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝 𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕝𝕦𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔸𝕔𝕥’𝕤 𝕋𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥𝕪 𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕡𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝕓𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕔𝕠𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕒𝕘𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕨𝕒𝕤 𝕒 𝕞𝕒𝕛𝕠𝕣 𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕜𝕖, 𝕨𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕤 𝔻𝕒𝕞𝕖 𝔸𝕟𝕟𝕖 𝕊𝕒𝕝𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕕
In issuing his proclamations about Te Tiriti o Waitangi, David Seymour has a disconcerting habit of naming famous dead people as his supporters. In August 2023, for instance, he told a crowd at the Moutere Hills Community Centre, “I daresay if Nelson Mandela was alive today he would be campaigning for Act.”
Nelson Mandela’s grandson Kweku Mandela hastened to issue a denial: “My grandfather loved the people of New Zealand and I can say categorically he would not campaign for this today or any other day in the past.”
At a Business NZ conference in Wellington a month later, Seymour went on to claim Kate Sheppard, who led the historic campaign for women’s suffrage in New Zealand, as an Act party supporter: “I have read some of Kate Sheppard’s quotes, and she believed in universal human rights. I suspect she would be voting for us.”
.
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This time Suzanne Manning, the president of the National Council of Women in NZ, put him straight. The campaign for female suffrage, she said, aimed to “empower women to make their own choices and not have men presume to speak for them. Neither David Seymour nor any male politician should feel entitled to that privilege.”
Undeterred, Seymour went on to speak for many of the chiefs who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840: “If they were around today, they would be voting Act.”
The chances of that seem infinitesimal, since Act’s rewriting of Te Tiriti tries to erase Queen Victoria’s Article 2 promise to the rangatira and the hapū of te tino rangatiratanga of their lands, dwelling places and all of their taonga – their mana motuhake as rangatira and kin groups.
It also rewrites the Queen’s promise in Article 3 to give the indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand ‘nga tikanga rite tahi’ (exactly equal tikanga) – with her subjects, the inhabitants of England, as exactly the same rights and duties, a very different matter.
As Patuone explained in support of Te Tiriti at Waitangi in February 1840, ‘by bringing his two index fingers side by side, that they would be perfectly equal, and that each chief would be similarly equal with Mr. Hobson.’
As his brother Tamati Waka Nene exclaimed to Governor Hobson, “You must be our father! You must not allow us to become slaves! You must preserve our customs, and never permit our lands to be wrested from us!”
From the historical record, it is clear that the rangatira understood Te Tiriti as placing each of them and their hapū, their taonga and their tikanga on an equal footing with the Governor and the incoming settlers – equality in difference, with their own mana and ways of living.
Just as Act selectively quotes from Te Tiriti to distort the promises that were exchanged at Waitangi in February 1840, so they selectively quote from Nelson Mandela, Kate Sheppard and the rangatira, and latterly, my own work on the Treaty.
I suppose I should be flattered to be among such a galaxy of luminaries, but I do not support a referendum. It would be a travesty of democracy.
The referendum was proposed in the Act manifesto at the recent election, and none of the other parties supported it. 91.4 percent of the electorate voted for those other parties, and only 8.6% voted for Act.
The proposed draft Treaty principles bill is inflammatory, and polarising. It radically distorts the promises that were exchanged at Waitangi and elsewhere between Queen Victoria and the rangatira of the various hapū.
It has already provoked deep mistrust and resentment, which will only get more intense over time.
The process surrounding the Treaty Principles bill is a farce. With 8.6 percent of the vote at the last election, Act has no democratic mandate to advance a referendum on Te Tiriti.
For National to allow Act to draft the Treaty principles bill and for it to be advanced in the coalition agreement was a major mistake.
As Matthew Hooton observes, the draft bill reads “as purposefully disrespectful to the text of the Treaty,” and an insult to the descendants of the signatories. At Tūrangawaewae and Rātana, they made their views very clear.
