9 Comments

Brilliant. So much more compelling and of course lawyerly than my own short submission. Notably though, although the Bill's Principles One and Three sail through with flying colours, Principle 2 needed a little more explanation. My own submission was significantly more critical of Principle 2. Sentence two in particular appears to endorse the notion of potentially granting Maori different rights under as yet unspecified Treaty related legislation. Effectively leaving the claims book open in perpetuity. Leaving an open wound, rather than taking the opportunity to stitch it up once and for all, so that we can all move on with dealing with such existential matters like how this nation is going to turn itself around to make a decent living.

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Thanks, Ron.

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An excellent submission thanks. I hope you don't mind if my eventual submission 'borrows' a little from yours (or uses as inspiration perhaps?)

I understand your addition of 'Maori people' for Clause 2, but my fear remains:

"The Crown recognises, and will respect and protect, the rights that the chiefs, hapu and the Māori people had under the Treaty of Waitangi/te Tiriti o Waitangi at the time they signed it."

that those yet-to-be-clearly-confirmed 'rights' risk then being argued (added to) ad infinitum.

It would be nice if at some stage, someone authorative could officially decree that those rights were simply property rights rather than open ended, such as per Glazebrook that, "the state has a responsibility actively to fund the promotion of Maori language and culture and language". A little too open-ended (chequebook) for my liking and I cannot find such direction in the Treaty or te Tiriti or anything else from that time.

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Thanks, Just Boris. As I hope my submission explained, I think the restriction to historical Treaty claims deals with that.

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Dec 19Edited

If the state has a responsibility actively to fund the promotion of the English language, then Article 3 guarantees equality and equal funding for the Māori language.

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Dec 18Edited

The term property encompasses everything belonging to Māori, the land, their possessions, the forests and waterways, minerals and spectrum. If anything can be controlled, owned or used, then it can be considered property. Pre colonisation, the property of NZ was controlled by iwi alone. It would be impossible that the colonisers would have any right to this property without its sale or permission from the rangatira, which was confirmed under Article 2.

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Article 2 refers to wenua, kainga and taonga. In 1840, taonga meant property, specifically property obtained by the spear (tao=spear). Taonga being a more general word, it takes its colour from the preceding species of property. Article 2 was referring to things which could be physically possessed.

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Thanks for sharing this Gary. Excellent and measured.

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Thank you Gary.

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