Mike's Minute: The Waitangi Tribunal are overstepping

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

​For a Government looking to save money, it beggars belief that they haven't had a decent look at the Waitangi Tribunal.

Yet again they strike, this time with a report that condemns the Treaty Principles Bill. They condemn it and want it abolished.

The trouble is, there is no such thing.

The tribunal is like a court. Fortunately it doesn’t have the same powers as a court, and indeed, as a result of reports like this you can surely argue it is nowadays little more than an advocacy service for the aggrieved, as opposed to a tribunal or court that should be taken seriously.

They intervene so much now that they border on being little more than state-funded whingers.

As a tribunal of any serious standing, how can you issue a report into a bill that doesn’t exist?

There is no bill. There are no clauses. As we sit here today what we have is an idea and an election commitment.

Nothing has yet been written or taken to Cabinet, far less been signed off by Cabinet. It does not exist.

So what the tribunal are saying is "we don’t like the idea".

Courts and tribunals should deal with fact. They have no fact.

They should deal with evidence. They have no evidence.

It's like saying it was Mrs Johnson in the library with the candlestick. I assume David Seymour is Mrs Johnson, Parliament is the library - but they have no candlestick. They have, as they would see it, no crime.

Not only isn't there a bill, when there is a bill, guess what? You get to have a say. At a select committee everyone gets to have a say. Dare I suggest Maori get to have a say. That is called democracy, which ironically is a corner stone of what may or may not turn out to be the Treaty Principles Bill.

David Seymour generously welcomed the report as part of the wider discussion he wants to have.

But as a taxpayer I am over a grouping who clearly has passed their use by date for historic issues and have moved onto the grievance gravy train.

It is clear they hate the Government. They may as well write another report simply saying so.

At least it would once and for all expose the agenda that’s really driving them.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.