Oaths and Declarations (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill

Now, before I call the member, I understand that the Speaker has given permission for part of the speech to be delivered in Tongan and that the member will provide Hansard with an interpretation later.

Thank you, Te Māngai o Te Whare. It is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to stand in this House to make my first contribution on the Oaths and Declarations (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill, as a member’s bill. I acknowledge the English language is the dominant migrant language of Aotearoa New Zealand society. To the tangata whenua, e ngā mana, e ngā reo, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. ‘Oku ou fakatapu atu ki he laumalie ‘o e ‘otua ‘oku ‘afio ‘i hotau loto. Fakatapu ki he hou’eiki mo e tangatawhenua ‘o Aotearoa. Fakatulou atu ki he ngaahi ha’a mo e tu’unga kotoa pe, ‘oku totonu ke fakatapua.

[I pay respect to the spirit of god which is within us. I pay respect to noble people and the tangata whenua of Aotearoa. My acknowledgment to the respected tribes and dignitaries that should be mentioned.]

Again, I acknowledge the English language is the dominant language of Aotearoa New Zealand.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can I just interrupt the member, because she needs to actually need to move the motion.

OK, my apologies. I wasn’t—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That’s all right.

It is my first—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s the first—yes, absolutely.

Yeah, so right down the—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you just read that out, and then we’ve got a motion to debate.

I move, That the Oaths and Declarations (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Māori Affairs Committee to consider this bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

So should I start from—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you can take up where you like.

OK. I acknowledge English is the dominant migrant language of Aotearoa New Zealand society. This is a good time to remember that manufacturing false hierarchies based on language and culture in order to enforce a class system is a very long, long, long story.

New Zealand’s modern capitalist economy was formed thanks to two very modern subsidies: confiscated indigenous land and the colonised people. Both forms of colonisation required the creation of intellectual theories that ranked the relative value of people’s lives and languages, placing English at the top.

Indigenous languages are a fair game on an absurd official language status. Therefore, today, I am asking honourable members to demonstrate leadership and to respect the human rights of all cultures in Aotearoa New Zealand to be able to speak their mother tongue, as it’s written in the Standing Orders—other languages—when they enter Parliament. The time is right—is it? Is it the right time for indigenous people who reside in this country to use their mother tongue when they enter Parliament?

Indigenous peoples of Samoa, according to Census 2013, who live in New Zealand—Samoan is the third most spoken language in Aotearoa New Zealand. To the indigenous people who speak Hindi, the fourth most spoken language in Aotearoa New Zealand, and to the indigenous people of northern China, the fifth most spoken language in Aotearoa New Zealand, the first—my pages have lost me. But yes, to the indigenous people of Tonga who chose to call New Zealand home, Tongan is the 10th most spoken language in Aotearoa New Zealand, and the seventh most spoken language in Auckland.

Standing Order 108 states, “A member may address the Speaker in English, Māori or New Zealand Sign Language.” The reference to the Speaker is from Standing Order 107. Its intent, however, is that members may use other languages only on occasion. Members have the right to use English—as it says—first, followed by Te Reo Māori or New Zealand Sign Language, in the House, but other languages are used from time to time. This is particularly common in maiden speeches and suchlike.

I wish to acknowledge the leadership of Dame Tariana Turia—I have lost that page, but I will use my memory, which has been handed down to me through generations of oratory speakers. In 2004, Dame Tariana Turia was the first member of Parliament to make her declaration in Te Reo Māori, despite the fact that, in 1867, a law was passed to enable Māori representation in this House, and in 1868, four Māori members of Parliament entered this House, but unfortunately, according to Hansard, their oaths or declarations were not recorded. However, there are stories about the weather on that day.

So the principal Act—let me get to the principal Act. The Oaths and Declarations Act of 1957, passed 89 years after tangata whenua entered Parliament, states—I’ll cover that in the meantime, but I’ve found my page now, Madam Deputy Speaker.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: It’s always a relief!

It was in 2004—89 years after tangata whenua entered this Parliament—that we were able to do that, as I said before.

I wish to now acknowledge the Hon Aupito William Sio, who, in 2008, wanted to make his oath, with the help of God, to “be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her heirs and successors,” in the language of his mother tongue, Samoan, and was not able to do so. The process which the Hon Aupito William Sio had to go through in 2008, 2011, and 2014 to get permission to take the oath in Samoan was unnecessarily—according to myself—offensive. He had to repeat in English to ensure a legitimate process was undertaken.

In 2017, members of this House—Marja Lubeck and myself, from the Labour Party—took our oaths. We have gone through the same process and we have taken our oath in Tongan and in Dutch, and, of course, members on the other side of the House are able to do that in Korean and Hindi.

