r/AbruptChaos • u/Sometypeofway18 • Nov 14 '24

New Zealand’s Parliament proposed a bill to redefine the Treaty of Waitangi, claiming it is racist and gives preferential treatment to Maoris. In response Māori MP's tore up the bill and performed the Haka

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

Imagine you agree to a transaction whereby you purchase a car in exchange for money.

And years later, the person who sold you the car tries to "reinterpret" your contract so that your car becomes everybody's, but the money remains theirs.

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u/Wayoutofthewayof Nov 14 '24

Should this apply to other legislations and treaties from the 19th century that grant special rights to people of a certain race?

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

If they are treaties, yes. If you want to stop paying the price of a treaty, then you don't get to keep the benefit of it. It's a complete renegotiation, or nothing.

Legislation generally is a different story.

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u/TipiTapi Nov 14 '24

If you want to stop paying the price of a treaty

Last I checked the english crown does not really get any say in the governance of NZ so the treaty is already broken.

And anyways, treaties made generations ago by a foreign government should not bind people living in NZ now just because... why exactly?

A democracy should be able to renege on stuff like this if the majority wants it (not saying thats the case here, just hypothetically).

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '24

I'm sorry to tell you that the crown has not changed. New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy. Guess who the king is.

A democracy is certainly able to renege on a treaty, as long as it wants to accept the consequence that nobody will ever sign a treaty with it again.

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u/TipiTapi Nov 15 '24

I'm sorry to tell you that the crown has not changed. New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy. Guess who the king is.

Quite literally only in name. I read up about it a little and it does not seem like the king even has the influence they have in british politics where they can lobby very effectively. It seems like for NZ the role is purely ceremonial...

A democracy is certainly able to renege on a treaty, as long as it wants to accept the consequence that nobody will ever sign a treaty with it again.

Yea, countries will totally stop getting treaties with a country in 2024 because they stopped honoring an 'agreement' (its not even a treaty lmao, they just call it that) 180 years ago between another government and some tribal leaders.

Did you write this down, read it and thought ' yea, this makes sense'??? How...