Seymour's Cunning Plan

And why we must stymie it.

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Last Thursday the Government decided to introduce the Treaty Principles Bill into parliament roughly two weeks earlier than planned on November 18^th.

Why?

Because, the Government tell us , it just happens to be ready to be presented where other draft bills in their pipeline are not.

Yeah, right.

First of all it shifts the introduction of the Bill away November 18^th  when the Hikoi protesting assault on the Treaty will arrive in Wellington. So it’s an attempt to defuse the power of the protest.

Secondly Luxon won’t be in the House. He’ll be at APEC in Peru so he won’t to front up and speak to this diabolical piece of proposed legislation.

It also means that when the Bill comes back for its second reading after the select committee hearing Seymour will be the Deputy Prime Minister, not Peters putting him in a more influential position.

All of which begs the question of why David Seymour demanded the Treaty be revisited as part of the coalition agreement in the first place, when he must have known how divisive it would be.

Seymour claims the Bill is about “equal rights,” which might be good for scooping up campaign funds from his Right-minded supporters but it’s just a piece of polemics that doesn’t bear much scrutiny, because (a) the issue is equity (for Māori over loss of land and rights) not equality and (b) it is based on an self-serving interpretation of the Treaty that has already been rubbished by over a hundred bone fide translators.

No. The real reason has to lie in ACT’s Atlas trained leader’s ideology that governments should not interfere in the marketplace, that Big Business and Big Money knows best and things like Treaties ought not to get in the way of overseas interests buying up our country and resources .

As I was writing this post the words of Baldrick in Blackadder came to mind.

“ I have a cunning plan M’lord.”

Well, we have to make sure that Seymour’s divisive strategy proves disastrous for his party and not for the country.

That’s why I’ll be joining the Hokoi  as it passes through Auckland tomorrow.

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