Royal Succession Bill

I am pleased to take a brief call in the Committee stage of the Royal Succession Bill, noting, of course, that in addition to this being an important piece of legislation in its own right—notwithstanding our concerns about the monarchical theme of it—it is, of course, the last day of Parliament sitting for this calendar year. It is not uncalled for, in fact, on occasions such as this for there to be some cheap and tacky reference to the Zeitgeist. Last year when I was called upon to speak on a bill on the last day of the sitting year, at a time when a dance style known as “Gangnam Style” was very popular, I managed to weave that into my contribution to a very important piece of legislation. So having now sat through the second reading of this particular piece of legislation, I am somewhat surprised that when the cultural item that leads our Zeitgeist today is the song “Royals” by our very own Ella Yelich-O’Connor, trading under the name of Lorde—all very appropriate at this time for this time of the year and for this occasion—no mention has been made in the debate on the Royal Succession Bill to that very phonetic piece of music. It would be wrong for this bill to pass through this House at this time in our history, both constitutional and monarchical, but also cultural, without an appropriate reference to that very important piece of cultural expression—that is to say, the song “Royals”.

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: Please don’t sing it. Please don’t.

I am going to reassure Maurice Williamson that I am not going to sing it, but that is as far as my promise goes. I do, however, want to say, when we are talking about a piece of legislation that is correcting a historical level of discrimination against Roman Catholics and against first-born girls, that I think we should note that the lyrics, particularly in the chorus of “Royals”, would be very reflective, I think, of Roman Catholic young people who aspire to marry into the royal family. They would have been left saying: “And we’ll never be royals [because] It don’t run in our blood, that kind of luxe just ain’t for us. We crave a different kind of buzz.” That is the claim to republicanism that is being made in “Royals”. And, of course, it would be left to the monarch of the day to have to say: “Let me be your ruler. You can call me queen bee and baby I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule.” Judith Collins finds that very attractive, I am sure. I do not want to draw reference to her leadership aspirations, but that might be her theme song. When we hear that being played at the next National Party conference, we will know that it is all on.

But on this occasion I want to say that it is right, in this very small, funny sort of way at this time in our constitutional history, that we should correct these anomalies—these discriminatory practices—within the royal family, and it is very nice of the royal family to deign to have us and other parts of the realm pass legislation to remove these acts of discrimination. But it does leave that funny taste in the mouth, and we need to say that maybe it is time we need to go a little further and break out on our own. On that note—that musical note, in fact—we will continue to support this bill in its final passage.

I will take just a short call on the Royal Succession Bill. It is not usual for me to agree with Andrew Little, and I am not going to break the habit of a lifetime by starting now. I just want to correct a couple of things that have been said here today. The first is that, actually, the Queen is the Queen of New Zealand for us. She is the Queen of Great Britain and the United Kingdom when she is there, but for us she is our Queen.

I would also just like to remind the Green Party member Gareth Hughes—who spoke before and who, after much impassioned rhetoric, then decided to abstain—that it actually does not do any good for the status of the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand to then try to belittle the history of the Crown, the monarchy, and, actually, the establishment of New Zealand. I think that we should all just remember that the Treaty is, in fact, a partnership between the Crown and the iwi of New Zealand. It is not a partnership that went anywhere other than that. It was, in fact, that important. Some of the strongest supporters of the monarchy in New Zealand are, in fact, Māori, because of that historical relationship.

I think that it does not help us in New Zealand to forget where this Parliament came from. Actually, it came from a tradition that started in the UK. We may well talk about Catholicism and all that sort of thing, but until Henry VIII, all of the monarchs of Britain were actually Catholic, ever since Catholicism had been established. That was the religion of the day. In fact, people did not get a choice as to whether or not they were Catholic; they were either Catholic or dead, frankly.

💬 Hon Maryan Street: What’s changed?

Similar things happened and, of course, these things changed over the years.

