Auchinvole Chris: New Zealand Day Bill — Second Reading 
Auchinvole Chris: New Zealand Day Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:9857] 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National) 
: 
 I stand to speak on the New Zealand Day Bill. I am a member—and have enjoyed being a member—of the Justice and Electoral Committee which considered this bill. However I rise to speak against the bill for three particular reasons. 
The first reason is the timing. This is an ambitious bill in my view. It seeks to achieve something in a cultural and social sense ahead of a cultural and social reality of its acceptance. I think the idea is a very good one and it is meritorious to have the bill before us and to have it being discussed examined and debated. I note that when the bill had its first reading it received National Party support to be brought to the select committee. Like Katherine Rich on that occasion I too think the idea of a New Zealand day is a great one and I remember the two times we had New Zealand Day celebrations. 
I shall never forget the pleasure I took in watching the television presentation of what is now called Norm Kirk’s New Zealand Day. I thought the pageantry was wonderful—the ships the settlers the missionaries the use of  
Godspell 
 music the different nationalities arriving and the spontaneous act of Norm Kirk holding the hands of two little children of different ethnic backgrounds. It was all wonderful. That was though completely in sync with the mood of the times and I suggest that is why we had such success with those first two New Zealand Days. There is no doubting that the fact that it did not continue to be celebrated as New Zealand Day is a testament to the change in the cultural and social mood of the times. Do I share a feeling of nostalgia? Would I like to recreate that euphoric sense of nationhood that came from the New Zealand Days of that time? Of course I would but I do not think it would work just because I think it is a nice idea. 
Naturally I fully agree with the Hon Peter Dunne’s initial comment that contemporary New Zealand is becoming an increasingly diverse nation culturally and ethnically. New Zealand is a modern multicultural nation but it is still New Zealand. We need to recognise that we are in a young multicultural nation. That is a relatively recent development and the opportunity to speak about this bill is a good step in the direction of encouraging dialogue between various citizens on important issues such as whether we need to have a day on which to celebrate or reflect on the birth I guess of the country in its present state. 
Members who spoke at the time of the first reading of this bill called for having a day as a developed nation when we can celebrate as one country the things that bring us together not divide us when we can have an annual holiday that all Kiwis can enjoy and when they can think about the things that make us special as New Zealanders. I think the aspirations of the bill are meritorious; I do not think that the timing is right. 
I remember having a discussion with the Rt Hon Mike Moore when he was the Minister of exports. We were in Auckland together. He had just been to a Labour Party conference in the same building and he came along to our Export Institute meeting. Although he was not exactly fuming he was certainly crotchety after having had quite a debate on the issue of multiculturalism versus biculturalism. He was certainly a multicultural person. I think that we would not be having a debate today on that issue to the same level of intensity as occurred then. 
However although I think that multiculturalism is an accepted reality in the cities we still have quite a long way to go in rural communities. Living as I do on the West Coast of the South Island—part of the ever-increasingly marginal West Coast - Tasman seat—I am conscious that we are very much a Celtic people there. Naturally we do have a certain amount of ethnic diversity but I doubt whether it would go into double figures on a percentage of population basis. There will be other parts of the country that are similar to the West Coast. Although people everywhere are developing an acceptance of New Zealand’s multiculturalism it is not a widespread phenomenon outside the cities as yet. One risks artificiality therefore in creating a celebration day if indeed it is multiculturalism that one intends to celebrate by having a New Zealand Day. 
The second reason why I oppose this bill is that it disguises the reality of Waitangi Day. I note that the bill proposes that New Zealand Day be celebrated on the day presently known as Waitangi Day—6 February. The bill then goes on to propose that in order to ensure the fullest range of commemorative celebrations can take place and also to acknowledge the particular significance of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi New Zealand Day be regularised and held on the Monday of the week in which 6 February falls. At the same time the bill also intends with the celebration of that day to repeal the Waitangi Day Act 1976—here we go—thereby dealing in some minds something of a death blow to the whole event. We will have taken the day called it something else changed the date and then repealed the initial legislation. If the purpose of this bill is to delete Waitangi Day then that should be expressed in its title. The purpose of the bill could easily be perceived to be just that. 
As National speakers have said before me changing the label of our national day to New Zealand Day will not solve all the problems that many see in our having Waitangi Day each year. There is nothing in the explanatory note of the bill to indicate that there is any intention to disguise the reality of Waitangi Day but that in my view is what would happen. However I think that in the interests of the future of the nation we have to sort out some of the issues to do with the Treaty of Waitangi and the debate that surrounds it. Changing the name of the day will not in itself make much difference in terms of healing any rifts; indeed it could exacerbate them. In fact the difficulties that people have could be made worse with the loss of the Waitangi Day celebrations. 
I think we have only just started to come out of a difficult period with the Waitangi Day celebrations and it would be a pity to lose that change in momentum. For many years I was privileged to live in Tai Tokerau teaching agriculture at Northland College in Kaikohe. Waitangi was where we used to go for recreation. It is a sadness to me to see the day change from that celebratory function to one of protest and division but I have to say that I regard it as evolutionary rather than revolutionary. As an ethnic Scot who has Scottish characteristics in name nature and inclination I tend to support those who feel they are suffering the consequences of domination by others. So Waitangi Day during its protest period seemed to me to be a clearing house for emotional and real grievances. Waitangi Day is morphing into a different way of celebration and I think it will continue to do so. 
Three years ago in Greymouth a place I live near in the West Coast - Tasman electorate—the ever-increasingly marginal seat in the South Island—the local mayor churches and community leaders decided to have a Waitangi Day celebration. They suggested a picnic in Dixon Park. How did we get 1500 West Coasters to come to a park on Waitangi Day? 
Darren Hughes 
: Tell them you aren’t there. 
CHRIS AUCHINVOLE 
: No tell them I am there. We simply offered them a free sausage and a cup of tea and told them it was a picnic day. It was a sunny day and 1500 people came along. Indeed it was a great celebration. Waitangi Day has continued to be celebrated in the same vein in the 2 years since then and the numbers stay similarly high. I am sure it could be much the same in the rest of the country and it very probably is. I think we have to live with Waitangi Day remaining as Waitangi Day and celebrate the occasion in all its diverse meetings. 
The third reason I oppose the bill is that I think it misses the target. It seeks somehow in my mind to displace the actual New Zealand day. The actual New Zealand day for me and I think for the nation is Anzac Day 25 April every year. My relatives were not here in the First World War but I had no difficulty at all this year in addressing the Anzac Day parade and service at Collingwood whilst wearing my father’s wartime medals on the right hand side of my chest. I had no difficulty in relating to the Kiwi soldiers who sacrificed everything. I had no difficulty in acknowledging that as they fell—be they Maori European or any other ethnic New Zealanders at the time—a nation rose. Anzac Day is New Zealand Day in my mind. Thank you Madam Speaker.