It is a great shame that the National Government along with the support of the Act, Maori, and Progressive parties tonight voted down Keith Locke’s Head of State Referenda Bill.
The sooner New Zealand becomes an independent nation the better. I do not mind if we become a state of the larger nation of an independent Australia or if we become an independent nation in free association with an independent Australia. But there is one thing I feel strongly about and that is New Zealand should no longer be a colony of Great Britain.
Some may argue that we already have independence through the Statute of Westminster however this is not full or true independence.
What has particularly got my back up tonight though is the arguments of the Maori Party in the debate. Below this post is the full speech given by Rahui Katene in which she argues that any move towards becoming a republic would run foul of the Treaty of Waitangi.
What a missed opportunity this is. The Treaty of Waitangi has been a source of much argument and problems for years, the founding of the Maori party was birthed in a disagreement over the Treaty of Waitangi on matters to do with the foreshore and seabed. There are a number of factions within Maoridom who do not agree with the treaty and some iwi who did not sign it and to this day do not want to!
A move to a republic gives the nation of Aotearoa New Zealand a chance to make things right, a chance to get a second go at creating a nation. However, the very politicians who represent a party that was born out of a disagreement over the interpretation of a badly worded treaty do not even want a discussion on the issue at a select committee.
I want to know if the Maori Party was forced by the National Party to vote against the bill, or if it did so on its own merits. In either case I have lost a lot respect I had for that party as a party of free thinkers. You can’t always fix the past, you certainly cannot hang onto the past, the best way forward is to always do what is best for the future and that is an independent republic of New Zealand.
