Wednesday, May 11, 2005



Back in Parliament

Winston Peters' Treaty Principles Deletion Bill will be back in Parliament today. Fortunately, it's expected to fall at the first reading, with Labour, the Greens, and the Maori Party all lining up to vote against it. But like Larry Baldock's Marriage (Gender Clarification) Amendment Bill, it isn't really intended to succeed. Instead, the goal of both bills is precisely to force the government to vote them down, thus mobilising NZFirst's and United Future's respective bases of culturally insecure bigots.

If you're unsure why this bill is a bad idea, see here.

8 comments:

And of course you can explain the Principles of the Treaty NOT

Posted by Anonymous : 5/11/2005 03:13:00 PM

Go read David Slacks book..

I think Winnie's bill has two positive aspects:
- convincing Maori not to vote for NZF
- convincing the Maori Party not to support a coalition that includes NZF

Posted by Rich : 5/11/2005 04:49:00 PM

Still not very convinced by your reasons why its a bad idea.

These grand treaties that are supposed to bind races and countries forever are all rubish. they just to varying degrees get in the way of the government making the best decision in any situation. Admittedly the treaty of waitangi probably doesnt get in the way, much, but in principle it is fundimentally a bad thing.

It being our founding document is no more convincing than if you said some declaration or treaty of columbus was the founding document of america. or that america should be run by a system that is a cross between spanish and the Aztec tradition. It is just a fallicy known as a "appeal to tradition".

I expect we can get rid of this nonsense when the country is largely chinese.

Posted by Genius : 5/11/2005 07:27:00 PM

Would people care about the treaty of waitangi if it was in favour of white people (i.e. the country of NZ but be run according to the traditions of white people) or males or whatever?

I know I would oppose it all the same.

Posted by Genius : 5/11/2005 07:47:00 PM

Anon: the principles of the Treaty are defined in a 1989 document, Principles for Crown Action on the Treaty of Waitangi. They boil down to government (the government has a right to govern), self-management (iwi have a right to control their own resources and organise themselves as they see fit), equality (everyone's a citizen), cooperation (the government must consult iwi on major issues which affect Maori), and redress (past wrongs must be righted). Unfortunately, I don't believe its available online.

Genius: you see, I happen to think that limits on what the government is allowed to do are generally a very good thing. The Treaty contains very few, which duplicate the common law anyway - but sadly past governments have managed to violate them anyway.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 5/12/2005 12:24:00 AM

Genius: I think that if the Treaty was grossly unfair in that way, it would be ignored. But what makes it valuable is that it's not grossly unfair. The Treaty actually says very little about how New Zealand is to be governed (it leaves the balance between kawanatanga and te tino rangitiratanga completely up in the air) - but what it does say is that we will all be citizens together in a joint project. That's a fairly good foundation to build from, neh?

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 5/12/2005 12:25:00 AM

> Genius: you see, I happen to think that limits on what the government is allowed to do are generally a very good thing.

I think such limits are tolerable when very carefully designed to achieve positive ends for society as a whole and even then should be reviewed and amended according to a super majority. the problem is however if you cant trust your government how can you trust your consitution?

> But what makes it valuable is that it's not grossly unfair.

If your argument is I support the treaty because it happens to support me - dont be surprised if we are not impressed.

> we will all be citizens together in a joint project. That's a fairly good foundation to build from, neh?

I believe that too but my belief has nothing to do with the treaty of waitangi. It is a fundimental principle of true democracy that should exist in any country I go to and not having a treaty of waitangi is no excuse for not applying that.

-------

> the treaty principles idea is all about including maori in new zealand society, not separatist.

if so it is better just to say "include maori" as opposed to some convoluted treaty. Having said that that I would rather it if you did not since if we "include" maori and "include" white people it implies we "exclude" all other groups even if through lack of attention.

> sure, there's still problems with the system, but it ain't broke. knee-jerk demands to dump the treaty are really just redrubberneckery at their worst.

wanting to make a system slightly better is redrubberneckery?
hmm... by the way how does one define redrubberneckery??

Posted by Genius : 5/12/2005 07:02:00 PM

Actually, I don't think Labour
does have to be 'forced' into
voting against Baldock's
"Defence of Marriage Bill"/
Marriage (Gender Clarification)
Bill.

Not doing much good for UFNZ,
though, they're still averaging
2-3pc

Craig Y

Posted by Anonymous : 6/04/2005 11:48:00 AM