Letter to the Editor printed by Stuff this week
Glenn McConnell commits one of the cardinal sins of professional journalism (published in several Stuff newspapers September 10) by repeating known misinformation. He suggests the proposed Act Party bill will be a “major constitutional change and rewrite the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.” Both elements of that statement are incorrect, and that has been explained to him and the professional news media many times now.
The bill, as yet unwritten, will be a minor amendment to our constitutional arrangements by defining those principles, not rewriting them, as they have never been written and in fact do not exist in law.
In a bizarre twist, at least forty of our laws require those unknown principles to be observed. That can put court judges in the difficult position of defining them when their role is to apply the law, not make the law. That is the exclusive role of Parliament.
The Treaty of Waitangi is not a Maori issue as such. It is a New Zealand issue as it affects all of us to some degree. It logically follows that, if we are to be bound by the principle of the treaty, we need to know, if they can exist at all, exactly what they are. That is all the Act Party is trying to do.
Some people don’t want the principles defined so they can continue to invent them on the hoof. A few journalists, politicians, and church leaders, who should all know better, have jumped on the bandwagon to try and prevent a civilised and reasoned public debate on the issue. It is little wonder that the long-suffering general public is fast losing trust in all three institutions.