Paraone Pita: Treaty of Waitangi (Principles) Bill — First Reading 
Paraone Pita: Treaty of Waitangi (Principles) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:629;Page:1426] 
PITA PARAONE (NZ First) 
: 
 A tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker a tena koutou e noho nei i roto i te Whare i te po nei. Tena koutou! Hari te ngakau mo tenei wahanga i homai ki a au ki te whakamarama atu nga whakaaro a te Ropu o Aotearoa Tuatahi i te kaupapa i mua i a tatou i tenei wa. 
I am delighted to be able to take this opportunity to express the views of New Zealand First on this bill. 
I want to say straight off so that it is clear to everybody in this House and to those who are listening that New Zealand First will oppose this bill. Unlike the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill sponsored by my leader and by New Zealand First this bill does not seek to remove references to “the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” from legislation. Instead it seeks to define what those principles should be. However I do not believe that this comes from any genuine desire to provide clarity for the judiciary who have to interpret our laws. 
Instead the purpose of this bill is to put property rights at the forefront of any Treaty negotiations or claims. References to property rights that I have heard in this House tonight certainly do not take into consideration the property rights of iwi hapu and Maori as such. All the references to property rights have been to those of the individual. This bill extrapolates the ACT party’s own principles and incorporates them into the three articles of the Treaty. I note that the articles used are from the English version. I remind some members that Maori signed the Maori version. When we look at schedule 1 and schedule 2 of the bill we see quite clearly that the versions do not match. This should not surprise anyone given that the ACT party—of which this bill’s sponsor is currently leader—is right wing market-driven and individualistic. Perhaps that party knows it is on a hiding to nothing with its policies so it is trying to dress them up in a more altruistic guise in an effort to make them more palatable. 
New Zealand First is concerned that should this bill pass the progress of current and future Treaty settlements will be impeded and past settlements may in fact be called into question as well. I think most of us in this House want nothing more than to see fair and enduring Treaty settlements and believe that no impediments to that end should be allowed. 
In June last year when New Zealand First’s bill was being debated Stephen Franks a member of the ACT party said that the ACT party had consistently maintained that there is no such thing as “Treaty principles”. Now we find that the ACT party is trying to define what those principles are. I know that Mr Hide would be the first to say how consistent his party is in matters such as this but quite clearly there is no foundation to that assertion. 
I suggest to the House that should this bill proceed into legislation the expensive and never-ending litigious programme that surrounds the existing legislation over Treaty principles in legislation will continue. Members may recall that that was one of our concerns regarding the original bill. With the retention of the references to Treaty principles in any legislation we will continue down that track. 
Under our confidence and supply agreement with Labour whereby we will ensure stability and balance over this parliamentary term New Zealand First has negotiated an agreement with the Government that it will support a New Zealand First bill relating to Treaty principles going to a select committee for consideration. For that reason we oppose this particular bill.