Treaty of Waitangi not included in announced Bill of Rights
A Bill of Rights will be introduced to Parliament by the Government, but it will not include the Treaty of Waitangi. The Minister of Justice, Mr Palmer, announced the Government’s intention at a human rights policy conference in Parliament at the week-end. The Bill of Rights would be in line with the recommendations of the special Parliamentary select committee considering the 1985 White Paper, he said. It would be a discipline on the Government. Its function would be to act as a safeguard, Mr Palmer said, and so be an important step in New Zealand’s evolution towards con-
stitutional maturity. It had originally been the Government’s intention to include the Treaty of Waitangi, but in April, 1987, a hui sponsored by the Maori Council and the Joint Council of Maori Churches had resolved that the Bill of Rights should not deal with the Treaty because to do so would have undermined it. Mr Palmer said that had followed a similar expression of opinion at an earlier national hui on the Treaty. “I am unable to see how the Treaty could have been undermined by being entrenched as supreme law,” he said. But the select committee had
preferred legislation that was an ordinary statute and not an entrenched supreme statute. To include the Treaty in ordinary legislation would not be appropriate. The courts already interpreted legislation so as to accord with the Treaty on well-known principles. Many people had expressed their concern about an entrenched supreme statute, Mr Palmer said, on the ground that it would transfer supreme power from their elected representatives to the judiciary. The select committee’s recommendations had taken those fears into acccount. There was no point in a Bill of
Rights that divided people. If it were seen as a focus of conflict and division it would fail, he said. The same was true for the Treaty itself. The fundamental need was to develop a constructive partnership between Maori and non-Maori, and that would still be the case whether or not the Treaty of Waitangi existed. A Bill of Rights would protect the fundamental rights and freedoms that belonged to all the people of New Zealand. • The Treaty had to be seen not simply as a symbol of Maori rights, Mr Palmer said, but as a symbol for a set of rights and obligations undertaken by both sides.
Treaty of Waitangi not included in announced Bill of Rights
Press, 29 May 1989, Page 6
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