Towards the abyss

Written By: - Date published: 12:34 pm, September 10th, 2024 - 37 comments
Categories: act, Christopher Luxon, david seymour, labour, national, nz first, Politics, racism, racism, same old national, treaty settlements, winston peters - Tags:

Yesterday it was confirmed that Act’s Treaty Principles Bill had been approved by Cabinet for drafting and introduction into Parliament in November this year.

It was also the day that 400 church leaders released an open letter urging the Government not to proceed with the bill.

Christopher Luxon was questioned about the bill at the post Cabinet Press Conference and his indifference was palpable. He clearly did not want to know about the bill and he did not want to talk about the bill.

From Radio New Zealand:

The prime minister has admitted he is yet to see the draft Treaty Principles Bill, despite promising National will back it through its first reading, but no further.

Christopher Luxon was asked a series of questions about updates on the controversial proposed legislation, given Cabinet considered it on Monday, but was not forthcoming on further details.

“I don’t talk or discuss things that are discussed in Cabinet. There’ll be more to say about that shortly, I’m sure, but our position on this is well known and well understood – we support it for first reading, but not beyond that.”

Luxon said ACT leader David Seymour, the bill’s backer, will have more to say on it soon.

The final version will be considered again by Cabinet before it is introduced to Parliament in November.

Luxon was repeatedly asked about the bill at the press conference, but gave the same answer each time – he would not reveal what was said in Cabinet discussions.

Of course he has not seen the bill, it has not been drafted yet. But an outline of the bill would have been clearly set out in the Cabinet Paper Cabinet had just discussed.

And David Seymour, perhaps helpfully, perhaps michieviously, filled in the gaps for Luxon.

From Julia Gabel at the Herald:

Seymour says a “broad outline” of the bill was discussed at Monday’s Cabinet meeting before a draft version is created and publicly released in November.

The Act leader said changes have been made to add references to iwi and hapū to the proposed definitions of the principles.

“I have always believed Article 2 gives all New Zealanders the right of determination over their lives and their properties,” he said.

“The question, I believe, did that mean all New Zealanders as per 1840, or all New Zealanders in perpetuity, whoever may live here. That’s been very contentious.

“I’m proposing explicit mention of the rights that iwi and hapū had in 1840 to allay the concerns that somehow we are taking away the rights of Māori.”

So much for what is said in Cabinet stays in Cabinet.

The revised bill will be interesting to see. Act’s proposed article 2 states “[t]he New Zealand Government will honour all New Zealanders in the chieftainship of their land and all their property”

Including a reference to rights enjoyed by hapū and iwi in 1840 does not change the effect of their proposed change. It still lessens the scope of article 2 which preserves to Maori “their lands, homes, and things important to them”. This was relied on by the Waitangi Tribunal in relation to its decision on the preservation of Te Reo. In that decision the Tribunal said about the phrase “o ratou taonga katoa” contained in article 2 that it “covers both tangible and intangible things and can best be translated by the expression ‘all their valued customs and possessions.'” Act’s proposed amendment would have precluded the Te Reo claim from being heard.

Seymour will no doubt throw up a number of superficially improved amendments to Act’s original bill to further muddy the water. It is more important for the dog whistle racism to continue for as long as possible. The precise contents of the bill are of lesser importance.

And NZ First’s position could be cruical. Shane Jones has confirmed that NZ First would not vote for the bill past first reading. But in Parliament Winston Peters has muddied the waters.

And NZ First have in the past tried to pull a similar stunt in relation to the Treaty. In 2005 by way of a Private Member’s bill it introduced the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill the intent of which was to do exactly that. Labour opposed the bill’s introduction but because of the support of National, Act and United Future the bill was introduced.

The Bill would have had some unusual consequences, such as preventing the Waitangi Tribunal from considering the principles of the Treaty.

It failed to get past the second reading when only NZ First voted in support.

And something that Chris Finlayson said during the second reading of the bill resonates. He said:

Having thundered from the pulpit about activist liberal judges and having brought in the example of South Africa, New Zealand First members, after receiving submissions that responded in equally strong terms, said they were very disappointed because they wanted to have a principled discussion of the matter. They said that people should not have reacted to rhetoric but should have dealt with the substance of the legislation. With respect to Mr Paraone, I say that that is a joke. If one goes down that cheapskate, rhetorical kind of road, one will get submissions—and there were a lot of submissions—that will respond to it.