I must apologise to the later migrants since the arrival of Europeans in this country. I have prepared a fact-full speech—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I must apologise to the member. I’m sorry to interrupt, but the time has come for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The purpose of the Oaths and Declarations (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill is to amend the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957 to allow members of Parliament to make their Oath or Affirmation of Allegiance in languages other than English. At present, English and Te Reo are the two languages that are allowed, noting that members can already, on request, repeat the oath in another language immediately after they have done so in English or Te Reo.

As mentioned before—I’ll just take a quick run through the history—the principal Act is 61 years old. Te Reo Māori was not allowed to be spoken in terms of oaths and affirmations until 2002. In 2004, Dame Tariana Turia was the first person to take her oath in another language other than English. So the purpose of this bill is to enable the—when we say the words “all of New Zealand”, we want to include all its people.

I want to refer to the statistics, where there’s a prediction that in seven years’ time, Europeans and others will make up 3.82 million of the population, 0.91 million will be Māori, 0.92 million will be Asian, and 0.48 million will be Pacific. Why am I alluding to those people? Because that is the growing population of New Zealand. Can we really afford to say no—to say no to the future of New Zealanders who, in 2038, will make up 50 percent of this country? Can we afford, in the future, to deny them the ability to take their oath or their allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and her heirs in another language, other than the dominant migrant—migrant—language, English? Then later, in 2002, the indigenous language, Te Reo Māori, was then afforded to tangata whenua to be used in this House.

Members, make that point today—let our future speak the mother tongue of their country. Malo.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is a great pleasure and honour to be able to stand in the House tonight and take a call on the Oaths and Declarations (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill. Can I please acknowledge the new member to Parliament Anahila Kanatahi Suisuiki—and I hope I got the pronunciation right on that.

💬 Marja Lubeck: Not really.

💬 Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Nice try.

I didn’t. Which leads me probably to my next point: I grew up in New Zealand, and I was schooled in New Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s. The only option that I had when I went to school, the only language option that I really had, was to learn French. As a young guy growing up in New Zealand back in the 1970s and 1980s, it was very hard to see how French was really going to be that relevant to me as I moved into adult life and into my working life. I took it in fifth form, which I think is year 11 now—

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: First time or second time?

—and I discarded it. What’s that?

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: First time or second time?

Oh, you mean—are you with me on that one are you, Nashy? What—two or three years in fifth form?

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: I did three years in fifth form.

Yeah, three years—OK. I did actually get through the fifth form.

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: Oh, well done.

But anyway, the point that I’m sort of getting to is this: languages enrich our lives. Later on in life, when I started to travel overseas, I really struggled. I wanted to learn the language in the country that I was living, and I really struggled with that. Someone pointed out to me and said that unless you actually learn languages, unless you actually engage with them at a young age so that part of the brain is developed, then, actually, it is much harder to learn languages in your adult years. I guess we can look to Europe as an example where often children will grow up very comfortable. I mean, Marja can probably attest to this, having come from the Netherlands. How many languages? Seven! Seven languages.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! I’ll just remind the member to use the member’s proper name when referring to them.

Of course, Madam Assistant Speaker. So Miss Lubeck grew up in the Netherlands and she had an ear for languages and she can speak fluently—I assume—seven languages.

💬 Marja Lubeck: Definitely not fluent.

Near enough to it anyway. So the point that I am making is that languages are fundamentally very important. So can I acknowledge and congratulate the member on having her bill drawn and at least getting it into the House for us to have this debate and for it to be an issue that we can engage on together.

We won’t be supporting the bill, and there are some reasons for this, and I’ll just run through some of them. The other side can certainly stand up and address—that’s what the debating chamber is for, which is that we can have a discussion around it. The ability to swear an oath of allegiance in all of our official languages, including New Zealand Sign Language, should be supported; however, it raises questions when you extend the oath to include foreign languages, and I’ll start to dig into that more as I go on.

The bill does not limit it to just the members of Parliament, and I think that, fundamentally, I don’t know, I’m not sure—the member can get up and correct this—but this bill does not actually just limit it to members of Parliament; it goes much broader than that, and that does have consequences. It simply allows other language equivalents of the oath of allegiance—

💬 Kiritapu Allan: It’s in the name. It says “Members of Parliament”.

💬 Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki: Yeah, it says “Members of Parliament” in the title.

—set out in section 17 and does nothing to restrict this to MPs.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: It’s restricted to members of Parliament, Mark.

So that this is something that you can stand and take a call on and maybe give us some confidence that it isn’t actually broader than relating to just MPs.

It does seem an absurd proposition to allow this for MPs and—as an example—defence personnel but not for judges or justices of the peace. This is a very important point: we should be careful in allowing translations of statements in unofficial languages. Other languages and cultures may have different interpretations of the meaning of words such as “allegiance” and “according to law”. I was just reading, actually—there’s been a very recent relevant case of this with President Macron in Australia on a State visit where, just very innocently, he referred to Malcolm Turnbull’s wife, Lucy, as being “delicious”.

