Labour MP rules out separate Māori House of Parliament, court system
A senior Labour MP says there's "nothing to be scared of" in how the Government plans to live up to a UN declaration the National Party signed New Zealand up to.
In 2010, the National-led Government - in coalition with the Māori Party - said New Zealand would support the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The previous Government, led by Labour under Helen Clark, refused to sign it, then-Māori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia saying it was "fundamentally incompatible with New Zealand's constitutional and legal arrangements and established Treaty settlement policy".
The declaration says indigenous people have the right to "freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development" and "to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal and local affairs", including "the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education" and "the right to be actively involved in developing and determining health, housing and other economic and social programmes affecting them and, as far as possible, to administer such programmes through their own institutions".
Link to video and article: 'Nothing to be scared of': Labour MP rules out separate Māori House of Parliament, court system (msn.com)
