te Heuheu Georgina: Supreme Court Bill — Second Reading 
te Heuheu Georgina: Supreme Court Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:8917] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National) 
: 
 National opposes this bill and when we get back into Government in 2005 along with our supporters on this side of the House we will bring back appeals to the Privy Council. The loss of the Privy Council to New Zealand’s court structure will be a sad day for this country. It will go down as a day when Margaret Wilson the Attorney-General had her way with her socialist republican agenda. Maori members on the other side of the House ought to be worried about that. The problem is that this is a change that is being made against the will and the wishes of the New Zealand public. It is a change that will be made by a minority Government with only three votes to spare. That is why it is an outrage and as I said it is being done by stealth and to Margaret Wilson’s agenda and we the public of New Zealand are the recipients of that. However mark my words the public of New Zealand have woken up to her. They consider her to be one of the most dangerous women in this country because they can see that by hook or by crook she is setting out on a path to change the face of our constitution without their consent. That is where the outrage comes in. 
In case I forget I want to say that I am very pleased that United Future—now that we are back in the House having completed the select committee process—has indicated clearly that it will oppose this legislation. Members of the Greens however in their sort of dithery way right through the select committee process pretended in my view that they would take notice of the submissions particularly Maori submissions. Nandor Tanczos was quite vocal on the fact that he wanted to see where the weight of Maori opinion was and he said he had an open mind. Well I do not know what happened to his mind in the end. It closed—because he heard the majority of Maori submissions just as I did yet regardless of the fact that the majority were against the abolition of the Privy Council in the end Nandor Tanczos clearly went back to his caucus and said: “I’m happy with the bill.” It is to his and his party’s great shame that they happily stand up in this Chamber and babble on about Maori tino rangatiratanga. I have heard things from them about what that stands for that I have never heard from Maori people but that is what they do—they stand up and babble on about Maori tino rangatiratanga. When they had the chance to show they appreciated what that was and that they would support it what did they do? They turned their backs on Maori and showed in essence that they do not understand what Maori tino rangatiratanga is. 
I also want to turn to the Maori MPs in the Government. Seven of those MPs are in Government on the strength of the Maori votes. As I look across the House I see my whanaunga from the Bay of Plenty Mita Ririnui. We were both on the select committee in Rotorua as was the Rt Hon Winston Peters and no doubt he will say something just as damning of those Maori MPs. Miti Ririnui heard the severe opposition by Maori submitters to this bill. But it is kind of like: “Well yes OK we hear you Maori” but either they do not hear or they give no credence to the Maori arguments and I think that that is disgusting. Maori people know exactly what they are talking about when they talk about things like the constitution and the court structure. They have had so much experience of all of that over 160 years. They know exactly what they are talking about when they talk about the foreshore and seabed as well. Yet the Maori MPs have given no indication that they took any of the arguments from the Opposition on board. They have not replied which would have been normal courtesy in my view. It would have been in keeping with tikanga to go back to the Maori electorate and say: “Well we heard your arguments.” then discuss each of those arguments. That would have been tikanga but no the Maori Labour MPs will go down in this House with what I think will not be a proud record at all. They are helping Margaret Wilson to shepherd this legislation through. Goodness knows what they will do on the foreshore and seabed issue. They are in power on the strength of the Maori vote and they ignore that vote at their peril and that is what they are doing here in relation to this bill. 
The weight of the opinion before the select committee as we have been told a number of times already was that just over 70 percent of the submissions are opposed to the Supreme Court Bill. Given the weight of the opposition from business Maori interests representative groups like Local Government New Zealand and so on and Federated Farmers many many individuals and the legal profession as well I would think that this Government might have slowed down and decided that really there is no rush for this—because there is not. There is no rush for this. They might have taken it into their heads to think: “Well maybe when people come to us and say this is a major constitutional move and that it should not be done without the will of the public of New Zealand or a 75 percent majority in this House we will take two steps back and think about it and perhaps put it on hold.” But no they are determined to push this through. They are determined to push it through in the face of major opposition. That opposition was absolutely evident throughout the 4 or 5 months that we sat on the select committee. Nothing that Margaret Wilson or any of the Government speakers has said answers what I think were very valid cogent arguments put to us by those who took the time and delivered their submissions before the committee. 
The point about the Maori opposition—particularly based as it was on opposition to a constitutional change of this magnitude when issues like the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand’s constitution have not been properly debated or considered—and issues like that in my view ought to have made the Government slow down. Addressing those issues by way of changes to the purpose clause and the leave provisions does not answer the objection no matter what Nandor Tanczos might think. I am sure he thinks that Maori ought to be happy now because the Treaty of Waitangi is referred to in both the purpose clause and the leave provisions. Well he needs to think again because that does not address any of the arguments that they put and it will not satisfy the opposition that they brought to us. 
I think this is a sad day. We have come back from the select committee and I want to thank the select committee officials and the departmental officials. They were extremely helpful. But in the end I guess they have a little bit of responsibility in a way to bring back advice that basically supports what this Government wants. They certainly answered all the queries and the requests from the Opposition but ultimately I guess when it comes to the crunch this Government is embarking on a course of its own regardless of who supports it. I suppose that in a way the official advice probably has to reflect that. I do not mean any disrespect to the officials but I guess that is the way it goes. I come back to where I started—this is a sad day. It will be a sad day for New Zealand when access to the Privy Council is lost to us. The existence of an independent arbiter at the highest level of our court structure is something we are so fortunate to have and is something that we will all be the worse off for when it is gone.