The Sound of One hand Clapping: The taxpayer funded "Constitutional Conversation" has so far demonstrated little inclination to facilitate a genuine debate on the Treaty's already entrenched place in the legal, administrative and political life of New Zealand. This unwillingness to either recognise or supply a visible platform for the nay-sayers betrays the "Conversation's" essential artificiality. A manufactured consensus is no substitute for a bloody good argument.
I DON’T GET ANGRY very often. I’ve been around too long,
seen history repeat itself too many times, for all that malarkey. Just
occasionally, however, I stumble across something that truly infuriates me.
Like discussions billed as debates where everybody is
actually on the same side.
No, I’m not talking about TV3’s “The Vote”. What’s got my
dander up is a four-part series being hosted by the NZ Centre for Public Law (NZCPL)
entitled “Debating the Constitution”. All four encounters to be broadcast
subsequently on Radio NZ National.
And, yes, the series is indeed a response to the
Constitutional Review which emerged from the horse-trading between the National
and Maori parties following the 2008 General Election.
The same review that has been the occasion for more than a
little teeth-gnashing among those Pakeha who have declared themselves perfectly
happy with New Zealand’s present constitutional arrangements, thank you very
much, and who have voiced deep suspicions of both the motives behind its
creation and the outcomes intended by its protagonists.
Now, you might be thinking: Well there’s the opportunity for
a genuine, rip-snorting debate! And I’d be the first to agree. There are a host
of noisy individuals who would’ve leapt at the opportunity to voice their
doubts and suspicions concerning the whole Constitutional Review initiative.
And that’s what has got me all hot under the collar.
I’ve examined the personnel invited to participate in this
exercise by the NZCPL and can I find any of the names associated with the political
movement that has sprung up to oppose the Constitutional Review?
No, I can’t.
And it’s not as though it would have been at all that difficult
for the NZCPL to locate these folk. All it needed to do was send out
invitations to the membership of the defiantly christened “Independent
Constitutional Review Panel” – a ready-made Negative Team comprising Professors
Martin Devlin and James Allan; Associate Professor, Elizabeth Rata; Law
Lecturer, David Round; journalist and author, Mike Butler; and the former Act
MP, Muriel Newman.
Well, I looked through the list of “Debating the
Constitution” participants and not even one member of the Independent
Constitutional Review Panel was included.
The names I did see surprised me not at all. Before my eyes
was a veritable roll-call of the good and the great; the wise and the just; the
righteously indigenous and the guilty descendants of the Maori people’s wicked colonial
oppressors.
Here’s a sneak peek at just some of the NZCPL’s line-up: Dame
Claudia Orange, Sir Geoffrey and Dr Matthew Palmer, Moana Jackson, Dr Maria
Bargh, Professors Margaret Wilson, Elizabeth McLeay and Andrew Geddis, Jim
Bolger and Colin James.
Now, don’t get me wrong, every one of these illustrious
individuals is capable of contributing mightily to a polite “discussion” of our
constitutional arrangements. More than a few of them could also say much that
was useful about its origins and political ramifications. But, seriously, do
any of them strike you as people likely to hoe into the Review with the passion
of its self-identified opponents?
The NZCPL’s list of speakers is not going to generate a
debate on this important topic. No, these folk are going to deliver an academic
seminar on the exercise to an audience which will almost certainly be comprised
of like and equally lofty minds.
It was only after my father was posted to Wellington in 1969
that I encountered the delicious word “twee”. From the moment I heard it used
in a sentence I have cherished it. No other word in the English language
captures the mixture of exclusivity and effeteness that twee so wonderfully
expresses.
And twee is exactly the right word to describe this series
of debates-that-aren’t-debates.
What could have been a down-and-dirty verbal slug-fest; a
chance for these grand personages to endure a rare encounter with New
Zealanders who most emphatically do not share their “sound” views on the Treaty
of Waitangi, bi-culturalism and New Zealand history; an opportunity to squeeze
all the poisons inflaming the open wound that is New Zealand race relations
into public view – has been missed.
And that not only makes me angry, it also makes me sad.
As a people, we used to be more open and courageous than
this. When Jack was a good as any snooty professor, and a debate was still a
bloody good argument.
This essay was
originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The
Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 5 April 2013.
