Are any of the other Canadians in New Zealand seeing similarities between New Zealand signing on to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and Canada's constitutional wranglings over Quebec as a "Distinct Society"? In the Canadian case, folks inside Quebec had the impression that being granted "distinct society" would give them everything they ever hoped for (at least during the Meech negotiations) while folks outside Quebec were told it "means dick". Here, Key says signing the Declaration is meaningless; Hone says it's powerful.
If this starts working its way into judicial and regulatory decisions, Parliament would have to come in and explicitly state that it was the intention of Parliament that the Declaration is a legal nullity; Parliament would be unlikely to do that as it would be a pretty big slap to Maori.
Let's hope that Farrar is right that is will have no such effect, because I don't see any easy path back if it does.
No surprise that National violated its "no surprises" agreement with ACT (ACT found out about it on the news like everybody else); Maori can credibly go into coalition with Labour while ACT can't unless it takes a much stronger stand on civil liberties.
