Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Bill

Hone Harawira, Member of Parliament for Te Tai Tokerau

Tuesday 19 June 2007

When Ross Meurant, came to parliament fresh from his dastardly deeds as head thug for the Red Squad, he warned the country in his maiden speech of a small group of Maori who he said had plans to overthrow the government.

Well, I was one of those he named, and he was right. The overthrow of the government is exactly what I have in mind and I intend to carry out that promise.

Back then of course, Meurant was trading on his reputation as a hard man to try to cast us in a seditious light, but I note that the tough guy got all quiet when asked to repeat his charges outside of the House.

But the charge of sedition is an oxymoron, a contradiction deriving from oxy (or sharp, as in Maori Party) and moros (as in dull, like any politician that opposes this repeal).

And the contradiction of course in repealing seditious offences, is that the act of sedition: "to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against her Majesty or the Government" should even be considered an offence at all, because people who have been charged with sedition are often our sharpest citizens, passionate about their causes and patriotic about their country - the peacemakers, the protesters, and the movers and the shakers of Aotearoa.

The roll of honour for those charged with sedition includes:

- Labour movement leaders Harry Holland, Paddy Webb and Bob Semple, jailed in 1915 during World War l for speaking against conscription.

- Labourer, Tim Armstrong, who published a statement in 1916 which said:

"The freedom we enjoy in this country today is owing to the fact that there have been men courageous enough to defy the law that was contrary to the interests and aimed at robbing of the freedom of the people".

- Catholic Bishop James Liston who spoke out, proudly and passionately, on St Patricks night in 1922, promoting the Irish fight for freedom.

- Methodist clergyman, teacher and former soldier, Ormond Burton, who printed a mild anti-war poem and for his radicalism got 2½ years in jail, and

- Ordinary citizens who marched and protested against the Vietnam War.

And of course, our most celebrated prophets of sedition are Erueti Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi, who in 1881 were both charged with "wickedly, maliciously and seditiously contriving and intending to disturb the peace".

Despite their protests and demands for a proper trial, Te Whiti and Tohu were held in custody in New Plymouth for six months before being shunted off to the South Island with many of their followers.

And then, in another oxymoronic and self-serving act of legislative juggling, government passed the West Coast Peace Preservation Act in 1882, so that Te Whiti and Tohu wouldn't be tried for sedition, but could be detained indefinitely as the Governor thought fit.

Dr Ranginui Walker explained this best when he said in Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou: Struggle Without End (1990):

"It was by violence that a tribal (Maori) society was destroyed in the first instance, and the (Pakeha) nation state brought into being".

The so-called 'Peace Preservation' law resulted in peaceful prophets being assaulted, arrested, jailed without conviction, and treated like animals, all for daring to passively resist colonial land-grabbing. The so-called 'Peace Preservation' law was in fact, a declaration of war against people who were seeking nothing but peace.

And then there's the man immortalised in song and in the three part painting series of Colin McCahon - Tuhoe prophet Rua Kenana of Maungapohatu, who was charged with sedition in 1916, for daring to call himself a prophet of peace, for daring to call his community Hiruharama Hou, the New Jerusalem, for daring to establish a policy of non-violence, and for daring to call upon his people to hold to their faith and not enlist for World War l.

The police hunted Kënana down, killing his son in the process, and packing him off to Auckland for trial for sedition.

At the other end of the century, a new generation of Maori activists including lawyer Annette Sykes, and activists Mike Smith, Niko Tangaroa, Ken Mair and Tame Iti, were accused of sedition for their 'intentions to incite, encourage or procure lawlessness' for protesting the creeping control and ownership of Aotearoa by foreign investors, an issue that people are only now starting to wake up to.

Mike Smith talked about targeting the 1995 Asian Development Bank Conference as an opportunity to 'destabilise the political infrastructure' and 'discourage foreign investment'.

Smith also rightly explained the concerns he had for Annette Sykes, when he said that Sykes "who represents the respectable face of Maori nationalism" was more feared than himself for daring to be 'uppity' while still inside the tent. "Watch her lose her positions on boards such as Moana Pacific and the Maori Broadcasting Authority", said Smith.

This is the nub of the whole issue then; sedition has been used to quieten the natives and to suppress and oppress anyone daring to challenge the status quo.

In fact, even former Prime Minister, and President of the Law Commission, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, admits that the archaic offence of sedition was too wide, too unclear, and had been used to muzzle unpopular political speech.

The most recent expression of this ridiculous law of course came when Timothy Selwyn got charged for opposing the foreshore and seabed legislation.

And there's that concept again - the oxymoron. Government passes legislation to steal away peoples rights, and then charges people with sedition for daring to oppose such theft, for daring to speak up for the Treaty, and for daring to speak out for human rights.

Selwyn made submissions, he started a petition, and he sent out emails, but he was stymied by a government determined to ignore due process to ensure they got their way, and so he was forced to take more direct action, and surprise, surprise NOT!!! he got slapped with a charge of sedition.

When the Maori Party first started drafting a private members Bill last year, I spoke to Keith Locke from the Greens who said he was working on a similar Bill, so I asked the Clerk's Office if the Maori Party and the Greens might co-sponsor a Bill. Well, well, well. The response was a bit like getting charged with sedition. What? Never been done before; out of order; out of the question.

And then of course ACT and United Future started looking at reforming the sedition laws as well, and so the whole notion of repeal became a lot more real, so it's good to see by joining together, the four MMP parties were able to have an impact in the fast-tracking this piece of legislation.

In closing Madam Speaker, we'd like to honour those who have helped get this Repeal Bill to the table.

- Those who have suffered so that we can more easily see the mean-spirited, ugly, demeaning, and destructive nature of the charge of sedition;

- Idiot Savant for drafting a Bill and badgering us all to sponsor it;

- Those who still speak against conscription and war;

- Those who still speak out for their land rights and their Treaty rights;

- Those who still speak against colonisation and foreign control;

- Those who still speak out against injustice; and

- Those who still speak out against violence and economic abuse of power;

Yours is a fight for freedom, and we dedicate this Bill to you all.

ENDS

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