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Not so long ago, the Labour Party's Deputy PM Sir Michael Cullen stated in no uncertain terms in Parliament that sovereignty was ceded in the Treaty of Waitangi. According to his Labour Party, "The power of the NZ Parliament to change the law is central to the exercise of sovereignty and therefore the contemporary exercise of Article One of the Treaty". That was in 2004. He did so in the context of the Foreshore & Seabed Act. Now current Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has formally contradicted him and stated the opposite in Parliament, saying “Māori didn’t cede sovereignty in signing the Treaty”. Meanwhile the National Party revoked the Seabed and Foreshore Act because, under Sir John Key, it sided with the Waitangi Tribunal that NZ's Parliament had no right to pass such an Act. However, a few weeks ago, National PM Luxon told Parliament, "The Crown is Sovereign", in apparent confirmation of Sir Michael Cullen's view that also held it is Sovereign and has the right to pass laws by majority vote. ACT voted against the Seabed and Foreshore Act, with Richard Prebble saying at the time, "I say to the Minister again that the ACT party would have left the matter to the courts .. they should go ahead with court cases. Let me make that clear".


However now National and ACT are vociferously complaining that the court cases are unfair - that activist judges have hijacked them by making too generous awards of coastal lands to Māori claimants. Justice Minister Goldsmith blames Parliament, saying, "During the past three decades, Parliament has not always been clear about what specific Treaty provisions meant or were trying to achieve .. That’s left the courts, and the agencies themselves, and businesses and local councils all to free-range as to what it does mean and doesn’t mean". In order to clarify things, ACT has proposed legislation, in the form of its Treaty Principles Bill. However, the PM and his National Party don't want to clear things up, so say they will not support ACT's bill, nor even amend it. What a shambles. A shambles courtesy of our elected Parliamentarians - both Labour and National - the lot of them.


Having said that, the Justice Minister is right. When Parliament can't do its job and pass clear, intelligible laws, then the courts & people are left with no choice but to make rules & laws on their own. So schools & universities have decided how to interpret the Treaty their way, including how pupils are taught in this regard. Government departments have ruled on how employees must act, as have Councils, and private firms. Real estate authorities have ruled on obligations of agents regards the Treaty. Meanwhile judges have gone & done their own thing. And maybe you & me, next time we swim near the foreshore, or stand on a sea bed, should make our own rules & judgements, in negotiation with others, as to what we can, or can't, do. Maybe it should be sorted out by private bargains. After all, Parliament has failed to lead. Perhaps it doesn't deserve to be called "sovereign", when it can't pass proper laws anymore. Maybe its best to leave things up to the people & their organizations to make their own laws. Parliament is looking inept, embedded in a City where water pipes burst around it, red cones block streets, broken ferries are berthed nearby & few people want to go into work anymore. Maybe power should go back to the people.


Sources:


We like to do self-congratulatory back patting from time to time at this Blog. Why? Since we believe we get most of our economic predictions in NZ correct. The reason is that we chase facts, have good sources, and solid bases for making predictions, rather than an agenda of trying to brain-wash readers into our preferred way of thinking, like most journalists in our Main Stream Media. In November 2021, we ran the headline The Next Election (in 2023) will be a Cost of Living Election. Although NZ was in the midst of Covid back then, cost-of-living did become the No. 1 election issue two years later. We predicted inflation would take off & interest rates rise to combat it, before any other commentator - including the Reserve Bank. Which brings us to Election 2026. It will be a Tax Choice Election. And tight.


The National-ACT-NZ First Coalition is in more danger than the polls suggest. We're not far from 2025, which is its last full year of government before the next election. GDP in 2024 is officially not growing - we're stagnant at 0%. That has put the coalition under enormous pressure to find the revenues to fund New Zealand's welfare state - its health & pension systems, which are being stressed due to ageing population - let alone invest in water supplies, Dunedin & Whangarei hospitals, & build new infrastructure. Should economic growth be tepid in 2025, which it likely will be, public services will become run down. NZ Labour's solution will be a copy of the UK Labour Party's "solution" being rolled out at we speak. Hiking taxes on the wealthy. Whoever leads NZ Labour in 2026 will defend their Election Platform along similar lines to the UK Chancellor now, "Labour will launch a new era of public & private investment in hospitals, schools, transport & energy as momentous as any in the party’s history in this week’s budget", Rachel Reeves said. The choice will be presented as "underfunding public services" (National) versus "investment in the country's future" (Labour). The folks targeted by Labour to pay the bills will be wealthy NZers. Just like the British PM Sir Keir Starmer is currently doing in the UK.


Why the similarity to British politics? Because, for all the pretense NZ is growing up, forging its own identity, when it comes to economics it certainly is not. In terms of those institutions, we're still squarely a British Colony. Our health system is the same model as Mother England's. Its "socialized medicine" - which means single public provider / single public payer, whereby wealthier folks can opt out with private insurance. Our education is based on the UK's "specialize early" approach, whereby after leaving school, students go, for example, straight to law, medicine, or engineering, doing specialized degrees - rather than the US 'liberal arts' approach, where you specialize later. Our parliament & court systems are "adversarial", copying the British. We don't have an "inquisitorial" French-style approach where a judge is appointed to investigate facts. NZ corporate law is based on the British shareholder model. We drive on the left, being one of the few, other than Britain, and the Union Jack's in our flag. Where did Jacinda Ardern learn politics? London, in UK Labour PM Tony Blair's office - not exactly a marae. And her new best friend is Prince William.

What this means is that NZ has not moved on and done its economic institutions differently from the UK. When Margaret Thatcher started her market reforms in the 1980s, NZ did its market reforms at the same time. Both in the UK & NZ, there was a backlash against those reforms, although they have nearly entirely been kept in place in both countries. Now both the NZ Labour Party and UK Labour Party are promoting capital taxes to go after the rich, and "rebuild" public services - with the British set to increase their rate and NZ Labour set to propose them. Ironically, those most in favor of demanding a break from the UK by saying the Treaty never ceded sovereignty, which includes the Opposition Leader, leftist armies of University academics, historians & legal "experts", are the same ones who support classic UK approaches to economic management. They don't want French style health-care, where everyone can choose to go public or private, since they hate privatization, like British Unions. They don't want Singapore-style savings schemes let alone US style anything. That group are trapping us in a colonial mindset more than any other. They've colonized NZ economics, and are about to propose UK Labour economic solutions for NZ Election 2026.

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