THEN Prime Minister Jim Bolger, Her Majesty The Queen, Maori Queen Dame Te Atiarangikaahu and then Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Doug Graham. PHOTO SUPPLIED BY JOHN ROBERTSON
FORMER Prime Minister Jim Bolger said a memory of Queen Elizabeth that stands out for him is her signing of the Tainui Treaty of Waitangi settlement in 1995. “I have a photograph on the wall that captures the constitutional arrangements between the elected government of New Zealand the Prime Minister etc, and the titular leadership of the Queen,” he said. The photo is of the Queen signing into law the Act of Parliament for the Tainui settlement and that settlement included for the first time an apology from the Crown. “I was talking about this 10 days ago in Hamilton. Tainui was very clear that the apology should be signed by the Queen, so we arranged on the next visit to New Zealand which was fortunately quite close to the settlement date, that she would sign that piece of legislation into law herself – Elizabeth R.” Normally the Acts of Parliament were signed into law every Monday afternoon by the Governor General, he said. “That was quite personal because it was particularly important for Tainui, but I think important to New Zealand as well because it acknowledged the direct link between the time when we didn’t have a democracy and it was royal prerogative, and therefore the apology for the confiscation or theft of over a million acres of Waikato land on a trumped-up charge against Tainui Maori. “The symbolism was important and powerful and of various things and engagements I’ve had with Her Majesty that was probably it.”
