Senate debates

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Waitangi Treaty

6:41 pm

Photo of Rachel SiewertRachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—
(a)
notes the 170th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the Crown and Maori leaders in New Zealand;
(b)
congratulates the first peoples of Aotearoa on the progress they have made in the recognition of their human rights and in closing the gap on health disadvantage;
(c)
recalls that directions from the Crown to negotiate a similar treaty with Australia’s first peoples were never enacted by our colonial governors; and
(d)
calls on the Australian government to recognise the human rights of Indigenous Australians, to test via a referendum the inclusion of recognition of former occupation and sovereignty in the Australian Constitution, and to commence

Question negatived.