English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
English Bill: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:606;Page:3341] 
2.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Leader of the Opposition) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: When she said in the Prime Minister’s statement to the House that her Government will ensure more information is made available about the Treaty of Waitangi will that include a guarantee that there will be one standard of citizenship for all New Zealanders; if not why not? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 The information available from Government agencies about the treaty will continue to be factual and considered. It will not include the member’s slogans. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Prime Minister tell the House who will be assembling the information for her education programme on the treaty and will it include Margaret Wilson or Mr Joris de Bres the Race Relations Conciliator who made inflammatory statements last year like “The colonisation of New Zealand is a sorry litany of cultural vandalism.”? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: A number of Government agencies presently have a role in dispersing information. They include of course the Office of Treaty Settlements the Waitangi Tribunal and the Human Rights Commission. What the member needs to face up to is that he is not nearly as good at this stuff as Mr Peters. 
Mahara Okeroa 
: Has the Prime Minister seen any reports on why this slogan is being used? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I saw a report that stated that National had chased every rabbit from leaky homes to nuclear-powered ships to migration and Maori seats on councils and that it is like a wallflower desperate for any dance. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: On the question of there being more information to be disseminated what will happen when that occurs given that neither the Attorney-General Margaret Wilson nor the Prime Minister or any other member of Parliament or Minister on the Government side of the House can even remotely tell us what the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi are that we are meant to be observing; is it a case of just sheer disinformation? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I refer the member to the excellent book on the treaty released by Te Puni Kokiri and commend it to him. 
Heather Roy 
: Which treaty does the Government intend to tell us about—the historical document signed at Waitangi or the so-far unseen document that is living and breathing heavily somewhere in the Hon Margaret Wilson’s office? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: That member could also do with a good course of study on a factual document. 
Nandor Tanczos 
: In respect of the previous question can the Prime Minister assure the House that the information will be about the document signed at Waitangi specifically the Maori language version that was signed by Governor Hobson and the vast majority of rangatira who signed the treaty and that explicitly reaffirms the tino rangatiratanga of hapu and can she also assure the House that such information will talk about the context in which Te Tiriti was signed—in particular the declaration of independence? [ 
Interruption 
]  
Mr SPEAKER 
: In the first question time of this year I want to say that a little comment is releasing some forces that have pent up over an adjournment but I have now had enough. A question has been asked and an answer will be given. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I did not write that patsy. It is important that any information issued by the Government or its agencies is factual and considered. Such information should of course refer to the fact that there was a Maori language version and an English version. Part of the debate of the last 163 years has been about the difference between the two. 
Murray Smith 
: How does the Prime Minister’s statement concerning making more information available about the Treaty of Waitangi in the future relate to the Human Rights Commission’s current goal number four of stimulating wider debate and dialogue on the treaty? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The Human Rights Commission does have a mandate to promote an understanding of the treaty within the context of its human rights mandate. The Human Rights Commission is one of the agencies I mentioned that is legitimately engaged in trying to ensure there is more information so that people can form their opinions on the basis of fact not myth and prejudice like the Leader of the Opposition. 
Hon Bill English 
: Do the Prime Minister’s answers today mean that she has abandoned the undertaking made by her Government to put forward a treaty education programme and why is it that Tariana Turia and Margaret Wilson say to journalists that they are working on a treaty education programme through Cabinet committees right now? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: As I told the House yesterday in the Prime Minister’s statement the Government is working on making more information available about the treaty. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can I take it from the Prime Minister’s comments that although Professor Matthew Palmer of Victoria University says that the Government has not outlined the principles and needs to do so notwithstanding that the courts of this country will follow the version of the Ministry of Maori Development and what sort of lawmaking is that? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: Matthew Palmer is one who argues that there should be some symbolic reference to the treaty in laws such as the Constitution Act. Mr Brownlee came very close to recommending such a thing in his article. That is not the position of the Government.