Mapp Wayne: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
Mapp Wayne: Business of Select Committees — Appointments 
[Volume:622;Page:18017] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 The last speech illustrates the whole difficulty of the process here. Essentially what Mr Dunne was saying is that this matter has to be driven from the top down that parliamentarians have to guide it and set the terms of reference. Apparently they should ignore the big topic that has motivated this whole inquiry. Let us be honest about this: the Government would not be moving to set up the select committee but for the Orewa speech earlier this year. I have to say to Mr Dunne that that in many respects is the central question about our identity. 
The reason I say that is I was involved in setting up the constitutional conference in the year 2000. I had extensive discussions with the then Prime Minister Jim Bolger the subsequent Prime Minister Jenny Shipley and with various other people including Colin James who became the organiser. The conference was held in the Legislative Council Chamber. 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Was it a waste of time? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: No it was not a waste of time actually. There was a large number of contributions but the abiding theme that came out of it was the sense of division. Whilst Colin James certainly pulled together all those contributions and the conference concluded with a tentative way forward in fact the whole issue stalled. That was the reality. Mr Franks will well remember this. The whole issue stalled because of the central issue of what was the role of the treaty and whether this nation could ever find any sense of consensus on it. I guess the fact that nothing happened thereafter meant that people thought it was too dangerous that it was too difficult to go close to and that we should do nothing. 
That was the Government’s response. In the year 2000 the current Government had a choice. It could have funded the university centre to continue the dialogue and to have further conferences and discussions. I am sure that Dr Cullen will recall that the Government made a conscious decision not to do so. It must have made that conscious decision because some eminent New Zealanders made these representations and the Government simply ignored them. After all these kinds of discussions require a degree of central government funding. That is why the conference occurred in the first place. In fact the Hon Tony Ryall provided $50000 from his Ministry of Justice budget to help it take place. 
The current Government has not done any of that. For the last 5 years it has done nothing. However when Dr Brash at Orewa made a speech that changed the political landscape of the country the Government suddenly felt the impulse and the necessity to have a constitutional select committee. It is all about defusing things. That is the Government’s intention. I do not believe that the public will be fooled by that process. I do not believe that a select committee of this Parliament as opposed to a process that is driven by a wider group of New Zealanders will be successful. Mr Dunne has said that it will all take a lot time the committee will just listen to things and make a report and so forth and ultimately there would be a referendum if there was to be any change. And Mr Dunne has been quite honest about what his particular motivations are. 
The interesting speech made by Dr Cullen raised a particular point. As I understood it he said he was a supporter of the current constitutional arrangements. He nailed his colours to the mast on that point. It seems to me that his views are different from those held by the Prime Minister. It is clear that the Government has an agenda. The high point of it in the sense that it has been the most prominent move was clearly the passage of the Supreme Court Act—and I wonder to what extent the Government rues the day it introduced that particular issue. Clearly it was a major step. The Government did not go and get public consent. It never put it to the people directly. I know that it was part of Labour’s overall manifesto but people vote on many things; I doubt whether the Supreme Court was uppermost in anyone’s mind. That particular issue was never put to the people. It was a major constitutional change. 
We could easily end up in a situation where the only thing left is in a sense the shadow of a monarchy. We could end up having a referendum that is intended to endorse effectively what has happened instead of there being a proactive decision by the public to make an affirmative choice. New Zealanders could end up endorsing the reality of what has already happened. Why do I say that? I say it because when I look at what the Government has done over the last several years I see a series of measures that are small in themselves but are cumulatively quite significant—incremental creeping republicanism in fact. I refer to measures like changes in the oath of allegiance for new citizens; the renaming of Queen’s Counsel to Senior Counsel; and the change to the oath of allegiance for senior military officers—it is no longer to the Crown but to the Government and that is quite a significant change. We also have the removal of the portrait of the Queen to be replaced by that of the Prime Minister in our embassies—though not perhaps our high commissions—and the refusal to issue a Queen’s golden jubilee medal in 2003 when Canada actually did so. 
So collectively the Government—the Prime Minister at least if not Dr Cullen—clearly has an agenda. To be fair the Prime Minister has been reasonably open about it. She does want New Zealand to be a republic; she actually says that. But more significant she has been taking a series of steps intended to get New Zealanders to the point where when we have the referendum the result will be a foregone conclusion. That seems to be the overall plan. We have to see in a sense the establishment of this select committee as part and parcel of the process. 
There are other ways to deal with the matter. I do recognise that there is a degree of interest in constitutional issues. Obviously I understand that; otherwise I would hardly have been involved in setting up the conference in 2000. I suggest that the more appropriate path—the path the Government should have taken—was to develop the outcomes from the constitutional conference in 2000. That would have been much more obviously and transparently a process controlled essentially by the public as opposed to the agenda-driven approach of a committee. 
I acknowledge that Mr Dunne will try to chair the committee fairly; I accept that. Nevertheless that is not the issue. The issue is twofold. Firstly is this review a diversion? The answer is yes. Secondly is it intended to be part of an overall agenda to advance the cause of republicanism so that a referendum will simply be a confirmatory vote as opposed to a genuine choice? I believe that the answer to that is yes also. The Deputy Prime Minister said today that he believes in supporting the constitutional monarchy. I think that is in reality a minority view—to be charitable—in his own Government because it is clearly not the Government’s agenda. 
For those two fundamental reasons—firstly it is a diversion; secondly it is part of an overall agenda—National finds that it cannot support this proposition. Moreover the terms of reference simply do not address the central issue so eloquently addressed by Dr Brash earlier this year.