Of course Luxon could minimise the disruption by having a very truncated select committee process. It is something that this Government has done regularly.

But it shows what is really important to Act and to National. This is the issue that held up the formation of the Government. Act really needs the opportunity to engage in racist dog whistling and it does not matter to them that the bill may eventually fail. And National was that keen to gain power that it was willing to severely damage race relations and force the country to engage in an absolute circus just so it could grab the baubles of office.

37 comments on “Towards the abyss ”

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  1. Ngungukai 1
    10 September 2024 at 2:18 pm

    This Seymour is a mischievous piece of work and a nasty little b******d, especially when he promotes his Maori blood lines, meanwhile prostituting himself to ACT and the ATLAS Group ???

  2. Patricia Bremner 2
    10 September 2024 at 2:28 pm

    Power corrupts. PM Luxon is not comfortable with this, but sees it as a necessary evil??

    Do we believe these lying toads after all they have done and undone? Hell No!!!

    "Everybody Knows our position on that" Weasel words!! The position is he chose to agree to this disruptive action to get power.

    The PM has to deal with this before Seymore becomes DP. It is untenable to have a DP who is actively undermining our communities with disruptive bills. The Council Polls are bad enough without this.
    I remember Luxon saying he aligned with Act, before the election.

  3. Graeme 3
    10 September 2024 at 2:30 pm

    Think this little ooops might bight Mr Luxon

    “we’re only honouring agreements”

    https://twitter.com/nzmrichards/status/1833051039571812776

    Many good billboards and memes in that

  4. James Simpson 4
    10 September 2024 at 2:49 pm

    And National was that keen to gain power that it was willing to severely damage race relations and force the country to engage in an absolute circus just so it could grab the baubles of office

    Agreeing to allow a debate to take place isn't much of a sacrifice to secure a government.

    I personally am not sure why people are so offended by this. A lot of the hyperbole about racism is politicking. I get that.. But in reality there has been more discussion in the past 12 months about what the treaty means, then there has been since the thing was signed.

    Seymour is trying to drive a Mac truck through the treaty itself, but that will fail. The debate has in my view been positive as many people, for the first time, are actually being exposed the treaty and what the parties signed up to.

  5. Mike the Lefty 5
    10 September 2024 at 4:20 pm

    The fact that the two other government party leaders has publicly said they will not support the Bill past the first reading, but it still will be introduced only confirms what we already know – this is purely an ACT (specifically a David Seymour) political posturing stunt.

    It will serve no good purpose, it will not engineer any meaningful debate, only stir up s.. which the ACT Party will feed on like some overgrown dung beetle.

    It borders on abuse of parliamentary procedure and bringing the House into disrepute.

    Luxon should grow some balls and put a stop to this b…s, but he won't.

    • georgecom 5.1
      10 September 2024 at 5:00 pm

      6 months of public consultatin at the select committee. That's more tha ACT, that's Luxon being weak and caving into them. You are right, he could have grown some and made it a short consultation and then killed the charade, but he hasn't.

    • Ngungukai 5.2
      10 September 2024 at 7:24 pm

      Seymore is loving this, all the grandstanding and the opportunity to spout forth his ideology and opinions, can't wait to see how he performs as Deputy PM he will be absolutely fizzing at the bung.

  6. Ad 6
    10 September 2024 at 7:53 pm

    I really liked Labour hosting its defence seminar in the Upper Chamber earlier this year. Very clever politics.

    Labour should hold another one about the Treaty principles, and invite the new Maori Queen to tell us her view.

    Looking forward to Labour having a very smart plan around this one.

  7. powerman 7
    11 September 2024 at 7:55 am

    It looks like Nat's and Act are playing silly buggers and wasting time while shamelessly stirring up a racial divide. The question is why?

    • Chris 7.1
      11 September 2024 at 8:49 am

      The answer's simple. It's about power, man, power.

    • Ngungukai 7.2
      11 September 2024 at 10:03 am

      ACT and ATLAS Group there's your answer, taking the country's Race Relations backwards 50 years. Baldrick and Seymore will not be covering themselves in glory with this Stunt IMHO.

    • joe 7.3
      12 September 2024 at 12:10 am

      It is simple.
      If the Nats pull out of backing the first reading then Seymour will see that as breaking an agreement and then pull out of the Coalition and leave Luxon with NO power to Govern.
      Hence, the reason why Luxon does nothing and lets Seymour and Peters pull the strings.
      He is a mere puppet.

