Unfortunately, there’s a small group of people who think becoming a republic with our own head of states means that New Zealand would “get rid” of the Treaty, te Tiriti o Waitangi, or void our founding document.
A recent example of this was the newly re-elected Tauranga City Councillor Andrew Hollis, who took to Facebook to complain about the “treaty gravy train.” Councillor Hollis said that it was time to become a republic to “end” the Treaty:
A comment posted on Andrew Hollis’ Facebook page. Source: Twitter
This is simply not the case. Numerous legal academics are clear: by becoming a republic, the Treaty of Waitangi - te Tiriti o Waitangi, does not become void. We’ve gone into more detail on this on our page specifically on the Treaty of Waitangi page.
Essentially, it comes down to the legal position of the Treaty; it’s part of our law through court decisions following specific Acts of Parliament (the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, which created the Waitangi Tribunal for example). Becoming a republic doesn’t change that.
And these legal academics include Professor Noel Cox, who is hardly an ardent republican. He was previously the long-standing chairman of Monarchy New Zealand. In 2004 Professor Cox said:
“...if New Zealand became a republic tomorrow it would make no difference to the Treaty of Waitangi. Speaking as a lawyer, it’s a long-established principle that successive governments take on responsibility for previous agreements.”
The key question is what happens with the Crown-Maori relationship. Some claim that with no Crown, the Treaty is void. In fact, the obligations of the Treaty would be inherited by the New Zealand Government (in fact “The Crown” is generally understood to mean the executive government anyway). This actually occurred before, following the adoption of the Statute of Westminster in 1947.
The answer is to have a clear clause in any republic legislation that clarifies this so that there is no doubt. Such a clause was proposed in Dr Andrew Butler and Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s proposed constitution:
“On Commencement of this Constitution, all rights, duties and obligations of the Crown in right of New Zealand under the Treaty and under Treaty settlement agreements and related statutes vest in and are assumed by the State.”
Professor Janet McLean has stated (in an excellent Newsroom article) that a new “language” is required for the relationship. The language already exists - as Morgan Godfrey has noted:
“If we accept the idea that the special relationship in this country is between tangata whenua and tangata tiriti, not between colony and Crown, then what is the monarchy but a dust-covered photograph of Queen Victoria on the back wall of a small-town Marae?”