A House Divided

In 2011, the Fifth National Government set up a Constitutional Advisory Panel (CAP) as part of a confidence and supply agreement the National Party had with the Maori Party.

Although there was no pressing need to make any changes to New Zealand’s unwritten constitution, and despite the fact that there had been a constitutional review just six years before that date which found that there was no need to make any changes, the new panel set out on a two-year process of poorly-attended public meetings and seeking submissions.

The goal appeared to be to create a written constitution that was based on a particular interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Government panel sparked the formation of the hard-left Independent Constitutional Working Group, which promoted the constitution of the “plurinational” socialist state of Bolivia as the way to go.

Another group called the Independent Constitutional Review Panel appeared and did its own consultation and this became the basis of a report titled A House Divided.

Constitutional law establishes the very basic framework of how our society is run, and short and simple changes there can have immense and irrevocable effects.

It seemed to the authors of A House Divided that the official constitutional advisory process was fundamentally flawed, being designed in its terms of reference, personnel and procedures to operate and produce predetermined results without any actual genuine public awareness or input.

They had little confidence that the official CAP would reflect the widespread public unease and discontent with the ongoing progression of the Treaty industry.

Worst of all, it seemed to them that the CAP, and the intellectual and political interests it was designed to serve, were unaware, or at least not concerned about, the immense dangers into which that continued progression was leading our country.    

The Independent Constitutional Review Panel suspected that its own public meetings, advertisements and general agitation did at least as much as the official panel’s activities to bring the issues to public attention.

Their findings may be read here. See https://www.nzcpr.com/a-house-divided/   

by Hugh Barr, Don Brash, Mike Butler, Reuben Chapple, Peter Cresswell, Bruce Moon, John Robinson and David Round

One Treaty, one nation - the book every New Zealander should read. 175 years ago our forebears brought forth a new nation, conceived in trust and dedicated to the proposition that all New Zealanders would be one people, living under the same law. But for the last 40 years we have been under relentless pressure to divide the country into two groups - iwi and the rest of us.

Back in 1975 Waitangi Day and the Treaty of Waitangi Act were set up to foster a sense of nationhood and a greater awareness of the Treaty as a symbol that embraces us all. What we got instead was years of protest and vitriol while billions of dollars have been taken from everyone and handed over to private tribal trusts.

By David Round

Prime Minister John Key is indeed correct that most New Zealanders do want to live in a harmonious New Zealand but he was wrong about just about everything else he said in response to the launch of Hobson’s Pledge.