Street Maryan: Royal Succession Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Royal Succession Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15439. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I also rise to take a short call in this Committee stage on the Royal Succession Bill. It is a truism to say that history is important to us. It does not matter whether we are Māori or Pākehā or of any other ethnic extraction each of us holds to our history with a fierce grip. The history of our tūpuna and of our relationships with the people whom our tūpuna had relationships with are of critical importance to who we are now. I feel as a Pākehā as strongly as Māori do about their tūpuna. I recognise that with my Pākehā pedigree I am linked back to England—and a little bit to Scotland but primarily England—and I cannot ignore that part of my heritage.When we are debating this bill I think we need to recall the significance of history because although I do not wish to delay the proceedings of this House in getting to the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character Mana and Reputation) Bill I do also want to reiterate the point I made earlier even at the Committee stage that any movement away from the constitutional relationship we currently have with the Queen of England whoas the Minister in the chair the Minister of Justice says is also the Queen of New Zealand has to be one that is thought through extremely carefully with those descendents of the people who signed a treaty with Queen Victoria. It was a treaty with Queen Victoria. If we are no longer to have a Sovereign in place in our founding document then we have to be very very certain that the Treaty of Waitangi is not eroded and that in fact it is enhanced in the process. So I am not quick to move to a republic because of that reason if no other.But I also want to respect the role of the Sovereign and in fact the lifetime of service that the current Sovereign has given in the United Kingdom but also across the Commonwealth where she has acknowledged and moved with the times as members of the Commonwealth have established their own constitutional arrangements their own parliamentary independence and their own separate status but remaining part of the extraordinary residue of colonisation that is the Commonwealth. That has both good and bad things attached to it but it is a residual vestige of colonisation that has transformed into something that can be and has been of international significance. That is not to be diminished by any of the light-heartedness that I brought to my earlier contribution to this debate.What we have in Aotearoa New Zealand is a unique debate about the role of the Sovereign. At this point we are modernising the royal succession in agreement with every other country that is one of the realms of the Sovereign. This has been agreed with all the relevant countries. It would be unhelpful unconstructive and in fact quite extraordinary if we were not to support this because it affects not only New Zealand but all of those countries that are represented at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. In Perth in 2011 these changes were approved in principle by that family of countries and this is their final moment of fruition here in New Zealand.I want to just stress however that constitutional matters must always be informed by history. Our constitutional arrangements in New Zealand have had preponderance towards inheriting British traditions and British laws. Our point of difference in the world is Te Tiriti o Waitangi and we need to preserve that and our uniqueness at all costs. Thank you for your indulgence.