💬 Marja Lubeck: But he meant it.

Because in French—well, maybe he did. But, actually, in French “delicious” actually translates to “delightful”, and what he was meaning was that her company and her hosting was delightful, but it was lost in translation. It literally happened in the last day or two, and it’s just a recent example of what can happen with the interpretation of different languages.

At present, the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957 allows oaths and declarations to be made in two languages: English and Te Reo Māori—and, of course, we also recognise sign language as well, as an official language in New Zealand. “[The] bill amends the principal Act to allow … the Governor-General to prescribe equivalents in any other language of the oaths and declarations required to be taken by members of Parliament, and by ensuring that they are legally equivalent in effect to the English versions.” This is actually quite an important point, because, at the end of the day, if we were going to extend and allow people to take an oath of allegiance in another language, then you’d have to be very confident that the person taking that oath or hearing that oath understood it clearly and was conversant in that language as well, otherwise there could be some serious mistakes made.

What ensures that this is only going to be used for MPs? That’s the question that I’m putting forward, and I think that Kiri Allan might take a call on this; she’s interested in this. Schedule 4 of the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957 lists six other pieces of legislation that require an oath of allegiance. While only one of them refers explicitly to section 17, others, including the Bill of Rights Act 1688, leave this blank. There are other Acts—and I’m actually going to run through them—that this will directly relate to as it’s currently contained in the bill.

So it raises some questions. Will this apply to the Citizenship Act 1977 for new citizens swearing oaths in public ceremonies when they all swear at once? Because I know that we all would have attended, as members of Parliament, citizenship ceremonies, which I know we all hugely enjoy being part of because you can see the excitement and the energy of the people that are swearing and becoming citizens of New Zealand. But, recently, there was one held in my electorate where there were 500 people there. So this is actually very relevant in terms of—is this bill going to relate to the Citizenship Act 1977 and how does it interact with it?

What about the Defence Act, where Defence Force personnel are required to swear an oath of allegiance to the Sovereign. It would be unusual to swear an oath of allegiance in a language foreign to the country you are swearing allegiance to.

Just very quickly, because I’m conscious that I’m going to run out of time, some of the other Acts that could be addressed, or I’d like to be addressed, tonight in the House as the calls go on: I’ve mentioned the Citizenship Act 1977; there’s the Constitution Act 1986, section 11; there’s the Defence Act 1990, section 34; there’s the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, schedule 4, clause 1; there’s the Education Act 1964, section 162; the Policing Act 2008, section 22; and the Bill of Rights Act—and I’m not sure if this is a misprint but it’s got 1688 here on my sheet.

So I’d invite the next speaker that takes a call, or the speakers to follow, just to address those issues. They are important ones, and they have definitely been a serious block in terms of us being able to support this bill. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Can I congratulate Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki for having this bill drawn out. It is an exciting opportunity here, and I’d hoped the House would consider—seriously—about allowing this particular bill to go through the first reading so that the select committee could undertake its task, which is to try and address the concerns that have been raised here tonight.

I want to begin by simply saying that what this bill is designed to do is to amend the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957 so that it would allow members of Parliament to take the oaths as members of Parliament, or any oaths in this House, in the language of their choosing. It legalises a practice that is already being allowed to happen with the approval of the Speaker.

The Oaths and Declarations Act 1957—I just want to respond to Mr Mitchell’s comments about foreign languages. In 1957, I wasn’t even born. I wasn’t even thought of by my parents, I believe. We’re now in 2018. In 1957, there were less than a thousand Pacific peoples here in Aotearoa New Zealand. We now have 400,000 Pacific peoples. As an example, these are not just the only people that are here—400,000, 62 percent of those Pacific peoples are born in Aotearoa New Zealand. This is their home. I wasn’t born here. I was born in Samoa, but I’m a New Zealand citizen. This is my home.

I’ve often asked myself when I first came into the House: who am I, and what is the importance of the language to me? When I was asked in 2008 what language I wished to take my oath in, I asked the Speaker then, the Hon Margaret Wilson, if I could take it Samoan, the reason being because this is my heritage language. It speaks to me in terms of my identity, in terms of my connectedness to our heritage and our ancestral homes.

It also speaks volumes to the man who is my father, who encouraged and supported me to my political career. So I felt it was important to take that oath in the language that is my heritage language, in the language that more than 40 percent of many New Zealand - born understand, but in the language that my father, in particular, understood. How proud he was to hear those words being uttered here. But I soon learned that the only way that I could take that oath was if I also repeated it in English. That’s not a problem, but every time I’ve asked since 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017, when I could take the oath, I had to get permission from this House. Last year, for the first time ever, we had about six or seven MPs out of the 10 MPs who are here born of a different country take that oath in their heritage language. I think that’s something that we need to celebrate. It’s something that we need to recognise. I want to say the bill is about the oath in this House, and if those are legitimate concerns, then I’d ask the party across the bench to allow this bill to go through the first reading and allow the select committee to bring about the parameters that he seeks.

