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As a new generation of New Zealand MPs prepare to pledge allegiance, MPs are divided on whether they should modernize their promise.
Rawiri Waititi arrives at Parliament. Source: RNZ / Te Aniwa Hurihanganui
The 120 deputies elected in last month’s elections will take their seats in the Chamber next Wednesday.
Each must recite an oath or affirmation to “be faithful to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Her heirs and successors” in English or in Te Reo Māori.
New Zealand’s decidedly traditional and reverential tone is the same for Australian MPs, but not for ministers.
Since 1993, Australian ministers have been asked to serve the people or Commonwealth of Australia, instead of or alongside the monarch.
Also missing from the Kiwi pledge is a reference to New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi.
For many, it is time for a reform.
“To be honest, it makes me feel bad,” Maori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi told AAP.
“We do not mind having Queen Elizabeth there, but there is no equality, the Treaty is not mentioned. And that is what the country was founded on, through consent.”
“Silence our true oath, which is to our people.”
The President of the Republic of New Zealand, Lewis Holden, said several Caribbean countries had withdrawn the Queen from her oaths and Canada was adding a reference to indigenous treaties to her citizenship oath.
“It is time that our politicians, whom we elect and pay, pledge allegiance to New Zealanders and the Treaty,” he said.
Helen Clark’s Labor launched a failed modernization effort in 2005, but perhaps surprisingly her Labor successor, Ms Ardern, has yet to see the case for change.
“We have a long-standing oath,” said the progressive PM.
“We carried out that ceremony in accordance with our constitutional arrangements.”
Ms Ardern’s opinion is not shared by everyone in her own group and in particular by her Māori MPs.
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta supports a change of the citizenship oath, Tamati Coffey said it was time for a “serious conversation” and Louisa Wall said it was “absolutely” necessary.
“I will smile and bear it (while saying the oath) because the reality is that it is established in the legislation,” he said.
“But this is a historical issue. Many people want to pledge allegiance to the Treaty.”
Maori Development Minister Willie Jackson said he had “reservations” but that change was not on his to-do list.
Other Māori MPs, such as MP Arena Williams, said the current oath “was really worth preserving.”
Across the hall, there’s little appetite for symbolic change.
The two Maori members of the 33-member national opposition group, deputy leader Shane Reti and former leader Simon Bridges, do not support the reform.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I like to think that when you’re doing it you’re signing up to be loyal to New Zealand and our sovereign,” Bridges said.
“Parliamentarians who think otherwise … may be in the wrong place and may be better off protesting, marching and burning flags in the streets rather than in parliament, where we are making laws to improve New Zealand.”
In an informal poll of MPs this week in Wellington, reformers are a minority, and the majority of non-Maori MPs either do not support change or see it as a waste of time.
The oldest member of the House, President Trevor Mallard, said as a Republican that he saw New Zealand’s oaths change “probably at the same time that we have a different relationship with the Queen.”
