National hits the road with Treaty message
National Leader Don Brash has taken the message from his Orewa speech on New Zealand nationhood to Rotorua, in the
first of a series of provincial tours.
"National wants New Zealand to be a modern democratic society, with one rule for all in a single nation state. The
alternative is a racially divided nation, with two sets of laws, and two standards of citizenship, that the present
Labour Government is moving us steadily towards," said Dr Brash.
"A whole range of legislation now includes reference to Treaty principles without any explanation of what those
principles are, or how they work. That is why today I am announcing that the National Party will be commissioning
research into the complex task of removing racial preferences from legislation, starting with the Resource Management
Act.
"This research will be started immediately and will be made public when completed.
"Any body can see that it is simply absurd to suggest that a speech asserting the principle of "equality for all before
the law" is divisive and racist.
"Others have claimed that I was trashing the Treaty. Yet I explicitly stated that the Treaty's three simple clauses
must be upheld. That the Treaty is a founding document is obvious to all. But the Treaty alone is not an adequate
constitutional basis for a modern state.
"Some have suggested that none of this matters, because some of the race-based preferences are relatively trivial. But
the plain fact of the matter is that the public of New Zealand has witnessed a parade of race-based political
correctness over the past decade or more - cultural safety in nursing, taniwha stopping roading projects, consultations
with iwi blocking routine university research, frogs being escorted by groups of Kaumatua, and so on.
"Individual cases may be trivial, even laughable, but collectively the pattern is concerning and never-ending. National
will put a stop to this, and refocus government assistance on the basis of need, not race.
"I am heartened by the public reaction to National's message, from both Maori and non-Maori, but there is still a long
way to go. This provincial tour is just the start of the work ahead," said Dr Brash.