Media statement
Friday, October 29, 2004

Time for New Zealand to grow up

United Future leader, Peter Dunne, told a party meeting in Christchurch tonight that the time had arrived for New Zealand to step boldly into the future as a progressive, positive, self-confident nation.

“New Zealanders have a tendency,” he said, “to agonise over who and what they are and who and what they should be.

“We fret about the bicultural or multicultural options open to us, we worry about the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in our concept of nationhood, and we sometimes yearn for the ‘good old days’ of Mother England.

“It’s time to sort all that out.

“I have a Bill before Parliament that would make Waitangi Day into New Zealand Day. I’m talking to the Prime Minister about a searching inquiry into the nature of all New Zealand’s ad hoc constitutional arrangements. Others are running major campaigns to change the flag.

“It’s time to bring all these various strands of effort together so that New Zealand can take its place in the 21st century as a nation that knows its identity and its uniqueness in the world community,” said Mr Dunne.

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