Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Duncan Webb: Labour's Justice Spokesperson on the Treaty Principles Bill being introduced earlier than planned

Transcript

Duncan Webb: Labour's Justice Spokesperson on the Treaty Principles Bill being introduced earlier than planned · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We got the deets yesterday on the Treaty's Principal's Bill.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: The second principle says the Crown will respect and protect
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the rights that Hapu and Ewe Mardy had under the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Treaty of Waitangi. However, and this is the crucial bit
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: that seem more got in there, if those rights differ
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: from the rights of everybody else in New Zealand, they
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: only apply where there's an agreed treaty settlement. Duncan Web's
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the Labor Justice spokesperson. Big protest plans next planned next
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: week is with US Live this morning.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning, How are you good?
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you? Are you going to join those protests?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: I might get out there on the front lawn, but
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: you do get a seat in parliament. But I can
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: understand why those protests are happening. People are pretty angry
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: about this. It's a rewriting, right, just it's going backwards.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: And you can't have the government sign something in eighteen
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: forty and then decide one hundred and eighty years later
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: later that it's not quite what they wanted and have
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: another crack.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: But isn't that what the courts have been doing?
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. I mean what you've got with the courts.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: And you know, I've heard about the courts making stuff
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: up and so on, but that's not the case. You've
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: got two texts of the Treaty of Waitangi, one in English,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: one in Marii. They're both valid and there's a fair
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: distance between them, so the courts have to navigate a
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: path between them. And so in doing that, they've read
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: them both and said, look, the guts of it is,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: or if they would say in their fancy language, the
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: principles of the treaty are, and that's where you get
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: the principleship.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Is that a job for the courts? Is that a
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: job for the courts to interpret our founding document.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Look, if you have a contract you're right on the
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: back of an envelope to sell a business, there's going
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: to be a lot of gaps in it. And when
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: you get at the court to argue about it, they're
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: going to fill the gaps for you. This was a
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: contract between two nations signed on a single piece of
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: paper one hundred and eighty years ago. There are gaps,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: there are things that aren't clear. It's absolutely the job
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: of the courts to patch it up and make sure
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: that what the parties intended is what it rolled out
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: and deliver us over time.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Is it a big deal that this has been brought forward.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Well, it's been brought forward a week. It's not is
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: it a big deal? It's just it's just we've had
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: the American election. So the front page of you in
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  Speaker 2: your league stories and everyone's front page is the American.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's they've done it, They've done it delivered.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's comms management.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Hepkins reckons it is not a big deal. It's just normal,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: normal parliamentary process and you wouldn't expect it to have
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: been told there was a change of date anyway.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: Well, who knows, but the reason for the change of
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: date was probably was probably to keep it on the
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: load down question. We've got we've got the heck quy
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: coming on the same day.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: My question for you is you're the gist of the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: argument is this is so divisive and the same from
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the Pati Mardi and the Greens, so divisive that you
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: shouldn't go near it. Do you think co governance was divisive?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Well, co governance clearly ra the hackles of a section
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: of society.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And we're starting to and it didn't stop you doing it, though,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: did it. I mean, so, it's not a reason not
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: to do something just because people might be upset by it.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Okay, I would accept that, but if it's both divisive
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and fundamentally wrong and depriving Mary of something that they
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: have actually been promised. So it's not just that it's
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: it's people, some people don't like it, it's that it's
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: fundamentally and constitutionally right. This isn't just some surface irritation.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: This is going to the very heart of how we
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: form our nation and changing the foundation stones. And that's
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: why it's both divisive and deeply wrong.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Don'gan thank you very much for your time this morning.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Appreciate you coming on the show. That's Dunk and Web
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Labour's justice spokesperson.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Listen live to news talks that Be from five am weekdays,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.