Elizabeth Rata There is only one treaty

ELIZABETH RATA THERE ARE NO PRINCIPLES OF THE TREATY There are two versions of the Treaty of Waitangi. The first is the 1840 Treaty – the ‘Articles Treaty’. The second is what I call the ‘Principles Treaty’. It dates from 1986 when the principles were first included in legislation. Astonishingly the parliamentary representatives who inserted the word ‘principles’ did not know what they meant. To include a word estranged from its meaning into legislation is an egregious political failure. At the very least, a democracy requires words to have an agreed meaning otherwise rational communication is impossible. Autocracies that use ideologies to control how people think can dispense with accurate meaning. Democracies cannot. The result of parliament’s failure is two versions, one of Articles – the ‘Articles Treaty’, the other of Principles – the ‘Principles Treaty’ – and the consequences – a racially divided country and a group asserting co-governance rights. How did it happen? The 1840 Articles Treaty has a Preamble and 3 Articles that reflect the ideas, motives, and actions of the time. Similarly, the Principles Treaty is of its time and place – the 1980s. The cause of enormous confusion and conflict is because the treaty today has the words of 1840 (whether in Māori or in English) but the meaning is late 20th century ideology. The meaning of the 1840 Treaty exists in the Articles. Article I recognised British sovereignty. Article II recognised the rights of Māori to hold or dispose of property. Article III recognised Māori as British subjects. In stark contrast, the inventors of the Principles Treaty have, after decades of uncertainty, finally settled on the so-called core principles of partnership, active protection, and redress, despite these words not appearing in the Articles. The word ‘principles’ first appeared in the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act. In that legislation, ‘principles’ referred directly to the meaning, value, and purpose of the Articles. The word ‘principles’ was tied to the Articles. It had no referent outside those Articles. It did not state the word ‘partnership’, nor was active protection and redress mentioned or implied. Three events detached the word ‘principles’ from the Treaty Articles, leading to decades of meaning creation. They are the 1985 Treaty of Amendment Act, the 1987 Court of Appeal’s ‘akin to partnership’ statement, and the insertion of undefined ‘principles’ into legislation from 1986. The Articles-Principles detachment occurring in these three events was crucial to today’s invented treaty. It enabled the principles to acquire a diderent meaning, value and purpose – a new referent. To reflect the word’s new power, it was given a capital ‘P’. From that time treaty revisionists of all ethnicities talked excitedly about the ‘Principles’ as though they had always existed. Like sacred text, the meaning was lying in wait in the Treaty runes. It would be revealed by those who now interpret the Word to the World – the lawyers who are the modern secular priesthood. As the practice of legislative insertion and legal interpretation gained momentum so too did an acceptance of the erroneous belief that the Principles had authority. An authority conundrum was created. It is reasonable to believe that insertion into legislation is the act of authorisation. After all, members of parliament authorised the insertion. However, they failed to define the Principles despite numerous and ongoing insertions. It was left to activist judges, odicials and