Op-ed: Proposed bill in New Zealand threatens constitutional framework

With the protest hikoi from the far north moving through Auckland on its way to Wellington, it might be said ACT leader David Seymour has been granted his wish of generating an “important national conversation about the place of the Treaty in our constitutional arrangements”. Timed to coincide with the first reading of the contentious Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill on Thursday, the hikoi and other similar protests are a response to what many perceive as a fundamental threat to New Zealand’s fragile constitutional framework. With no upper house, nor a written constitution, important laws can be fast-tracked or repealed by a simple majority of parliament. As constitutional lawyer and former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer has argued about the current government’s legislative style and speed, the country “is in danger of lurching towards constitutional impropriety”.
Read the full article here: The Conversation