A debate about Te Tiriti – by all means. But let it be just and impartial, as befits a constitutional discussion, and not conducted on the basis of a bill that is highly partisan, and designed to provide ill-will and anger.
This time Suzanne Manning, the president of the National Council of Women in NZ, put him straight. The campaign for female suffrage, she said, aimed to “empower women to make their own choices and not have men presume to speak for them. Neither David Seymour nor any male politician should feel entitled to that privilege.”
Undeterred, Seymour went on to speak for many of the chiefs who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840: “If they were around today, they would be voting Act.”
The chances of that seem infinitesimal, since Act’s rewriting of Te Tiriti tries to erase Queen Victoria’s Article 2 promise to the rangatira and the hapū of te tino rangatiratanga of their lands, dwelling places and all of their taonga – their mana motuhake as rangatira and kin groups.
It also rewrites the Queen’s promise in Article 3 to give the indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand ‘nga tikanga rite tahi’ (exactly equal tikanga) – with her subjects, the inhabitants of England, as exactly the same rights and duties, a very different matter.
As Patuone explained in support of Te Tiriti at Waitangi in February 1840, ‘by bringing his two index fingers side by side, that they would be perfectly equal, and that each chief would be similarly equal with Mr. Hobson.’
As his brother Tamati Waka Nene exclaimed to Governor Hobson, “You must be our father! You must not allow us to become slaves! You must preserve our customs, and never permit our lands to be wrested from us!”
From the historical record, it is clear that the rangatira understood Te Tiriti as placing each of them and their hapū, their taonga and their tikanga on an equal footing with the Governor and the incoming settlers – equality in difference, with their own mana and ways of living.
Just as Act selectively quotes from Te Tiriti to distort the promises that were exchanged at Waitangi in February 1840, so they selectively quote from Nelson Mandela, Kate Sheppard and the rangatira, and latterly, my own work on the Treaty.
I suppose I should be flattered to be among such a galaxy of luminaries, but I do not support a referendum. It would be a travesty of democracy.
The referendum was proposed in the Act manifesto at the recent election, and none of the other parties supported it. 91.4 percent of the electorate voted for those other parties, and only 8.6% voted for Act.
The proposed draft Treaty principles bill is inflammatory, and polarising. It radically distorts the promises that were exchanged at Waitangi and elsewhere between Queen Victoria and the rangatira of the various hapū.
It has already provoked deep mistrust and resentment, which will only get more intense over time.
The process surrounding the Treaty Principles bill is a farce. With 8.6 percent of the vote at the last election, Act has no democratic mandate to advance a referendum on Te Tiriti.
For National to allow Act to draft the Treaty principles bill and for it to be advanced in the coalition agreement was a major mistake.
As Matthew Hooton observes, the draft bill reads “as purposefully disrespectful to the text of the Treaty,” and an insult to the descendants of the signatories. At Tūrangawaewae and Rātana, they made their views very clear.
A debate about Te Tiriti – by all means. But let it be just and impartial, as befits a constitutional discussion, and not conducted on the basis of a bill that is highly partisan, and designed to provide ill-will and anger.
.
.
According to Hooton, “Act’s strategy seems to be to offer fake Treaty principles to the public, generate a few hundred thousand supportive online select-committee submissions, hold six months of heated hearings, hope for civil unrest, and then accuse National of siding with Māori radicals against “mainstream New Zealanders”.
National’s latest move – putting David Seymour in charge of the process of managing the bill – only makes matters worse. I agree with Matthew Hooton that this draft bill is a cynical political stunt. It lacks democratic legitimacy, carries significant risks for the nation, and the select committee will have no chance of impartiality.
It should be boycotted on these grounds – by other parliamentarians, as well by as by potential submitters.
If, like Pontius Pilate, Christopher Luxon is trying to wash his hands of responsibility for his own role in this incendiary situation, that won’t work.
He should listen to his own elders, and put the proposed referendum in the dustbin of history, where it belongs. As Jim Bolger said, it’s a bloody stupid idea.
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