Constitutional Questions

This has taken some time to write as I've wanted to read source materials and think about why the political .

A great deal of noise is being made about the Treaty Bill, aimed at denying that there is any legitimacy in having a debate or discussion: the call is to kill the bill before any process of examination. 

That idea seems unconcerned with democratic process and free speech.

However, there is almost no meaningful engagement in the issues the bill raises by the representatives of Maori visible in the legacy media, or the legacy media themselves.

Buried in amongst that noise, there are several fundamental questions I need to think about.

What are our constitutional arrangements?

We are being told that the Treaty is a, if not the, founding document of the country, which makes it a large part of our 'informal' constitutional arrangements. If that is so, then it means that we have an arrangement that is being evolved by the judiciary, the legal profession, and a technocracy, none of whom are directly answerable to the citizens. There is also a role in there for the vested interests that have attached themselves to the treaty processes over the last 50 years.

A statement I heard from Te Pati Maori on RNZ was that constitutional matters should not be subject to democratic process: that made my jaw drop. One of the primary tasks, possibly the primary task, of democracy is to set up a democratically derived framework to underpin a just society, and that is usually through a constitution that attempts to clearly define those underpinnings. But given we don't have a formal constitution, the perception now seems to be that defining how our society runs is up for grabs.

If a constitution is imposed without the transparent consent of the majority of the citizens it will foment discord and resistance that won't go away. 

In the light of the above, ACT's treaty bill looks like an attempt at transparency and certainty.

Does anyone else see what looks like the end of factual discourse as a reason for concern? Or is it just me?

Labour and The Greens don't seem phased by anti-democratic sentiments and are backing the calls to prevent the bill from progressing - while making no engagement with the issues it raises. That reads that there is no defensible position they can find to argue and are strenuously making noise to avoid a discussing matters of fact. 

Is the 'Left' still recognisable as such, given noise is overpowering broad-church  leftism?

That unwillingness to engage in matters of fact is deeply worrying for someone who has generally been a mildly left-of-centre voter. 

Whatever has replaced the 'Left' in the age of identity politics seems to regard many working people as having extreme points of view and has abandoned them as the NZ version of 'deplorables'. If left unchanged it will condemn the Labour Party to permanently occupying a political niche - and likely the opposition benches. Something else may arise for the working people, and on current world trends, it will be populist and quite possibly involve demagoguery.

Will this issue be a death knell for public trust in the Legacy Media, and will it mean the more extreme media outlets will flourish where there is a vacuum of balance?

Trust in Legacy Media is plummeting: while partisanship in commercial media frantically chasing a diminishing market is comprehensible, when non-commercial organisations like RNZ appear partisan with content and conduct towards different groups, it's no wonder trust is sputtering and audiences are heading away to other platforms.

The phrase: "divisive treaty bill" is now a routine descriptive in RNZ's reporting. The bill isn't divisive, but division is bred by our society's adversarial nature and our inability to hold a conversation about a collaborative, just and democratic way forward, and any discussion is not being helped by opinion masquerading as journalism.

Sovereignty?

The claims that sovereignty was never ceded need to be critically examined as they underpin claims about setting up a parallel state.

A good recap of the only written account at the time, by William Colenso who, as the printer of the first Bible in Maori, had a deep and sympathetic understanding of language and culture. He carefully asked to make sure the chiefs who signed understood what was intended, and his take was yes, the understanding was clear. This has also been accepted by the Maori Council as true and accurate as it was used to win a settlement from the Crown in 2014. 

So: it appears a false claim but is emblematic of a covert, creeping revisionism of the Treaty by people and organisations who do not answer to democratic processes.

Was the original act of Parliament that set up the Waitangi Tribunal, but left the interpretations of principle to non democratically representative bodies a good idea?

It's looking like maybe not.