Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā tātou katoa; ngā mihi mahana tino tautoko e hoa. [Greetings to you Mr Deputy Speaker of the House and to us all; warm acknowledgments to you colleague I truly endorse you.]I really want to start with some information from a November 2004 Cabinet Office document that is entitled New Zealand's constitution – past present and future". Paragraph 6 of that particular document says: "New Zealand is one of only three countries in the world without a full and entrenched written constitution (the others are Britain and Israel)." What it says is that the law in our country is sourced from the following: the Queen various statutes with constitutional significance—they include the Constitution Act the Electoral Act the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and also the Magna Carta. It also says that the courts and the Treaty of Waitangi form New Zealand's constitution. I bring that up because the interesting point to raise after Minister Finlayson's comment is based on the fact that the law is something that we all swear to and if that includes the Treaty well it actually also includes the Queen and we do swear allegiance to the Queen. Therein begins my assessment of this piece of legislation. So in 1957 the Oaths and Declarations Act was created. It was the Act that thereby gave us as office holders the words to say when we were elected to certain offices. Forty-eight years later on 17 May 2005 we actually decided to review it. The Minister at that time was Phil Goff; he was the Minister of Justice. We did that through the Oaths Modernisation Bill because we thought it was about time that we modernised that piece of legislation. What did that result in? It actually resulted in the affirmation. What else did that result in? It resulted in the use of Te Reo. So now when we come into this House at the beginning of each term we can say the oath or the affirmation in English or in Māori. An interesting thing that happened during that process was we actually did have a discussion document and we did ask the public. The public did feed back. They said that yes they wanted to keep the reference to the Queen and that yes they wanted to keep the reference to religious beliefs. So some of us do say "so help me God" after we say the oath. That is great. That is fine. So to say that the oath does not evolve or it does not reflect society is actually completely incorrect. What is an oath? Let us get to definitions. An oath is a solemn promise. It is also a commitment to one's future action or behaviour. That is what an oath is. That is what we all swear when we come into this wonderful institution that we are all so privileged to represent. We are here for the people of Aotearoa New Zealand. All we ask and I think all they ask of us is that we evolve with society. I think that the proposition in this piece of legislation is something that merits support at first reading—I really do. Things that have been brought up—we can fix them. That is what the select committee process is all about. I actually think we are completely undermining this institution by not supporting this piece of legislation. The interesting thing is—if you look back to 2005 guess who voted against modernising the oaths? The National Party did. It did not support creating an affirmation. It did not support enabling us to say either the oath or the affirmation in Te Reo. For them at that time reading through the Hansard it was all about republicanism. We were on the path to republicanism. That seemed to be its biggest issue for not supporting—after 48 years—a piece of legislation that this Parliament supported. It was a Government bill; Labour led that process. My colleagues I just cannot for the life of me see why the National Government will not support the piece of legislation that Marama Fox has brought to this House. That would enable the select committee to fix up any issues. But at the end of the day give us the choice as New Zealanders to pledge allegiance to the Treaty of Waitangi. We could get rid of the principles then. Let us all just have an ability to pledge allegiance to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. So I will take this opportunity: I pledge allegiance to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Kia ora tātou."