With the Treaty Principles Bill having its second reading tomorrow, Labour Party’s Justice spokesperson Duncan Webb believes this won’t be the end of Act Leader David Seymour trying to push the ideas underlying the bill.
“I have no doubt he will dream up some new way to keep it alive.
“What this [bill] did show is that of the people who wanted to make a submission on it, only 8 percent of them were in favour of the bill that’s a tiny minority that roughly represent the Act Party.
“For David Seymour to suggest of the 400,000 people that’s not a fair representative sample is absolute rubbish, if anything it’s over representing the general thought of New Zealand in my mind,” said Webb.
In a post to social media following the release of the select committee report in to the Treaty Principles Bill, David Seymour made a declaration.
“We will never give up”.
“The select committee report has only strengthened ACT’s and my resolve to see the Treaty Principles Bill become law. New Zealanders are ready for this debate, they don’t deserve to be let down by their leaders,” Seymour wrote.
With over 300,000 written submissions, 90 percent of it opposed the proposed bill, and after weeks of oral submission the Justice Committee’s report recommended it not pass.
The Labour MP was part of that committee, with him saying the experience “was quite a ride”.
“I’m really gonna be interested to see whether the National Party have the guts to stand up and actually speak to the bill and explain themselves.
“I think it’s really disrespectful to not stand up and tell New Zealand why the National Party’s done, what its done here.”
He personally called out Prime Minister Christopher Luxon for “presiding over the most racist piece of legislation we’ve seen since the early 1900s”.
Luxon is going to be absent during the second reading as it falls on a day when he is not in Parliament.
Labour, the Greens, and Te Pāti Māori unsuccessfully voted against it in the first reading, but now National and NZ First are expected to join them in voting the bill down at the second reading.
Webb called it historic, what has happened with the hīkoi, written and oral submissions breaking records in Aotearoa.
“I’m really priviledged to have been part of it to [have] kind of been an actor in this really important moment in New Zealand history,” he said.
