Fiji’s path to equality offers lessons for New Zealand’s race debate - Richard Prebble

Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka. In 2022, there was a peaceful transfer of power. Fiji now has a multi-racial Government, something once thought impossible. Photo / Adam Pearse

KEY FACTS

• Fiji’s 2013 Constitution abolished race-based voting, promoting equality among all citizens as “Fijians”.
• The Regulatory Standards Bill in New Zealand aims for better law making through transparency and clarity.
• Critics argue the bill’s principle of “all citizens are equal” challenges claims of special rights for Māori.

I am writing this from Fiji, escaping the New Zealand winter. It’s a country I know well. Fifty years ago, I practised law here. Even then, I foresaw trouble. I returned to New Zealand well before the coups.

The British ruled Fiji by dividing its people, setting the races against one another. It worked for colonial control. It was a disaster for independence.

The result? Three coups, all caused by inter-ethnic tension. Those responsible now admit the coups were a mistake. The coup leaders and the Methodist Church have apologised. Publicly.

Fiji has since taken steps New Zealand should study. Its 2013 Constitution abolished the race-based electoral system. All citizens, regardless of ancestry, are now called “Fijians”.

In 2022, there was a peaceful transfer of power. Fiji now has a multi-racial Government, something once thought impossible.

Fiji still faces challenges. There’s a meth epidemic. But the political consensus is clear: the way to govern a multi-ethnic country is for all citizens to be equal before the law.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, a Parliamentary select committee is considering the Regulatory Standards Bill.

The reaction has been hysterical. Both supporters and critics exaggerate its effects. The bill is modest. It simply promotes better law-making by requiring transparency and clarity.

Its principles are recommendations that are not binding. The courts can’t enforce them. A future government can ignore it, just as governments ignore the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s requirement for balanced budgets.

So why the fury?

The critics are not just wrong, they are revealing. Tobacco companies can’t sue under the bill.

The claim by the Waitangi Tribunal that Māori weren’t consulted is refuted by the number of Māori who have made submissions.

The claim that it erases the Treaty of Waitangi is absurd. If a Regulatory Standards Act had been in place, many breaches of Māori Treaty rights might not have occurred.

A lawyer at Tāmaki Legal articulated the real reason the critics oppose the bill: one of its principles is that “all citizens are equal”.

That, apparently, is the problem.

There’s nothing in the bill that prevents governments from promoting equality, or Māori language and culture.

One of New Zealand’s endearing features is that anyone can claim to be Māori. I have sat on select committees where witnesses, blue-eyed, fair-skinned with no te reo, have not only claimed to be Māori but to speak for Māori. No MP questioned their claim.

I recall one eccentric MP declared that she felt Māori. Despite having no Māori ancestry, she was admitted to her party’s Māori caucus.

The Treaty of Waitangi, Article Three, grants Māori the rights of British subjects. In 1840, that meant equality before the law, the same as every other citizen, regardless of birth.

If we are equal who cares what race we claim to be?

Once we claim our ancestry entitles us to extra rights then who we are becomes important.

Recently, in Parliament, Winston Peters was heckled by Te Pāti Māori MP, Tākuta Ferris. Peters fired back asking, “What is the majority of your DNA?”.

Te Pāti Māori MPs were claiming that being Māori meant they did not have to observe Parliament’s protocols.

If the tribunal is correct that Māori have extra rights, it raises Peters’ obvious question: Who is a Māori?

That question is politically toxic. It is considered the height of rudeness in New Zealand to ask someone to justify their claim to be Māori. But if it comes with superior rights, it’s a necessary question.

With apologies to David Seymour but it is his bill, is he Māori? He is 1/64th Māori.

He is entitled to be on the Māori roll. Are those who are 1/64th Māori one of the Māori the tribunal says should have been consulted. If so, why? If not, why not?

It is a question that the tribunal has yet to answer.

We will regret the passing of the unspoken rule: say you’re Māori, and you are, no proof required.

Fiji confronted the question head-on. Only those classified as indigenous Fijians were eligible to vote for the Fijian communal seats.

If that standard applied in New Zealand, there would be no Māori electorates and few Māori for the tribunal to consult.

This is where we’re heading, down a road where the state defines and divides us by race, then treats us unequally.

Fiji has already been down that road. It didn’t end well.

Fiji has also shown us the way back.

Fiji’s new constitution says every citizen is Fijian. Full stop. No exceptions, no privileges.

I used to think the Regulatory Standards Bill was a helpful but modest reform.

After reading the critics, I’ve changed my mind. It’s not just helpful. The bill is essential.