Seymour - Let's have an end to UNDRIP

David Seymour says the UNDRIP should never have been signed. Photo / NZ Herald

ACT is calling on all parties in Parliament to renounce the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Helen Clark got it right when her government refused to sign up. John Key got it wrong when his government signed the declaration. He may have thought it was just symbolism, but it is now creating great division with the He Puapua report demanding it transform New Zealand's constitutional arrangements with 'declaration compliance,' by 2040. Parliament never voted for New Zealand to sign up, beyond a ministerial statement that ACT spoke against in 2010.

The provisions in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples are a combination of redundant or impractical. Redundant in many cases, because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and New Zealand's Bill of Rights Act already deliver them. For example the declaration says: 'Indigenous peoples and individuals are free and equal to all other peoples and individuals and have the right to be free from any kind of discrimination in the exercise of their rights, in particular that based on their indigenous origin or identity.' This should and does apply to all New Zealanders equally under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and New Zealand's Bill of Rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,' and 'Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.' By singling out indigenous people for specific rights within New Zealand, UNDRIP contradicts the Universal Declaration.

UNDRIP says that 'Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalise their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature.' But the Bill of Rights makes it clear that all people should have such rights: 'A person who belongs to an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority in New Zealand shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of that minority, to enjoy the culture, to profess and practise the religion, or to use the language, of that minority.' The only effect of the Declaration is to reserve rights in the Bill of Rights for select people.

In other areas the UNDRIP is impractical and contradicts liberal democracy, because it attempts to give some people different rights because of their birth, effectively taking rights from others. As Helen Clark's then Minister for Māori Affairs said, "The declaration also implies that indigenous people should have a right of veto over parliamentary law-making."

New Zealand is now clearly at a crossroads, brought about by the Key government's naïve signing of the UNDRIP. Either New Zealand is to be a liberal democracy, where all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, or a kind of ethno-state, where some are born more equal than others. It is time the National Party realised its mistake, and the Labour Party recovered its former position on both UN Declarations.