Peters Winston: General Debates 
Peters Winston: General Debates 
[Volume:609;Page:6565] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 A wise man said recently that the only safe place for a sane person in a mad world is a lunatic asylum and today I fully understand what that wise man meant. Policies of madness followed by Labour and National Governments over two decades have led us to a constitutional crisis over who owns our foreshores seabed and other resources. This madness was the development of a befuddled series of laws relating to the Treaty of Waitangi and the separation of the people of New Zealand into two groups of citizens: one group with special rights based on race the other group with none. It is time to repeal the mythical Treaty of Waitangi principles in New Zealand laws. It is time to create a State in which all citizens are equal in the eyes of one set of laws. 
Today Sir Paul Reeves the chairman of the Bioethics Council told the Education and Science Committee that the set of principles of the Treaty of Waitangi that he goes by are those set down by Cabinet. That will come as an alarming piece of information because Cabinet has not set down any principles whatsoever. Later on he claimed that politicians have been remiss for not having clearly established a set of principles of the treaty for the public to operate under. That comment was from a person who has been recommended to head the panel on who will choose our new Supreme Court judges. 
All of us Maori or otherwise should be able to rely on the legal rights that British subjects have enjoyed—rights that go back to the Magna Carta. There must be one set of laws for us all. It is totally incomprehensible to any sane person that on 5 February 1840 Queen Victoria had one relationship with millions of her subjects throughout the empire and in England yet the next day she had a different relationship with Maori. It is all based on a myth. The Treaty of Waitangi was part of the colonising process. It was drawn up in the dead of night by a naval officer and was never and must never be seen as some sort of binding legal document. There is no legal partnership between Maori and the Crown. It is a myth despite the comments made by some judicial activists and a whole lot of politicians on both sides of this House. We are not in a strict legal sense treaty partners. The idea that we are a partnership came from a 1987 decision that was not sound in law and it has been taken up ever since by the National Party and Labour and carried on as though it is some sort of mantra that we must have as a guide for the future. It is unfair and unjust that principles ascribed to the treaty be used to advance the interests of one section of society as opposed to the society as a whole. 
All Governments must be fair and neutral in matters of race. We have faced many decades of divisive arguments over Maori claims for environmental resources. These claims have been based on false hopes and expectations that have been built up by woolly-headed lawmakers. We in New Zealand First do not intend for those who are responsible for this mess both in Labour and National and other parties to get away with just washing their hands and walking away from the issue. They are all guilty—they should look at the  
Hansard— 
of year in and year out compiling this mess. The present situation which is causing concern to all New Zealanders has been caused by the policy that some citizens have special or antecedent rights and privileges extending over every natural resource in this land and the surrounding sea. We cannot function as a country if there is politically and legally sanctioned racial preferment for one racial group. It tore South Africa apart it tore the south of the United States apart and it will tear this country apart if we carry on the way we are going. 
New Zealand First will support any move to ensure that the Crown has legal title to the foreshore and seabed. We also seek assurances that legal title extends to other parts of the environment where ownership could be disputed. The Prime Minister has made one public statement—editorial writers have said that she is doing the right thing—yet she came to this House today and wantonly denied what she said to the public of New Zealand both in the media and elsewhere. Maori traditional rights of use must be protected but those rights cannot be extended to property ownership on the basis of race. Wherever this has happened in the world it has caused racial disaster. Both Labour and National Governments have created this mess. They thought that they could construct laws based on three Treaty of Waitangi articles that were never and could never be a basis for sound constitutional Government. 
There is only one answer to this issue and that is to repeal all these treaty principle - based laws because not one of them can tell us what these principles are. We are all equal in this country and we must all be equal in the eyes of the law. In my view the Maori people would be happy to rely upon those ancient rights which go all the way back to the Magna Carta upon which the British people relied—and so should we. To have a separate series of laws being constructed by these people here who are totally woolly in their approach is very serious for this country’s long-term future.