Finally, the oath of citizenship—and I accept some of the concerns in terms of the Defence Force and police force, but the oath of citizenship—I undertake citizenship ceremonies in my office. I soon learnt that the oath of citizenship in the English language for new arrivals, particularly from my home country, are not necessarily fully understood, and it was only with the Department of Internal Affairs, who then translated that oath and I’d repeat it to the citizens in Samoan, could they then appreciate the enormity and the importance of the oath that they were undertaking to become citizens of New Zealand. So I ask, again, the members of that party, and all other parties: please consider allowing this through the first reading, because this is about recognising our presence—

Order! [Interruption] I apologise to the member; your time has expired.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak to the Oaths and Declarations (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill at its first reading. I guess a bill like this is timely. I think that as we are a growing and developing multicultural society, we do need, as the previous speaker Aupito William Sio has indicated, to assess the linguistic and the cultural differences that make us who we are today. I think that in that way, and in that spirit and that wairua, I would commend the member on this bill. I think that it is very important to recognise the diversity and the issues that come with the ability to speak your own language and to understand it, as the previous speaker said.

I guess our difficulties with it do lie in the parameters of it, and, you know, going to a select committee—which is what it will do if it gets past this hurdle—might well iron out some of the concerns that we have on this side of the House around not just it affecting members of Parliament but the other issues and have they been well thought through or have they not. I guess defence personnel, for example, judges, and justices of the peace would be others who would do, via a citizenship ceremony, something that is in their own language and then means something to them, and they understand it and it resonates with them in a way that Te Reo does with all New Zealanders. In my former life as a broadcaster, it felt to me at many times that this was a country that was very slow to catch up with its Te Reo and the heritage that was very much part of what makes us who we are, and there was resistance at the start.

Perhaps, at a select committee level, if it goes through, there will be things that can bring it to a place where we can feel comfortable with it, and that it won’t open up the floodgates into things that might be a bit tricky to manage—you know, how many languages are we allowed? At what point would they be translated? At what point are they officially recognised? Sign language took a long time to actually be recognised, and I don’t think it was officially acknowledged, really, until the 2000s, but I think what it tells us about ourselves is something that we need to acknowledge and take hold of. For this language bill to get through, the Oaths and Declaration (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill, may be a step too far at this time, but I think it is paving the way to a wider conversation.

So while I do not support this bill in its current form, I commend the member for wanting to have affirmations of allegiance in languages other than English, and in Te Reo and in sign language, but I think it is something that is very important: doing things in a way that is going through the due processes and bringing people with you. But you have, with this bill, I think, begun a conversation which will cause us to examine things in a lot more detail. Therefore, I commend the member, but not this bill, to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. It’s for a number of reasons, and most of them are actually mentioned within the general policy statement of the bill. I’ll go through them in a second.

I’m slightly confused. There was something that Mark Mitchell said about whether this bill was to do with just members of Parliament or to do with citizenship or justices of the peace. I heard the call from the Labour Party members of Parliament that it was actually only just for MPs and taking the oath in this House, and then the second person who spoke, William Sio, stood up and said there were six members from this last election, this past swearing in, that used an alternative language. That means that we’re going to be debating in this House a piece of legislation that affects six people out of 4.6 million people in this country—just six for this term. It’s going to take up all of our time and all of the costs just for this House and just for MPs—just for MPs.

Now, if the member who’s authoring this bill actually believes what she is saying in her explanatory note, which is that “New Zealand has become a much more multicultural society. As a diverse and tolerant society we should allow [this to happen]”, then what I encourage her to do is to have a look at the languages with which she wants to make the oath or the allegiance, and put bills through to make them official languages of this country, because that’s what this House does. It uses the official languages of this country, whether it be English, Te Reo Māori, or sign language, and that’s what we do our oaths in. That’s what we do our oaths in.

Not only that, but there are some quite concerning things that are stated in the general policy statement. First of all, it says that this is “A good starting point for this change” in regards to allowing a “diverse and tolerant society”, and that we should allow this to happen. This is a good starting point? Well, what pathway are we starting down, and what’s the end point which the member wishes to get to? What is the end point which the member wants to get to? If we’re talking about being a diverse and tolerant society, a multicultural society, why are we stopping at just the oaths, for starters, in this House? Why not make it for oaths outside of this House as well? Why not make the language spoken in this House, not just with the oaths but just speaking during the debates and speeches—why don’t we include all the different types of languages that are spoken in this country?

