Habemus Parliament

So, a month after the election, we finally have a Parliament. Good. meanwhile, people seem to be noticing that the associated ceremony - white wigs, fancy dress, oaths of allegiance to a foreign monarch - isn't very kiwi (and tomorrow, with its "black rod", will be even worse. Seriously, the "gentleman usher" sounds like a Buffy villain). Wouldn't it be nice to have ceremonies which reflected the values and constitutional realities of modern New Zealand, rather than C18th Britain?

One of those value clashes is the oath. MPs are required to swear allegiance to the queen and her successors. This causes problems every year with MPs who believe it is more appropriate to swear allegiance to the Treaty of Waitangi, or the constitution and people of New Zealand rather than a foreign millionaire. Our Parliament's way of handling this recently - effectively to ban all dissent - is simply white supremacist bullshit, a denial of our diversity and our democracy. It has to change. The quicker we do away with this colonial, feudal relic, the better.