August 02, 2016
UN declaration empty rhetoric
Labour MP Louisa Wall says the Maori Party’s refusal to support Helen Clark’s bid to become the United Nations secretary general displays a selective use of history.
The Maori Party says it can’t forgive Ms Clark over the Foreshore and Seabed Act and her government’s refusal to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007.
Ms Wall says then Opposition leader John Key said a National Government wouldn’t either, and it was only pressure from the Maori Party that enabled Sir Pita Sharples to sign it on New Zealand’s behalf in 2010.
She says the Maori Party seems to be about symbolism rather than substance.
"One of the things that hasn’t happened since we signed that agreement is some acknowledgement in any domestic legislation that Maori are the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa so I would have thought there are some other policy objectives that the Maori Party and actually all of us are should be pursuing to make that United Nations declaration real in terms of how we implement it here in Aotearoa," Ms Wall says.
Copyright © 2016, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com