I’ve just come back from representing Labour at the Wellington Cathedral ANZAC Day Service, and then at the NZ War Memorial in Buckle St.
Each service was appropriately solemn – the more so as the tragic knowledge of the helicopter accident this morning became known by those present. Neither glorified war. At both, a uniquely New Zealand atmosphere prevailed. Biculturalism felt unforced; there were nice and sometimes accidental touches of informality. There was a sense of unbrassy confidence and dignity – a sense of a country and a community that had come to terms with itself.
It’s a case, I’m afraid, of the people leading, and the politicians being left way behind. I couldn’t help but contrast the feeling of right-ness of each ceremony today with the bad taste that the immaturity of the debate last week about our identity as a nation left in my mouth.
First, we had the National/Maori Party colluding over the covert accession to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Then we had a heap of uninformed rhetoric about what our accession would mean. To top it all off, National, ACT and the Maori Party bloc-voted to stop a bill to allow people to vote on whether NZ should eventually become a republic going to a select committee for public submissions. During that debate, a whole lot of dishonest rhetoric was repeated by Government members.
It’s well-known in Labour circles that I thought we should have acceded to the Declaration when we were in Government. Around the time that the new ALP Government was deciding that Australia should do so, I spent time with Rob McLelland, Australia’s Attorney-General, and Stephen Smith, its Minister of Foreign Affairs, discussing the mechanics of their intended accession, and the statement of reservations that would be made at the time on Australia’s behalf. It seemed to me that we could do something similar in New Zealand, so that accession could take place, in an honest and forthright way, preserving the paths already taken here in an attempt to redress past historical wrongs. The Labour cabinet here received strong official advice to the contrary, and in the end that advice prevailed.
I regret that. But I can say that open and respectful debates have occurred within the Labour caucus on the subject. Those debates have centered on the merits of the Declaration, the extent to which it can represent customary international law without the accession of two major common law jurisdictions that have enforced indigenous rights – the US and Canada- and whether an effectively partial accession would be an act of good faith on New Zealand’s part. These are the real questions around the Declaration. They deserve proper debate.
Ditto the issues around moving toward becoming a republic. We had an excellent caucus debate about the Bill. Better yet, colleagues decided to support the legislation. They could see the value of people getting to debate the issue through the select committee process. How disappointing, then, to get down to the House on Wednesday night to watch ACT not even bother to take a call, the Maori Party trot out all sorts of inaccurate rhetoric about how the bill was inconsistent with the Treaty, and the Nats talk about how the debate would be “divisive”, so we shouldn’t have it.
New Zealanders are more comfortable than their elected representatives on questions about their identity. It’s time for politicians to catch up.
