LET’S HAVE A PROPER CONSTITUTIONAL DEBATE
AUTHOR: Peter Dunne
Another Waitangi Day is nearly upon us. The speculation is that this year’s occasion will see the unleashing of a debate about New Zealand’s constitutional future. That sounds like a grand initiative from a new government, seeking boldly to shape the country’s future, but the reality is far more sober and uninspiring.
The great constitutional debate is nothing that sophist exercise to enable the National Party to hold a referendum on the future of MMP (to which I do not object) and both National and the Maori Party to save face on the future of the Maori seats issue, given National’s pre-election pledge to abolish, and the Maori Party’s determination to entrench them. So, what better way to avoid the crunch of having to deal with the issue than indulge in the earnest and time consuming discussion of a constitutional debate?
The sad thing, though, is that we do not need to not only debate these issues properly, but to move purposefully towards their resolution. While it could be argued that just talking about them is an improvement – albeit a minute one – on the studied ignoring of them as too hard that has been the case of recent years, it is still pretty inadequate. We just end up looking like a country too scared and lacking in self-confidence to debate the type of future we want.
At the last election, UnitedFuture was the only party to put forward a comprehensive programme of constitutional review, and it bears reconsideration here. Our Purposeful Democracy policy set out a pathway for reform as follows:
• A referendum on the future of MMP, in 2010, to allow the New Zealand people to review the effectiveness of the system to date
• A referendum on the future of Maori seats in Parliament to be held in conjunction with the MMP referendum, with a view to abolishing the seats by 2014. This would give effect to the recommendation in the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System.
• Moving towards New Zealand becoming a republic within the Commonwealth by 2017, with a referendum in this term of Parliament on having our own Head of State.
• Establish a New Zealand Day separate from Waitangi Day to celebrate our nation’s history, multicultural society.
• Investigate an extension of the Parliamentary term to four years, with a fixed election day.
• Introduce a Multicultural Act, similar to Canada, for the preservation and enhancement of multiculturalism in New Zealand.
• Ensure that school pupils understand their civic rights and responsibilities, the structure of the New Zealand Parliament and of Local Government and their means of access to them.
• Nationally televise the Youth Parliament to give credence to the efforts of young people to lift the bar.
• Require immigrants to take a civics course as part of becoming a New Zealand citizen, to promote civics understanding and teach immigrants what it is to be a “Kiwi” & what the norms & expectations of New Zealand society are.
• Introduce a graded system towards citizenship to develop the idea that citizenship is a privilege and not a right.
This is still the most comprehensive constitutional reform policy on offer from any of the political parties. New Zealanders are ready to debate and resolve these issues, and deserve to be given the respect to do so. A half-hearted or so structured debate designed to produce particular outcomes and avoid others because they might be politi8cally awkward is no debate at all, and in insulting to the majority. The tension and division of Waitangi Days past may be behind us now, but it is to be hoped that the new spirit of Waitangi is not instead going to become one .of one of obfuscation and avoidance,