Of course, this bill does help to modernise what many people in New Zealand would think is a very quaint tradition, but it is a quaint tradition with a lot of history and a lot of importance to many other New Zealanders. I am one of those New Zealanders who is relatively ambivalent on the issue of whether to have a republic or a monarchy, but I will say that for the monarchy to be of importance to New Zealand and for the Treaty of Waitangi to be important, the monarchy needs to be given its fair due. I was shocked to hear the Green Party member criticise the number of times that the Queen has been to New Zealand. She has been here many, many times. I actually thought that was outrageous. He should apologise to the Queen for that—not that she has ever heard of him, and she probably never will, I should hope.

But, anyway, it is a good bill. It is a sensible bill. It is very moderate. It will never make the monarchy modern, but it will, in fact, help to bring to the monarchy a little bit of what we have today—in other words, gender neutrality and not actually excluding Roman Catholics. The reason for excluding Roman Catholics has well and truly passed. It was really all about who controlled Britain. Everything has now passed and it is time for us to come together and support this bill. I would like to thank everyone who has supported it.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. I was not going to take a call. I will take just a very short one. I rise as the New Zealand First spokesperson on women’s affairs to acknowledge the single clause of the three provisions that has the most importance for me, which is the removal of the discrimination against women gaining the throne. I wish to make a comment about the fact that if we look at history, we see that the two strongest rulers in history—in modern history, anyway—were women: Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II. If you have a look at the tumultuous times—

💬 Hon Maurice Williamson: What about Victoria?

Victoria was wonderful, too, but let me just talk about Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II. Have a look at history, at the tumultuous times that those young women—young women—lived through, in an era when people thought that they could not do it, and look at the amazing difference that they made to the world. Nobody should be afraid to have a woman in a leadership role, whether it be as a monarch or as a Prime Minister. It is wonderful to see this House, along with 16 other nations, endorse the fact that a woman can stand there and rule equally as well as—if not better than—any man in history. I needed to stand and just say that. New Zealand First supports the Royal Succession Bill, and I personally strongly support that particular clause.

I also rise to take a short call in this Committee stage on the Royal Succession Bill. It is a truism to say that history is important to us. It does not matter whether we are Māori or Pākehā or of any other ethnic extraction, each of us holds to our history with a fierce grip. The history of our tūpuna and of our relationships with the people whom our tūpuna had relationships with are of critical importance to who we are now. I feel as a Pākehā as strongly as Māori do about their tūpuna. I recognise that, with my Pākehā pedigree, I am linked back to England—and a little bit to Scotland, but primarily England—and I cannot ignore that part of my heritage.

When we are debating this bill, I think we need to recall the significance of history, because although I do not wish to delay the proceedings of this House in getting to the Mokomoko (Restoration of Character, Mana, and Reputation) Bill, I do also want to reiterate the point I made earlier, even at the Committee stage, that any movement away from the constitutional relationship we currently have with the Queen of England, who, as the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, says, is also the Queen of New Zealand, has to be one that is thought through extremely carefully with those descendents of the people who signed a treaty with Queen Victoria. It was a treaty with Queen Victoria. If we are no longer to have a Sovereign in place in our founding document, then we have to be very, very certain that the Treaty of Waitangi is not eroded and that, in fact, it is enhanced in the process. So I am not quick to move to a republic, because of that reason if no other.

But I also want to respect the role of the Sovereign and, in fact, the lifetime of service that the current Sovereign has given in the United Kingdom but also across the Commonwealth, where she has acknowledged and moved with the times as members of the Commonwealth have established their own constitutional arrangements, their own parliamentary independence, and their own separate status but remaining part of the extraordinary residue of colonisation that is the Commonwealth. That has both good and bad things attached to it, but it is a residual vestige of colonisation that has transformed into something that can be, and has been, of international significance. That is not to be diminished by any of the light-heartedness that I brought to my earlier contribution to this debate.

What we have in Aotearoa New Zealand is a unique debate about the role of the Sovereign. At this point we are modernising the royal succession in agreement with every other country that is one of the realms of the Sovereign. This has been agreed with all the relevant countries. It would be unhelpful, unconstructive, and, in fact, quite extraordinary if we were not to support this, because it affects not only New Zealand but all of those countries that are represented at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. In Perth in 2011 these changes were approved in principle by that family of countries, and this is their final moment of fruition here in New Zealand.

