Richard Prebble still supports the Waitangi Tribunal, but he says it has no real authority.
“One of the problems, and I put it at the feet of government, is that the Tribunal rulings don’t have any effect until the government responds.
“Successive prime ministers have declined to respond to the rulings made by the tribunal; they should’ve come out and said, ‘No, we’re in favour of what was agreed in 1840. There’s one treaty, there’s one country, and there’s one class of citizenship',” Prebble said.
This came after the former ACT leader and Labour minister resigned from the tribunal earlier Wednesday morning.
He told Te Ao Māori News that in his maiden speech in Parliament, he spoke about the Treaty of Waitangi, saying, “We should be proud of it and how we should be honouring [it]—I still believe that.”
“What I’m not prepared to do is sit on a tribunal and pretend that it’s a socialist manifesto; it’s not.
“I’m not prepared to set standards; I know no government, no matter how well intended, could ever meet because that’s just a continuous dose of grievances, and that’s not going to help anyone, and we can see that in the streets.”
Prebble claimed to have received the Tribunal forecast a few days ago.
“The number of breaches that they are going to be hearing is going to go up, not down; the whole purpose of setting up the tribunal was to reduce the number of grievances, not to become a source of grievance.”
The National and New Zealand First coalition agreement is meant to review the Waitangi Tribunal, which Prebble wants.
“I think they should [review it], I think they should upgrade it, and I believe it should be headed by a high court judge.
“We don’t want a tribunal that every few years reinterprets the treaty, that just destabilizes it; it’s unsustainable; we need to decide on a version [of the treaty] and stick to it,” he said.