  8. Patricia Bremner 8
    11 September 2024 at 9:58 am

    Ruby Tui showed the way.heart

    Every time Seymore appears the crowd should loudly sing "Tu tere mai nga iwi" "Stand together as one so we may enfold each other in love"

    (loose translation).

  9. John Chapman 9
    11 September 2024 at 10:00 am

    This is a distraction, it's ACT's economic policies that should be of real concern.

  10. tWig 10
    11 September 2024 at 12:30 pm

    Big Hairy News have the opinion (from 1 h onwards) that Seymour's strategy (straight from the Atlas Network playbook) is to sow societal division. An extended 6 months consultaion stage will keep the Bill in the public eye, and encourage Outraged, of Kohimarama, to keep toxic comments flowing in.

    That means that those against the Bill must also keep up a sustained opposition. That can include individual submission on the Bill, and as wide a group of non-Maori groups as possible having a say from their perspective. So it's up to us as individuals to balance the narrative.

    An extended consultation will also distract from other egregious policy changes sneaked in by the government, and possibly will dominate the 2025 election in its repercussions, through rollover.

  11. AB 11
    11 September 2024 at 12:53 pm

    I suspect this is mostly upside for Luxon.

    • He gets to look like he's distanced from ACT and shores up his support among traditional Nats who aren't mad, radical libertarians (i.e. authoritarians)
    • Seymour's Bill (towards which Luxon is probably sympathetic, but still politically cautious) gets a good airing and potentially softens up the public for some later, gentler iteration of the same basic ideas
    • He gets to blame it on MMP, which he clearly hates for not giving him the solitary mandate a man of his unique genius so clearly deserves

    Downside is that he looks potentially gutless and power-hungry for not ruling out ACT as a coalition partner if they did not drop the Bill from their coalition negotiation bottom-lines. But the only people who think that would never vote for the CoC anyway, so he can disregard them.

    • Ad 11.1
      11 September 2024 at 1:15 pm

      Hmm.

      Let's see the upside once ALL local governments are required (at their cost) to hold binding referenda on whether Maori seats should exist at all…….

      …. as part of the 2025 election.

  12. Chris 12
    11 September 2024 at 2:13 pm

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350410988/david-seymours-treaty-principles-released-major-warnings-officials

    Someone should set up a book for Luxon's u-turn on the bill. Bring back ipredict.

  13. matthew Campbell 13
    11 September 2024 at 9:11 pm

    Why is it OK for the countries constitution to be run by an oligarchy of lawyers,academics,and the Waitangi Tribunal.

    Wouldn't it be better for all the people who live here to discuss the issues and decide what constitution they want to live under

    • lprent 13.1
      11 September 2024 at 10:32 pm

      Wouldn't it be better for all the people who live here to discuss the issues and decide what constitution they want to live under

      The answer is no. It would not be better. All it would do is encourage other racist bigots to crawl out from under the rock.

      Always so much fun to discuss a serious topic with the lazy and pig ignorant like you.

      It isn't a case of majority rules. Only an complete idiot would think that was the case in NZ. There isn't a constitution in NZ. This is neither a republic or a state with a manufactured written constitutional document

      This is not the US – with a constitution formed after a rebellion in 1776. Nor is it Australia with an claim of discovery by the British as being vacant and constitution formed between colonies in 1901. Nor is it as whatever rock that some migrant ship or plane that delivered your stupidity or that of your recent ancestry dragged you from and delivered you to our state.

      Clearly you do not know that there were exactly two parties to our founding constitution. On one side was the Crown and on the other was the Maori occupants of these islands in the form of agreement with many of their iwi and hapu.

      Everything else has been done since in our 'constitution' was done on the basis of that the two original parties to the Waitangi agreement allowing us to do things in their name, and implicitly with their approval. The monarchy of NZ and the Maori are intertwined and what they allow is our 'constitution'.

      If we wanted to follow the same process to modify the constitution as how it was formed, the only the Crown of NZ and the Maori could form it. Parliament is effectively just an expression of their will, and many parts of their state like military, police, judiciary, parliament itself, and many other arms of the Crown

      Effectively you cannot get a 'vote' on constitutional matters because you and those like you never played any part in forming our base constitution. Nor did I and my families mostly arrived here between 1822 and 1865.

