July 05, 2024
Short arc for ACT treaty bill
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Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka says ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill won’t get past the select committee stage.
Twenty-seven licensed translators have written an open letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and cabinet ministers warning of the bill was based on a deeply flawed translation of te Tiriti o Waitangi.
They say the proposed principles put forward by ACT leader David Seymour are built on additions, omissions and distortions of the original text.
Mr Potaka says the National recognises the treaty as a foundation document of New Zealand’s modern democracy, and in terms of international law, the Maori version has an elevated status in any interpretation.
He says the letter from the translators is useful and important.
“We also operate within a coalition agreement between the National Party and the Act Party that we would together take a treaty principles bill, drafted on the basis of the ACT policy as they campaigned on through the election, we will take it through to first reading and select committee and the prime minister has said on many occasions that is where it will stop,” Mr Potaka says.
which was “deeply flawed” and failed “international translation ethical standards”.