Not only that, but in this bill it says “any other language”—any other language. There are over 7,000 languages that are being used in this world today—7,000. Are we going to include those in this House? Are we going to include those with the oaths, with the speeches, with the debates? It needs to be taken into context what this bill is being asked to do and why, because every single Labour Party member that stood up in favour of this bill has actually stated that what they wanted to achieve in the bill has already been achieved. What they wanted to do was to take the oath or affirmation in their mother tongue, and then they said that they did it. William Sio said that there were six members of Parliament that did it at this last election. They already did it. There is absolutely no need for this to happen—absolutely no need.

In Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand it states that “On occasion the House has given leave for a member, immediately upon being sworn in, to repeat the oath or affirmation in another language.” So it already achieves what it sets out to achieve. The only thing of any substance that is any different to what is written in here that was said in the opening speech was that that member was offended when they had to ask to take that affirmation or the oath in their language—that that member was offended. That’s the reason for this bill. It’s because they were offended that they had to ask permission from this House to take it into another language, even though they could already—even though they could already. Like I said, if that was the case, if it was true that we are an open, diverse, tolerant society, then what I suggest to the member is that they put some legislation in to change the official languages of this country if they want to speak it in this House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Well, it is a pleasure to speak on the Oaths and Declarations (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill. As has already been said by my colleagues, we won’t be supporting the bill. Look, I do congratulate the member for getting a bill up and getting it drawn out, but I don’t support it for some of the reasons—I actually do have a bit of sympathy for the member who just took his seat, Darroch Ball, and his views, perhaps not quite as hard-edged as that, but nonetheless.

I did look up before to find out how many languages there are in the world and I found the rather auspicious group, the Linguistic Society, which I take as being quite accurate, I suspect. They say that “One might suppose … that linguists would have a clear and reasonably precise notion of how many languages there are in the world. It turns out, however, that there is no such definite count—or at least, no such count that has any status as a scientific finding of modern linguistics.” So I guess the point is, as was made by the previous member, where does it end if we go down this track?

I thought that the point that was made before by the Hon Mark Mitchell around other consequences of this, such as the military, such as the police—all of those, and he read out the Acts. The Citizenship Act, the Constitution Act, the Defence Act, Lawyers and Conveyancers Act, the Education Act, Policing Act, and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act all refer to languages and the official languages in taking oaths and affirmations. So this is actually quite important. This could really have quite far-reaching effects. It’s for that reason really that I think the bill is beyond being tidied up in the select committee. I think it should be just go back and have another go and put another bill in. That would be my view.

But I thought about my own colleagues, Dr Jian Yang could—and I don’t know if he did—take his oath in Mandarin. I can’t remember—when we were sworn in. Melissa Lee could do it in Korean. We could have Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi—it would be in Hindi. Dr Parmjeet Parmar also could do it in Hindi. I suspect, if given the choice, the Hon Chris Finlayson would probably choose Latin, and I suspect Latin would have quite a lot of relevance given that our system—the legal system in those days right back when New Zealand Parliament came into being—was rooted in Latin, as was the medical profession. So you could make an argument for that. I suspect the Hon Paul Goldsmith, given a choice, would probably want to do his in Klingon, but the rest of us would prefer—look, we have official languages.

They might not mean much to some of those people who come in. I understand that. I think all the cultures that come to New Zealand enrich our society, and the different languages do enrich our society. And it’s great to see certainly even in the provinces such as Marlborough, I know the growing Pacific Island community is the fastest-growing group in Marlborough. I think that’s something to be celebrated and we celebrate their languages. However, when you come to a country you are leaving your home country. Bring your culture, bring your views, bring your language, but we have some things that we want to do that are our traditions, and our traditions, like having Black Rod banging on the door there at the start of Parliament so that we must go to hear the Speech from the Throne. It might be a strange tradition to those people who don’t come from here, but that is our tradition. We accept it. And that’s part of being a New Zealander and part of being a New Zealand citizen.

Coming to this Parliament, I imagine it would be a very uncharitable Speaker that would not allow a member of Parliament to give their oath in their mother tongue and then repeat it in English. I think it is a legally binding oath. It is absolutely important that what you say means what everybody else has said when they take their oath. So I don’t support this bill. I do congratulate the member for bringing it here. She’s not been here long so perhaps she’s got plenty of time to tidy it up and put it back in the ballot and it may well get drawn out. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Firstly, I want to congratulate the member Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki for what I think is a fantastic bill. It’s the perfect example of what a member’s bill should be. It’s a very prescribed, small change that could make a symbolic and significant difference to people in this country, and I want to thank you for your contribution to this House so early on in your parliamentary career.

I do have to express a significant degree of disappointment with the debate so far this evening. What I’ve heard, in terms of the arguments, is “where will it end if we allow these non-official languages to be given in oaths in this House?”—missing a point, which I hadn’t previously been aware of, that English is not an official language of this country. The official languages of this country are Te Reo Māori and sign language; English is not, so all of the content of this debate is given in a language that is not an official language. So it does not stand up to say that we have to restrict the oath to official languages, because nothing in this House, except the Reo, is in the official language of this country.

