Maori rights urged to be given recognition

Press, 29 May 1989, Page 6

Maori rights urged to be given recognition

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

; The rights of the Maori, as defined by Maori and affirmed by the Treaty of Waitangi, must be given effect immediately, the human rights policy conference in : Wellington has decided.

The conference took the form of a series of recommendations and a report to the Government on how non-Government organisations saw human rights priorities. These would be given serious consideration by the Government, said the Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ms Wilde, afterwards. But she said the Government had by no means given the conference “a blank cheque.” The conference agreed that the Treaty was fundamental to human rights in New Zealand and said that both collective and

individual rights in it must be recognised in Government policy immediately. To implement this there should be an informed public debate about the Treaty, run by the community, including Maori people, rather than by the Crown and Maori tribe treaty partners. The conference wanted a consistent human rights policy applied to all relevant situations, both domestic and overseas, including trade. There also needed to be greater liaison between the Ministry of External Relations and Trade and the non-Government

organisations involved. This would ensure that all Ministers, officials and trade delegations were briefed on alleged human rights abuses in countries they were about to visit. Conference recommendations were divided into those achieved by consensus and those without consensus but supported by a majority vote. The latter group of recommendations included one that “the rights of gay men and lesbians be seen as a priority of anti-dis-crimination policy.” Ms Wilde said the theme of the conference was that the Treaty of

Waitangi, and not the package of international human rights declarations and covenants, should be New Zealand’s base document for human rights. New Zealand had to see not only its own human rights issues in terms of the Treaty, but its treatment of international issues should be in terms of the Treaty too,, she said. But the conference also recommended that specific human rights policy be compatible with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and other appropriate international instruments.