Letter to the editor published by Stuff recently
Our left-leaning and increasingly hostile civil service has produced one of the more ridiculous scaremongering statements I have read in almost forty years observing and writing about our political system (published widely on September 12).
Officials and the Ministry of Justice have warned against proceeding with the proposed Treaty of Waitangi Principles Bill as it “calls into question the very purpose of the treaty and its status in our constitutional arrangements.” It does nothing of the sort. The proposed bill, as I read the three principles agreed to be all three coalition parties, seeks to establish certainty where none exists currently.
Perhaps the officials should have read the recent Treasury publication, Best Practice Regulation Model, which states: “The regulatory system should be predictable to provide certainty to regulated entities, and be consistent with other policies.”
Officials also warned that the bill could be detrimental for Maori and social cohesion and “risked introducing more uncertainty into our constitutional arrangements.” The opposite is true, as nothing could be more uncertain than having unwritten and undefined principles of any law, rule, or regulation that require the entire nation to abide by them.
The only people threatening social cohesion are those who want to stifle public debate.
The advice note also said, although there is no exhaustive list of principles, there is a degree of certainty about what the principles are and how they operate. ” If there was certainty, we would not be having this debate.