Protests at the New Zealand parliament.
Do you follow political news from New Zealand or, as it is also called Aotearoa? Following is actually tricky -- New Zealand has absorbed so many Maori words and phrases into daily life ("haka" being perhaps the most famous) that you need Google translate to understand almost anything. Here, from Wikipedia, is an example, part of a recent Ministry of Justice statement:
The Bill "does not accurately reflect Article 2, which affirms the continuing exercise of tino rangatiratanga. Restricting the rights of hapū and iwi to those specified in legislation, or agreement with the Crown, implies that tino rangatiratanga is derived from kāwanatanga."
Okay. But the message is clear: indigenous issues are live issues in New Zealand, as in Canada.
There is a treaty process in New Zealand as in Canada, with the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi there more-or-less standing in for all the myriad Numbered Treaties, Peace and Friendship Treaties, and other agreements here in Canada. For a long time the Maori have had a pretty good run in asserting that Waitangi guarantees them both a substantial measure of self-government, and influence upon Crown governance of New Zealand as well.
Now there is a bill under debate in the New Zealand parliament, The Treaty Principles Bill (Wikipedia summary here). It declares that the Government of New Zealand rules all New Zealanders, and all New Zealanders are equal. This is widely understood to mean: "Forget Waitangi. The majority rules, and equality means we pakeha (white people) can do what we want." The bill is very controversial in New Zealand, with disruptions inside the legislature and tens of thousands marching in the streets outside.
The bill got majority support at first reading in the legislature the other day. But oddly (to a Canadian observer) its introduction and only real support comes from a party with only eleven of the 120 seats in Parliament. The prime minister says he actually opposes the bill entirely, supports Maori rights, and will eventually have his party change its vote to side with the opposition to prevent the bill from coming law. But until then, he's voting for the bill, because those eleven votes keep him in power. It may also be that the governing party finds that passage of the bill politically risky, but is glad to have its junior partner raising doubts about -- and stirring up tensions over -- indigenous rights. (See this recent New York Times analysis).
A recent AP story in the Toronto Star explained all this by reference to "a quirk in New Zealand's political system that allows tiny parties to negotiate outsized influence for their agendas.
The "quirk" is proportional representation, specifically the MMP variant that is used in New Zealand.
New Zealanders' votes mostly split between a left wing party (Labour) and a rightwing party (National), and all New Zealand prime ministers have come from one or other. But since MMP was adopted in the 1990s, there have always been a few minor parties led by populist cranks or celebrities. (Imagine a Rob Ford party, or a Don Cherry party, or perhaps a Drake party in Canadian politics.) One small party leaders in New Zealand has held the balance of power often enough that he has been Deputy Prime Minister in both Labour and National governments. It's not that his beliefs shift wildly from right to left, just that he likes being deputy prime minister.
Right now the minority splinter propping up the government is ACT. It initially demanded a binding referendum that could impose something like the Treaty Principles Bill upon the nation. Now it has apparently settled for this phony and temporary support from the prime minister --- but in exchange it has gained tremendous publicity for anti-Maori views and for the idea that indigenous treaty rights can simply be voted away when a voting majority is prepared to. No doubt ACT calculates publicity surrounding of the Bill's failure will help polarize opinions within the electorate and perhaps boost its electoral support next time.
I think (I'm not sure) that a supporter of proportional representation would say this is normal, this is how proportional representation is supposed to work. PR theory suggests that if some people want to support small parties with unpopular and perhaps hateful views that cannot win in constituency elections, those parties ought to have representation in proportion to their cumulative vote -- and maybe even "outsized influence" in parliament.
Apply all this to the NDP or the Bloc in our non-PR parliament as you will.
