I am neither a historian, nor an expert
in constitutional law, but that is an advantage -- given that our universities
are staffed by lecturers who mostly seem to consider their self-esteem
to be closely tied to approval from the Leftist social environment in
which they work.
The forecast configuration of forces after the upcoming election gives
the undemocratically-elected Maori Party the power to force the major
parties to bid for its support (It is undemocratically elected, in the
sense that its holding of so many of the Maori seats give it much more
representation in Parliament than its share of the popular vote -- and
the MMP electoral system was introduced in an attempt to represent the
popular will more precisely).
This undemocratic power of the Maori Party is now being used to try
to entrench this very same undemocratic power -- when no other law in
New Zealand is currrently entrenched, as far as I am aware. The Maori
Party has stated that its bottom line in any negotiations about forming
a new government would be the entrenchment of the Maori seats. And the
Labour Party has already caved in under the pressure and agreed to support
entrenchment.
Entrenchment would mean that it would take a 75% majority of Parliament
to repeal the provision for the separate Maori seats. However, as Helen
Clark has pointed out, the sectiion of the Act which entrenched this
provision could itself be overturned by a simple majority in Parliament,
and then the Maori seats could be removed by a simple majority as well.
In the TV One "Agenda" interview in which she said this,
she also stated that, although the entrenchment could be subverted in
the above manner, the fact of entrenchment created a moral pressure
on Parliament not to subvert it.
So far so good. However, would the Act of Parliament
which created the entrenchment of the Maori seats itself need to be
passed by a 75% majority of Parliament? There has been no mention
of this, and it seems very unlikely, since Parliament, on current polling,
is very unlikely to contain enough supporters of entrenchment to make
that feasible. Would the National Party risk huge divisions within its
caucus by trying to force National Party members to vote for entrenchment?
According to the webpage http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0806/S00281.htm
, Professor Keith Joseph has stated that the
"four Maori seats were first created for a five year period
to give Maori men who didn't meet the standard individual property-ownership
qualification the right to vote."
So the Maori seats were first introduced to counteract some indirect
discrimination in our electoral laws, which has since been abolished!
It is clear, then, that there would have been no insistence on a 75%
majority for the introduction of the Maori seats in the first place.
Since there was no 75% majority for the introduction
of the Maori seats, and since there is unlikely to be a 75% majority
for any Amendment Act that inserted an entrenchment section into the
original Act, any entrenchment of the Maori seats would have no moral
force or logical consistency.
There is a long-standing principle of constitutional law that each
Parliament is sovereign and cannot bind its successors. In other words,
each Parliament can ignore what previous Parliaments have done and make
up its own mind on all issues under the sun, which is as it should be.
The main exception to this principle occurs in the case of constitutional
legislation, which can legitimately bind future Parliaments, although
I am not aware of this possibility having been utilised in New Zealand
up till now.
The Third Article of the Treaty of Waitangi guarantees equality for
all citizens, whether they are Maoris or settlers from multicultural
Britain, or elsewhere. Maoris do suffer from unequal treatment, as in
the case of the Seabed and Foreshore Act,
but that is not a reason to entrench unequal treatment for Non-Maoris.
The term "indigenous" is incoherent,
as usually used. We all came out of Africa, after all. Maori DNA is
a mixture of Polynesian and Melanesian DNA, showing a mixed ancestry.
The Maoris consisted of separate tribes before they came here, and we
do not know that they came here from the same place or at the same time.
Since they have been in New Zealand, they have fought lots of wars between
themselves, and the survivors only have conquest to thank for the land
rights and other rights which they now protest about. Where is the morality
in conquest, slavery and cannibalism ? Not that the British Empire was
any better, of course!
