( Fifteen minute read)

With Artificial Intelligence this is a question that all countries are going to have to address within the next ten to twenty years.

For New Zealand this question is arriving in more ways than one simply question.

Grappling to this day with an agreement that dates back to 1840 (which was ment to be a partnership between the British crown and the indigenous Maori, not the other way around) New Zealand find itself politically in no man’s land.

The Maori signed a treaty written in both English and the Maori language called the Waitangi.

The current Treaty Principles Bill debate reveals a fundamental constitutional reality:

NEW ZEALAND existence is based on an imperial treaty and this treaty predates the emergence of its parliamentary democracy.

The treaty needs to be understood in the context of the age of revolution and an emerging imperial era in which European empires negotiated many treaties with each other and indigenous peoples.

So the treaty to day needs to be read in its immediate New Zealand context and British constitution history, which is based on the Magna Carta dated 1215. ( The English constitution has never been written in a single document.)

The Waitangi treaty like all British treaties points to the English notions of empire, with imbedded privilege in a graduated social hierarchy of mutual obligations- noblesse obliged.

Therefore it cannot be squashed into a later democratic paradigm of individuals with equal citizenship as the Act Party’s Bill might prefer it was.

The truth if faced, is that the treaty arose in a completely different context from the present, but still is the foundation to New Zealand constitutional arrangements with the crown. This is the position and will remain so till New Zealand stand on its own two feet and its people are no longer surf to an unelected monarchy.

This means that the treaty principles are tied to their historical foundations.

You could say that treaty settlement have done much to re-establish tribal collective identities but they do not have the right to exhaust the ongoing treaty based rights of the indigenous people- Maori who were a free people.

(Democracy itself is a Johnny come lately on the global stage, not more than a few centuries back old.) It remains the best way to co- ordinate a multi- ethnic society, but it must reflect local agreement and histories.

While New Zealand retains King Charles as head of state the British government has ongoing obligations to the indigenous peoples on which its authority is based.

Edmund Burke’s 1790 conservative policies sum up the position New Zealand finds itself in.

Society is indeed a contract… it becomes a partnership not only between those who are alive, but between those who are living and those who are dead and those who are yet to be born.

Of course New Zealand has moved on since 1840. However we all know forget the past and the present makes on sense.

We all know that stupidity is more dangerous than malice treaties. They cause civil wars, apartheid, and genocides.

Because of the very nature of treaties they lead to race politics.

Millions have died because of treaties, millions have lived because of treaties.

New Zealand problem is not who owns what land, rather race politics is and continues to divide the country.

This is also the problem with North Ireland.

A land that was taken forcibly by the English in return for a peace treaty that caused a civil war, the establishment of a apartheid state with years of killings and a new recent treaty call Good Friday. (Written in English and not Gaelic the language of the original inhabitants.)

If there’s no written constitution that enshrined equality, every decade that passes the meaning of treaties change.

This is why the need for a written constitution is paramount to interpreting any agreement/treaty.

We have and are entering a new era of digital information and Laws and the way we use them with Artificial Intelligence are developing a style of their own.

People have to be with in hearing range of each other firstly to have any agreements.

In order to unify any people/nation in the world of artificial intelligence’s there will have to be a citizen equal act against any platform, digital citizenship, algorithms greed/ profit and climate change mitigation taking precedence over the vote.

The only way to have a large-scale political conversation among diverse groups of people is to set out the terms and conditions in an agreed constitution.

The key misconception here is that we equate elections to democratic outcomes but a liberal democratic citizenship with Artificial Intelligence can only be achieved with an Equal Citizenship Act that is enshrined in a written constitution.

It could be said that Democracy is at a tipping points. Yes democracy governments are messy. They have so many demands on them that their elected members are not in touch with reality.

Whether his is true or not social media is distracting and distancing us from the real problems, giving rise to populism.

History is full of examples as to what happens when the Democratic process brakes down.

New Zealand with all its faults / beauty / expenses remains one of the best countries to settle in, and it must do everything possible to remain so by not becoming another Hong Kong abandon by the British Empire it must establish its independence internationally.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com