Today may well be just another day for many, but it is the last day for you to make a submission on the Treaty Principles Bill. You have until midnight tonight to make yours. 

I think it's fair to say that there's a great deal of misunderstanding and conjecture around this bill - a bill that is not supported by the National Party. This bill will not be supported beyond select committee. 

There appears to be a great deal of expense enveloping something that David Seymour and the Act Party know is nothing more than a contentious, ideological pot stirrer that has served to do nothing more than create outrage and uncertainty. 

There is another element to the Treaty Principles Bill that I think has been overlooked, and that's my observation that we have almost entirely become reliant of a 40 second news story on the telly - or indeed the hourly news on Newstalk ZB - or New Zealand news websites, in order to be fully informed. 

How many conversations have you had with friends or family on this issue, that eventually gets to the point where it becomes demonstrably obvious that no one really understands just what it is that the Treaty Principles Bill would mean if it became a reality?

The Treaty stood for 135 years until 1975 when the then-Labour government passed the Treaty of Waitangi Act, which stated the Treaty had principles, and it was the job of the Waitangi Tribunal to interpret them. 

Since then, the Tribunal, the courts, and the public service have gradually built up the principles. But New Zealanders as a whole have never been democratically consulted on these Treaty principles. 

The Treaty Principles Bill will not change the Treaty itself. That was set in 1840 and will remain forever. 

What the Act Party are seeking to do is continue the process of defining the Treaty principles, for the first time incorporating the voices of all people through a democratic Parliamentary process, instead of through the Tribunal or the courts. 

Is it as simple as that? Equality in education, health, the judicial system, and several other parameters - has not worked well for Maori. If we don't continue to address the pressing need borne by the statistics, then we're doomed to incur more cost and more failure for Maori. 

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