      To establish a change of the constitutional basis for NZ would require the agreement of both those original parties. For some reason, I don't think that either the monarch of the New Zealand, nor Maori will agree when a dimwitted latter day migrant like David Seymour or you says that they should.

      Anything else would be effectively an act of rebellion and lawlessness for which the dimwitted rebels like yourself and David Seymour could legally be imprisoned for life. I'd gladly assist. I don't like extreme stupidity and fomenting treason is stupidity..

      Consider why that Maori are steadfast about their allegiance to the Crown and the their agreement in the Treaty of Waitangi. Consider that my families were working with Maori prior to the NZ civil wars. Wars that were caused by rapacious idiocy by latter day migrants with your attitudes.

      Then consider why neither Maori, settlers of lang lineage, or myself appreciate having recently arrived fuckwits like you, David Seymour, Don Brash, and other simple minded bigots ignorant of our history trying to tell use how to run our society.

      Incidentally, this is also why I am not in favour of a republic or even a written constitution. It just encourages the kind of genocidal behaviour that characterised the history of both the US and Australia.

      See s73 onwards of the Crimes Act 1961 on Treason and Mutiny.

    • adam 13.2
      11 September 2024 at 11:53 pm

      Wouldn't it be better for all the people who live here to discuss the issues and decide what constitution they want to live under

      Lets put all the ignorant idiots on a 747, and they can bugger off back to what ever rock they crawled out of. I'd like that, it would be the best way to start the debate. Because if you take no interest in our our country, and how it was formed, and what political and social events have shaped it to this point, why the bloody hell are you even doing here?

      I mean maybe matthew Campbell you could move to New Caledonia, the French settlers there seem to speaking your language. I'm sure you will fit right in.

      • HB 13.2.1
        12 September 2024 at 6:57 am

        NZ parliament makes laws, All citizens can contribute to legislation via the select committee process.

        All NZ citizens can stand for parliament.

        • lprent 13.2.1.1
          12 September 2024 at 7:55 am

          All of that is completely irrelevant and obviously written by a fool who is unaware of how NZ is governed.

          Let me see if I can find something simple enough for a ignorant and illiterate like yourself to understand. This should be simple enough. A visitors guide to parliament. It might be a child’s guide to our constitution. But obviously that is how you should be treated – as a child.

          Who is the Sovereign?
          New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy. This means the Sovereign (who is also the British monarch) is our head of State, acting on the advice of our Government.

          The Sovereign is the source of all executive legal authority in New Zealand, and acts on the advice of the Government in all but the most exceptional circumstances.

          The Sovereign is represented in New Zealand by our Governor-General. The Rt Hon Dame Cindy Kiro is the current Governor-General of New Zealand.

          Parliament is a instrument of the Crown aka our constitutional monarchy. Parliament wasn’t created in 1840 when the Crown and Maori came to an agreement called the Treaty of Waitangi which is the document that allowed the Crown to participate in law making in NZ. Maori weren’t conquered. Nor were they regarded as not being present as the Australian colonies used as a fiction to justify their heinous racist acts.

          The NZ General Assembly was created in 1854 by a 1852 act of the British parliament. The Maori seats were created in 1867 specifically because the the property restrictions for voting imposed upon settlers by British law were incompatible with the Treaty.

          The NZ General Assembly finally formally stopped being a appendage of British parliament in 1947 when the British parliament passed the New Zealand Constitution Amendment Act 1947.

          The New Zealand Parliament has only formally existed since 1986.

          In 1986 a new Constitution Act was passed, finally removing the power for the British Parliament to pass laws affecting New Zealand (which was by then only with New Zealand’s consent), restating the few remaining provisions of the 1852 Act, consolidating the legislation establishing Parliament, and officially replacing the name “General Assembly” with “Parliament”.[23][14]

          So your story of a supreme parliament is simple crap. Please come back after you learn the constitutional history of this country rather than some mythological bullshit you just made up.

  14. thinker 14
    12 September 2024 at 2:27 pm

    And what has it cost the taxpayers to produce, debate, and whatever else is required to get this bill to it's first reading, whereupon it has already failed?

    How many school lunches, how many cancer treatments have been wasted by this government that prides itself on prudent fiscal management, to do something that two of the three coalition partners have said is wasted money, from the outset?