Hughes Gareth: Royal Succession Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Royal Succession Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15440. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): When the Minister in the chair the Minister of Justice is not calling people “numpties” she is misleading the Committee when it comes to the allegations that I was belittling our Treaty history. I was not intending to take a call on the Committee stage of the Royal Succession Bill but I just—Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I take exception at being told that I misled the Committee.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I am not sure that I am going to uphold that point of order. That is quite a frequent statement.GARETH HUGHES: Thank you Mr Chair because I do not want to make a personal explanation but I do want to explain where I am coming from as an individual member in this House when it comes to the Treaty in relation to this bill. Obviously in previous calls I have argued I believe passionately for a change of our constitutional arrangements for a New Zealand head of State which is different from what we see with the new provisions in this law. I acknowledged in my contribution the role of the Treaty. What I want to see is a genuine Treaty conversation in New Zealand about how we actually celebrate it how we educate about it and how we actually bring it into effect because—Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This bill before us is not about a republic. It has nothing to do with the republic issue so I would like you to bring him back to what is actually in the bill. It is actually quite narrow.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Yes that is a valid point of order. Sometimes there is kind of a comparative thing made. I would ask the member to come back to the substance of the bill.GARETH HUGHES: Thank you Mr Chair. In the clauses of this bill we see the changes to the royal succession for female babies. We have heard from the Minister in the chair and from other members about the role of the Treaty in the constitutional relationship that the Queen of England has with New Zealand. I want to point out that when you look at those Treaty relationships brought up by the Minister—I was making the point that in fact under the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947 the Crown has not been the monarch Elizabeth Windsor; the Crown has been the New Zealand Parliament and the New Zealand Governor-General. This is my point. The Minister is a lawyer. She should be aware of these points.I am not belittling the history of the Treaty; what I am saying is that I am excited about the opportunity from this bill that we can actually have a constitutional debate about how we best reflect the Treaty and how we best bring it into effect. I raised a suggestion around the idea of an Upper House a Treaty House. I do not believe that that is belittling the Treaty; I believe that it is actually looking to the future. I acknowledge the concerns because the Treaty was a historic unprecedented activity in global history and obviously is of great importance to both Māori and Pākehā and all cultures enshrined in New Zealand. It is something special that occurred only down here in Aotearoa New Zealand.I have a different opinion from that of my colleague Catherine Delahunty who is sitting next to me and no doubt many other members. I do not believe that the fact that it was signed by Governor Hobson on behalf of an 18-year-old Queen Victoria means it has to be put on ice for ever. I believe that constitutional arrangements can change. As a party that has Te Tiriti o Waitangi enshrined in its charter in the heart of our party what I could not countenance is changing our constitutional arrangements and lessening the role of the Treaty. What I am merely portraying—and I am not belittling the Treaty—is that I believe that our constitutional arrangements have been put on ice and we could actually go further do better and learn more about Te Tiriti o Waitangi if we actually embraced it and went forward with a genuine conversation about our head of State.Obviously what I want to see is a genuine Treaty relationship. I am obviously of Pākehā descent. My father emigrated from Wales and both of my two kids now have the blood of England Ireland Scotland and Wales. It has taken only 200 years for all the nations of the United Kingdom to be found in New Zealand literally on the other side of the world. I am fortunate to have grown up in Gisborne and unfortunate to have had very little to no historical education in school or training. I think it is a great tragedy that we do not teach our kids about history and the Treaty.I want to finish on a final point which is that if we are going to be talking about the Treaty we also have to have a conversation about tino rangatiratanga. If you look at New Zealand history this was not ceded in a treaty. This was ceded at the point of a musket. When you look at what happened on the beach at Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa Gisborne the first contact between James Cook and Te Maro ended in bloodshed and nails left on a corpse. Let us have a genuine conversation about the Treaty. Let us not throw out allegations about belittling history as we saw from the Minister in the chair. Let us actually have a conversation. Let us have a conversation about how we can improve Te Tiriti o Waitangi with a new indigenous Pacific-centred constitutional arrangement for Aotearoa New Zealand.