I’ve heard the assumption that sign language can be used because it is an official language. Well, I’m sorry to give members the bad news that it can’t, and that is one of the reasons for introducing this piece of legislation, I imagine: to enable one of our official languages to be able to be used in the Oath of Allegiance.

I do want to question, as well, the fact that New Zealand has a history of a very close relationship and, actually, a constitutional relationship with several countries in the Pacific. Tokelau is still a dependent territory, there are associated states of the Cook Islands and Niue, and there is not the ability for those people to use their language in this House without having to repeat it in English, despite us having that close relationship.

It does not make sense to me, ruling out this piece of legislation when there are those degrees of inconsistencies. And I’ve heard members say, “So this will have massive implications. It’s not just about Parliament, and we can’t deal with that.” I read the purpose of this bill, which is a very, very short piece of legislation, might I tell people, and to quote it: “The purpose of this Act is to amend the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957 to allow members of Parliament to make their oaths or affirmations of allegiance in languages other than English and te reo Māori.” How short is that? How much effort would it have taken to read those two sides of paper to find out the purpose of the bill and the boundaries of this bill? I honestly just think it’s incredibly disrespectful that people haven’t done that work and have come to this debate, raising these complete red herrings to dismiss a bill that actually is quite important.

So while we’re hearing from people that “actually you can give your Oath of Allegiance in your language and it doesn’t matter that you have to then translate it into English”—it does matter. It does give a message about the place of people in our communities, and when our official languages aren’t able to be given automatically or used for oaths, and when other languages that are present and matter for our family histories and heritages are not able to be present in this House without being qualified by the language of English, it is offensive to me, to be honest.

I really think, as well, that people clearly are demonstrating their lack of understanding about how much of a struggle it is to hold your heritage language, and how important that is for members in our community, and how much we need leadership from this place to be able to support the retention, and indeed the flourishing, of those heritage languages in our country.

This is one of those bills that’s all about the politics of identity. You see, there’s a battle out there which is if you’re seen to champion the cause of particular groups, somehow you meet this politically correct demand to be able to be in favour and more inclusive. Well, I’m proud to be a member of this Parliament that is not interested in superficial measures, such as this bill, in the pretence that that somehow makes us a more inclusive and a more diverse society.

Let’s go back to what this bill actually attempts to do. Right now, if you want to be a member of Parliament, those less than 60 words giving your Oath of Allegiance need to be in the language of English or Māori. Now, they are the key languages of this Parliament. Māori has a special place in this country because they are the indigenous people of this country.

With respect to the issue of English—actually, I am one of those that is proud of the English heritage that is part of our country, that has helped make this country all that it is today, including the proud history that enables us to have this democratic institution of Parliament. I do worry for those that want to derail—that want to denigrate—that English heritage that is part of New Zealand’s heritage and part of this country.

Now, the question I’ve got for members opposite is if a person is unable in this Parliament to be able to say just 60 words—[Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! Order, members!

Oh, these people are so liberal! They’re so keen for people to have a say if they agree with them, but they’re not prepared to listen to a contribution that simply says that if people cannot utter 60 words in the language of English or Māori, how do they practically expect them to be able to participate in the important democratic functions that are part of this Parliament.

Now, what this is all about is, somehow, the member who’s introduced this bill is going to go out, in terms of the community of the Pacific, whether it be Tongan or otherwise, and somehow pretend—somehow pretend—that she’s an advocate for that community, that she’s going to make lives better for Tongan New Zealanders simply by this small symbolic bill, and I say that she is mistaken. This Parliament has had enough from this Government that is all about symbolism, all about intent rather than substance. I would much rather—if the member that brought this bill to the Parliament had a bill that was addressing the real, practical issues that Tongan families in New Zealand have, I’d have some sympathy. But the idea that somehow—somehow—we become a more inclusive society with a bill of this sort around those allegiances is mistaken.

I also want to make this point. Actually, we in New Zealand—we in New Zealand—are very liberal in terms of our approach to the 100-plus cultures that make up our country. Have you not just noted in Australia members of Parliament being forced to resign and have elections because they hold citizenship of another country. I don’t think it is possible to run an argument that New Zealand is not inclusive, respectful, and celebratory of whether it be the Tongan, the Samoan, the Cook Island, the Ukrainian, the Russian—the many dozens of cultures that make up this country. So my simple point is this: actually, the official languages of this country are English and Māori. Yes, of course I want people of Tongan, Samoan, Russian, or whatever cultural roots they have to be able to continue their language. But when it comes to the official institutions—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe, Madam Assistant Speaker. First off, I would like to say thank you to Rino Tirikatene for giving me his slot to speak on this really important bill, because I’ve been sitting here getting absolutely wound up about people not understanding the importance of this bill. The last speaker, Nick Smith, who said that he doesn’t believe New Zealand is not respectful to other cultures, has just filled five minutes with absolute disrespect for the other cultures that we have here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

First of all, Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki, I congratulate you for this bill. When I first saw it, I thought, “Damn, I wish I’d come up with that.” What an awesome thing to put in here, because this is a lost opportunity for New Zealand. We have an opportunity here to be front-leading and to show the world we are such a modern Government and a shining example for the rest of the world.

