The Treaty Principles Bill
The Government has published the Treaty Principles Bill, and it differs from the ACT policy is some significant ways, which also makes it closer to the actual Treaty text. For easy comparison I have done a table below.
| Treaty | ACT policy | Draft Bill | |
| 1st article | The chiefs of the Confederation and all the chiefs who have not joined that Confederation give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land. | The New Zealand Government has the right to govern all New Zealanders | The Government of New Zealand has full power to govern, and Parliament has full power to make laws. They do so in the best interests of everyone, and in accordance with the rule of law and the maintenance of a free and democratic society. |
| 2nd article | The Queen of England agrees to protect the Chiefs, the subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures. But on the other hand the Chiefs of the Confederation and all the chiefs will sell land to the Queen at a price agreed to by the person owning it and by the person buying it (the latter being) appointed by the Queen as her purchase agent. | The New Zealand Government will honour all New Zealanders in the chieftainship of their land and all their property | The Crown recognises the rights that hapū and iwi had when they signed the Treaty. The Crown will respect and protect those rights. Those rights differ from the rights everyone has a reasonable expectation to enjoy only when they are specified in legislation, Treaty settlements, or other agreement with the Crown. |
| 3rd article | For this agreed arrangement therefore concerning the Government of the Queen, the queen of England will protect all the ordinary people of New Zealand and will give them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England. | All New Zealanders are equal under the law with the same rights and duties | Everyone is equal before the law and is entitled to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination. Everyone is entitled to the equal enjoyment of the same fundamental human rights without discrimination. |
The Treaty text is from the Te Papa translation of the te reo version of the Treaty.
As I said previously, the principles in the ACT policy were good principles for a democratic liberal government, but not necessarily principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. A case could have been made for them to a form of entrenched bill of rights.
But the version in the actual bill does steer much closer to the text of the treaty, and can be argued to be a good faith interpretation (but not the only one).
This is part of a larger question about the principles of the Treaty and how they are defined and interpreted. It is clear that these have changed over time from Sir Apirina Ngata to David Lange to the Court of Appeal to today’s prevailing interpretation. I think it would be good to have certainty, and the question then is who should decide the principles. Should it be:
- The judiciary
- The Waitangi Tribunal
- Parliament
- The people via referendum
- The people or Parliament via an entrenched constitution