Smith Murray: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Smith Murray: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:606;Page:3468] 
MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 Twenty-seven years ago the then Labour Government led New Zealand into a dark tunnel. It asked New Zealanders to trust it to lead the way through the tunnel and out the other side and New Zealanders gave it that trust. The tunnel I am referring to is the redressing of the Crown’s breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi over 150 years and the development of a New Zealand society that gives appropriate contemporary recognition to the relationship that was formed between Maori and non-Maori in 1840. Most New Zealanders know and accept that immediately following the signing of the treaty the Crown reneged on its obligations. Not only that but it suppressed tikanga Maori and te reo Maori forcing Maori to conform to the inherited British culture. Acts of Parliament were passed stripping Maori of their lands their identity and their mana. Maori lost much of their self-esteem and the social statistics over the last 150 years graphically evidence that repression.  
An often overlooked consequence of those actions is that non-Maori New Zealanders became accustomed to living in a society developed entirely from British culture—dominated by non-Maori where Maori in general had little material wealth and even less socio-economic status—which ignored the rights of Maori that the Crown as signatory to the treaty had promised to protect.  
During the 1990s in particular the National Government decided to its credit to continue to address the difficult issue of putting right the wrongs perpetrated against Maori and to move New Zealand ahead as a unified nation. It moved away from the colonialist attitude of its predecessor Governments. However 27 years later we are still in the dark tunnel. The Labour Government is leading our nation seemingly promising us that as we address the wrongs done against Maori a new society will emerge at some unknown time in the future in which Maori will attend their rightful place whatever that might be.  
But just what is Labour’s vision for this new society? What do they think New Zealand will look like in 10 20 or 50 years’ time? If they have any such vision why will the Prime Minister not share it with the rest of New Zealand? The answer is that Labour does not know where it is going. It apparently cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel and is wandering in the darkness asking New Zealanders to simply trust it even though it is blind.  
The Prime Minister in her speech referred to the Government “continuing its partnerships with Maoridom”. Labour’s manifesto refers to its “strengthening its relationship with Maori as treaty partner”. But what of this partnership? Is this a 50-50 partnership? Are Maori and non-Maori to have an equal say in the government of the country and everything below it? Is that what the Labour Party envisages? If so it is time it told the country; if not what sort of partnership proportions are we talking about? 
The Government is giving mixed signals. On the one hand it is increasingly legislating for compulsory Maori consultation on a wide range of issues. That points towards some sort of 50-50 partnership. On the other it seeks to marginalise Maori passing a bill allowing for Maori seats in local government that will effectively mean that Maori have a mere 15 percent representation on local authorities and that once their 15 percent voice has spoken the other 85 percent of non-Maori elected representatives will use their vast majority to make the decision. That would suggest an 85-15 partnership based on population size. Is that what the Labour Government means by partnership?  
The National Party having started off down the tunnel has now decided that it no longer wants to follow Labour through the tunnel. It has decided to go back to the beginning of the tunnel to go back to the colonial past where the predominantly non-Maori government dominated Maori affairs and Maori had to simply fit in with what the Government decided was best for the whole of New Zealand. Any concept of working together with Maori or embracing Maori culture has gone out of the window.  
The fact that National has only made such a dramatic policy U-turn to differentiate itself from Labour makes its pragmatic policy experiment reprehensible. National promotes policies that would again repress Maori and count the treaty as simply a historical document with no significance in modern New Zealand. I predict that as a result of National’s new position we will this year see the rise of an extremely divisive and highly charged debate that will set New Zealanders against each other in a highly destructive way. The flame had already begun. National has just poured petrol on the fire.  
New Zealanders are becoming tired of being led through the tunnel with no end in sight. If they could only be shown the light. If they could only be shown that the credible endeavours of this Government to bring Maori up to the same living standards as non-Maori and to redress the grievances was being done with all urgency and that there is a clear commitment that in 10-15 years time the grievances would be behind us the Maori statistical indices would equate to the average New Zealand indices and we could move forward as a unified nation again—Maori and non-Maori together. That is the vision that New Zealand asks for this year but it is a vision that the Labour Government is unable to deliver.