I recently visited Holland. In fact, I’m still jetlagged because I only arrived yesterday morning. But I was talking to some local government reps about the fact that I had been given the privilege in the House to take my Oath of Allegiance in Dutch. They were blown away. They said that would never happen in Holland, and the reason for that is that our people are very conservative, even though people have this idea that the Dutch are so progressive.

The whole missed opportunity is twofold. First of all—and this is something that only people who have a first language that is not English can understand—when you do something like giving an oath or swearing allegiance and you do it in the words of your mother tongue, it makes a connection with your heart. It doesn’t come out of your brain. It’s not something that you read out from a paper you’ve read, or you’re doing a speech on a topic that you’ve learnt; it comes out of your heart. So when you are doing it in your own language, you actually 100 percent commit. I can say anything—I can swear like you wouldn’t know it—in your language, English, because it actually doesn’t really mean anything. If I say those same words in Dutch, it actually makes a connection.

Now, I have to disagree with the member Darroch Ball from New Zealand First. This is not about two or four or six MPs; this is about the cultures that we represent in this House. We are supposed to be an inclusive Parliament. We are supposed to be representative of the nearly 5 million people that we have in this country. We heard from the Minister Aupito William Sio that we have nearly 400,000 Pacific people now in New Zealand, so for them to be able to hear that this House recognises them in that respectful way is absolutely priceless.

We have a problem here where people don’t make a connection with this institution because it’s so far removed from real life. We complain about people not turning out to vote. We say, “Look, why are they not watching Parliament TV?”

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: And changing the oath is going to change that? Give us a break.

It’s because they see boring, old-fashioned, back-to-the-1950s people like Nick Smith giving speeches that don’t touch people’s hearts.

Nick Smith gave a speech that, to me, was in a history book of the 1950s. In the 1950s, the New Zealand Parliament actively encouraged the Dutch settlers to disperse all through the country—not to stick together in their communities, but to learn the English language, forget about Dutch, and try and assimilate into New Zealand. So does that sound familiar to anyone? Does that sound like any of the other groups that have gone through the same thing? We should be setting an example here of being inclusive and of taking people with us into this House, and we cannot do that by just doing things on the go.

So Mark Mitchell made a comment about the fact that these are not official oaths and, you know, the words that are used may not be right—and that’s exactly it. If this was an official process, we would be able to get our oaths translated. There would be processes for it, and we would be using the correct wording.

I had to go to the Dutch Ambassador, His Excellency Rob Zaagman, whom I’d like to thank very much for helping me with the translation of “swearing allegiance”, because those are words that mean nothing to me. But actually saying them in my own mother tongue did.

So I do support this bill. I commend it to the House with my whole heart. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the Oaths and Declarations (Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill. I’m going to do a risky thing tonight. I’m going to ignore the advice of a lawyer who was much better than I ever was—Harvey Specter—and ask a question to which I don’t already know the answer. My question is this: are there any other nations in whose parliaments or equivalent institutions it is acceptable to swear an oath or declaration or affirmation in Māori or in New Zealand Sign Language or in English, other than in English-speaking countries? I suspect there are not very many.

We’ve heard a number of pragmatic objections to this bill, and those have been well canvassed, but I do want to touch on a couple of points that seem to be the subject of some confusion. One is the statement that English is not an official language. Now, I do accept that there is not an Act of Parliament that says as its heading, or similarly prominently, that English is an official language of New Zealand. However, English is used for official business in this country and is recognised in some statutes, for example, the Tax Administration Act, as Dr Deborah Russell will no doubt know, where it’s actually mandated that returns, for example, must be in English—perhaps only in some circumstances; I’m out of my depth on that matter. But it’s simply not accurate to say that English is not an official language of New Zealand, any more than it is to say that we don’t have a constitution in this country just because we don’t have a single piece of paper that has at the top of that page the word “Constitution”. Of course we have constitutional arrangements, both written and non-written alike.

I will agree with the comment made by Mr Ball in relation to the fact that in the explanatory note of the bill, by its own admission, it is a “starting point”. I had highlighted those words in my own notes and added the word “floodgates” because it seems to me unclear what the starting point is leading to by way of end point.