I want to just stress, however, that constitutional matters must always be informed by history. Our constitutional arrangements in New Zealand have had preponderance towards inheriting British traditions and British laws. Our point of difference in the world is Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and we need to preserve that and our uniqueness at all costs. Thank you for your indulgence.

When the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Justice, is not calling people “numpties”, she is misleading the Committee when it comes to the allegations that I was belittling our Treaty history. I was not intending to take a call on the Committee stage of the Royal Succession Bill, but I just—

💬 Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I take exception at being told that I misled the Committee.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I am not sure that I am going to uphold that point of order. That is quite a frequent statement.

Thank you, Mr Chair, because I do not want to make a personal explanation, but I do want to explain where I am coming from as an individual member in this House when it comes to the Treaty, in relation to this bill. Obviously, in previous calls I have argued, I believe passionately, for a change of our constitutional arrangements for a New Zealand head of State, which is different from what we see with the new provisions in this law. I acknowledged in my contribution the role of the Treaty. What I want to see is a genuine Treaty conversation in New Zealand about how we actually celebrate it, how we educate about it, and how we actually bring it into effect, because—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. This bill before us is not about a republic. It has nothing to do with the republic issue, so I would like you to bring him back to what is actually in the bill. It is actually quite narrow.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Yes, that is a valid point of order. Sometimes there is kind of a comparative thing made. I would ask the member to come back to the substance of the bill.

Thank you, Mr Chair. In the clauses of this bill, we see the changes to the royal succession for female babies. We have heard from the Minister in the chair and from other members about the role of the Treaty in the constitutional relationship that the Queen of England has with New Zealand. I want to point out that when you look at those Treaty relationships brought up by the Minister—I was making the point that, in fact, under the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1947, the Crown has not been the monarch, Elizabeth Windsor; the Crown has been the New Zealand Parliament and the New Zealand Governor-General. This is my point. The Minister is a lawyer. She should be aware of these points.

I am not belittling the history of the Treaty; what I am saying is that I am excited about the opportunity from this bill that we can actually have a constitutional debate about how we best reflect the Treaty and how we best bring it into effect. I raised a suggestion around the idea of an Upper House, a Treaty House. I do not believe that that is belittling the Treaty; I believe that it is actually looking to the future. I acknowledge the concerns, because the Treaty was a historic, unprecedented activity in global history and obviously is of great importance to both Māori and Pākehā and all cultures enshrined in New Zealand. It is something special that occurred only down here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

I have a different opinion from that of my colleague Catherine Delahunty, who is sitting next to me, and no doubt many other members. I do not believe that the fact that it was signed by Governor Hobson, on behalf of an 18-year-old Queen Victoria, means it has to be put on ice for ever. I believe that constitutional arrangements can change. As a party that has Te Tiriti o Waitangi enshrined in its charter, in the heart of our party, what I could not countenance is changing our constitutional arrangements and lessening the role of the Treaty. What I am merely portraying—and I am not belittling the Treaty—is that I believe that our constitutional arrangements have been put on ice, and we could actually go further, do better, and learn more about Te Tiriti o Waitangi if we actually embraced it and went forward with a genuine conversation about our head of State.

Obviously, what I want to see is a genuine Treaty relationship. I am obviously of Pākehā descent. My father emigrated from Wales, and both of my two kids now have the blood of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. It has taken only 200 years for all the nations of the United Kingdom to be found in New Zealand, literally on the other side of the world. I am fortunate to have grown up in Gisborne, and unfortunate to have had very little to no historical education in school or training. I think it is a great tragedy that we do not teach our kids about history and the Treaty.

I want to finish on a final point, which is that if we are going to be talking about the Treaty, we also have to have a conversation about tino rangatiratanga. If you look at New Zealand history, this was not ceded in a treaty. This was ceded at the point of a musket. When you look at what happened on the beach at Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa, Gisborne, the first contact between James Cook and Te Maro ended in bloodshed and nails left on a corpse. Let us have a genuine conversation about the Treaty. Let us not throw out allegations about belittling history, as we saw from the Minister in the chair. Let us actually have a conversation. Let us have a conversation about how we can improve Te Tiriti o Waitangi with a new indigenous Pacific-centred constitutional arrangement for Aotearoa New Zealand.