Street Maryan: Royal Succession Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Royal Succession Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 10 December 2013. Volume:695;Page:15431. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): It give me great pleasure to rise to speak to the Royal Succession Bill. There is an extraordinary coincidence of things happening on the Order Paper this morning. Very shortly we are going to be debating the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character Mana and Reputation) Bill and right now we are debating the Royal Succession Bill. One is tempted to use words like “sublime” and “ridiculous”in the reverse order of those things right now but I do want to place on record that although this bill is not ridiculous certainly the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character Mana and Reputation) Bill is closer to the sublime end of that scale.Can I just say also that members of the House of course will understand the speech delivered by my colleague Andrew Little. The Labour Party is full of Roman Catholics. We started off with Roman Catholics—if we go back to Michael Joseph Savage and the people before him and our founders on the West Coast—so he is representing a very significant voice within the Labour Party. So I do want to acknowledge that.Can I just say that for my own part there should not be any discussion about moving to a republic in New Zealand without proper consideration of the role of the Treaty of Waitangi. Te Tiriti and the impact of that on our psyche on our history and on our development as a nation would need to be compensated for because it is a treaty with the Crown. Should we become a republic similar or exactly the same provisions would need to be embedded somewhere—not with the Crown but with the Government of New Zealand. That conversation is not finished yet. It should not be rushed. And that is why this bill does not rush the decision about having Roman Catholics succeed to the throne.Of course Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Church of Rome in 1534 so it has taken us 479 years to get this far. Sometimes those things take a little while. They take a bit of thought. So at least the modernising step that is being made in this bill is to allow the Sovereign to be married to a Roman Catholic but it does not allow a Roman Catholic to be the Sovereign because with the title of Sovereign goes the title Defender of the Faith—Defender of the Faith. Henry VIII set that up. So if the faith is—Hon Judith Collins: No he didn’t. The Pope gave that to him when he was a staunch Catholic actually. That’s the history of it. And then he kept it.Hon MARYAN STREET: Thank you.Hon Maurice Williamson: He was a Catholic. Henry VIII was a Catholic.Hon MARYAN STREET: Thank you. Yes yes everybody used to be a Catholic—Hon Maurice Williamson: Not everybody.Hon MARYAN STREET: Everybody used to be a Catholic until various bits split away. Of course the most famous secession from the Roman Catholic Church was that of Henry VIII which he did for his own purposes so that he did not have to deal with that nasty provision around divorce. So he had his own reasons—he had his own reasons for doing that. I am grateful to the Minister of Justice for her interjection.This bill is a sign of modernisation. We are slowly 479 years on making our way to the 21st century. At least the gender provision in the bill is something more modern. The Sovereign does not have to be the oldest boy; an older female sibling can accede to the throne. Of course with the birth of baby George we do not have to confront that issue for quite some time so quite when there will be another queen is yet to be seen. However this is modernising in the terms of these constitutional things.I would like to thank Scott Simpson the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee for a very congenial and still thoughtful discussion and debate in the select committee. Although this bill does not appeal to all this is the constitutional reality that we have at the moment. Perhaps in another 479 years we may get to a complete constitutional and respectful self-determination state in New Zealand one that has properly and with a great deal of thought and care taken into account what should be our fundamental commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.