That leads me, as well, to reiterate the point which may have been lost in translation, so to speak, in relation to the scope of the bill, whereby it’s true that the title of the bill and the stated purpose is that it apply only to MPs. New section 4B in clause 5 says that “If an equivalent in any other language of any of the oaths or affirmations set out in this Act is prescribed by regulations”, etc., then using that would have the same effect. Now, the Oaths and Declarations Act does not contain only oaths and declarations that relate to the affairs of this House. So perhaps inadvertently—and perhaps it is a seemingly minor but technical detail, but, nevertheless, it is an important one in understanding what this bill is not only intending to do but what, in fact, it would actually do.

It seems to me slightly self-absorbed to the point of being elitist that we are concerned about this, if, indeed, we are only to be concerned with oaths and declarations for members of Parliament, as distinct from the many oaths, declarations, and other such important statements to be made throughout this land. So perhaps the scope of the bill should be either narrower or broader. But, in any case, to pitch it only at members of Parliament seems to me slightly ill-conceived in a way that makes me feel a bit embarrassed as a member of Parliament that we would concern ourselves with this right of ours but not extend that to other New Zealanders and other professions.

A couple of more general points I think have some symbolic value. One is relating to certainty, and that speaks to uniformity, but also I think unity—and I think the point made by my colleague the Hon Nick Smith is important in this regard. If, in this country, we are standing in this country’s Parliament and able to give an oath in a way that is the same as all the other members of the House, then that speaks to a unity that is perhaps lacking in certain other regards in the way that our Parliament is run. So it seems to me that it would be a shame to derogate from that.

I’ll conclude my remarks by noting that it seems a bit disappointing, no doubt, for the Government that its own partners don’t support this bill—or at least one of them—and it disappoints me to say that I agree with New Zealand First in this regard. So I, along with my colleagues, will not be supporting this bill.

I call Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki—five minutes in reply.

Five minutes. I acknowledge English as the dominant migrant—migrant—language of Aotearoa New Zealand society. The first speaker said a foreign language that he learnt was French. Well, French is the sixth most spoken language in New Zealand. Since the arrival of the coloniser—I’m saying “coloniser”—they were the foreigner in this land, and now in this House we speak a language that is not an official language. Thank goodness for Standing Order 108 that allows the English language to be spoken to the Speaker. If that wasn’t there—I did my research—in Standing Order 108, then I would be able to speak Tongan, because that is an unofficial language just like English is an unofficial language in this House.

I want to acknowledge Jan Logie for speaking the truth about this little secret, the little secret that Te Reo Māori was made an official language of New Zealand in 1987, followed by the New Zealand Sign Language. But there is no law in this land that makes English, the first foreigner of this land, an official language. I want to remind the member who spoke of his heritage as English that this is a good time to remember that manufacturing false hierarchies based on language and culture in order to enforce a class system is a very, very long story of colonisation in this land which we all call home, Aotearoa New Zealand. If we all call this land—“all” does not mean you wait until you go to the Chinese New Year festival so you can say something in Mandarin, or you can go to the Tongan Language Week and start saying something in Tongan or the Samoan Language Week, or save it for churches to start saying something in their language.

Why are you saying that when—oh, sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker. Why are members of Parliament speaking another language when they are in their presence? Why, is what I want to know—why? Then when it comes to the law of the land, to the place where you come to serve all the people of New Zealand, can they speak? The first word you say in this House is “I”. My first word I said in this House was “Ko ahau” in Te Reo. After Te Reo I spoke Tongan. The first time I spoke the unofficial English language was when I said “Mr Speaker”, after I had acknowledged the land, God, and everybody, because it is my identity. It is my identity because Tongan New Zealanders add value to this land.

The top player of the Commonwealth Games was a Tongan New Zealander whose heritage language is Tongan, whose parents are in Tonga—a Tongan migrant. I say to you that Statistics New Zealand has a projection that in 2038 more than half of this land are going to have ancestry from, first of all, the tangata whenua; from Asia, where Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi said his oath in Hindi; where the Korean—where is she—where Melissa Lee spoke in Korean; where Marja Lubeck spoke in Dutch; where the Hon Aupito William Sio spoke Samoan; where the Hon Jenny Salesa spoke Samoan. They will make more than half of this country.

We waited for the leadership of Dame Tariana Turia in 2004 to take her declaration in Te Reo Māori. How many years after the first foreigner—Pākehā—arrived here? I actually can’t do my maths at the moment. We waited for her to do that. And we waited for 2008 for the Hon Aupito William Sio to say, “I’m a New Zealander too. Can I be afforded the same privilege as the first foreigner to speak my language in this House?” I put it to you—sorry, Madam Assistant Speaker. I put it to this House: is it OK, is it OK for just English to be spoken, for the English speaker—is it OK for them to not have to go to all parties and seek their agreement to speak their language here? Or is it only OK for Tongans or for Samoans—

Order! [Interruption] I apologise to the member. Your time has expired.