Mike's Minute: What we've learnt from the Treaty Bill submissions

We should give a shout out, or at least take a few moments, to read Lyric Wairiri-Smith's account of the Treaty Principles Bill submissions. 

She works for The Spinoff, and she sat through virtually all of the 80 hours of submissions and cast a series of observations by way of a “50 things I learned” list. 

The 37th thing she learned was the lack of media interest. 

You may recall at the start of the process it was a mad wall to wall, blow-by-blow account of what was one of the country's most contentious/outrageous/heinous acts of the modern age. 

Fast forward a few days and she was the only one left, along with Māori TV. 

There is a lesson in that. 

On one hand you can mount an argument that the media is so trimmed down that resource for lengthy procedures is limited. 

You can also argue, and this is my argument, that the media are too magpie-ish and fascinate themselves with shiny things, lose interest too quickly and, as such, enhance their reputations as fly-by-nighters interested in clicks, not knowledge. Cover it properly or don’t cover it all. 

Some of the 50 things are lightish in nature. This is not a criticism of the piece, in fact we should be grateful someone bothered to give us this overarching insight, hence it behoves us to absorb it. 

But some basically tell you what you thought they would - namely, that a lot of people turned up, as you would expect, to hate on it thus drawing into question the whole submission process. 

Most importantly for me, was my suspicion was confirmed that there remains great debate over the Treaty and its principals and, as such, David Seymour was more than right to do what he has done. 

The high and mighty turned up and basically argued with each other. The Treaty is not settled, or anywhere close to it, and it is not defined. You can find scholars and lawyers and experts who will tell you one thing with full vim and vigour and eloquence, then you can find another equally qualified lot who will say that is wrong, hence we are where we are. 

Where we are, sadly, is the end of the road because the bill, as we all know, will be voted down. 

Which is a shame, given as Ms Smith's list surely shows, a definitive understanding is well and truly overdue.   

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