Richard Worth: It's time for a new national day - one of thanksgiving

Opinion

Waitangi Day has become one of the low points in this country's commemorative events. One initiative advanced by a member's bill in Parliament is to rename it New Zealand Day.

But we have gone there before. From 1973 to 1976 Waitangi Day was called New Zealand Day.

In fact, February 6 never featured strongly as a day of celebration until the Governor General, Lord Bledisloe, gifted the Treaty House and grounds at Waitangi to the nation.

In 1934 the first celebrations were held at the treaty grounds, but there was no formal recognition of the day until 1960. The Government of the day passed legislation to recognise the day as a national day of thanksgiving. It is hardly that.

We should have a national day of thanksgiving to celebrate the heritage and future of New Zealand.

However, in strict legal terms the constitutional significance of the events at Waitangi in 1840 have been overstated. The Treaty of Waitangi itself has never been incorporated into law.

Forty-five chiefs signed the treaty on February 6, 1840, and there were subsequent signings with local chiefs at Waimate North and Hokianga later that month. While the mark of the great Chief Kawiti is with the February 6 signatures, he did, in fact, add his mark in the second week of May.

Signings also took place in nearly 50 other locations.

Some chiefs of large tribes refused to sign the treaty or were not asked to. There are stark contradictions between the English and Maori versions, which have, unsurprisingly, given rise to conflicting expectations.

Since the 1960s, Waitangi Day has been marred by Maori protest. It should no longer continue as a public holiday.

What might be an alternative National Day? It should not be Anzac Day. That day marks the anniversary of the first Australian and New Zealand landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula on April 25, 1915. The New Zealand casualty rate in that campaign was 88 per cent.

Anzac Day is firmly established as the occasion that both countries choose to commemorate all their dead from World War I, and all wars. It is a memorial day that should be retained.

In a search through constitutional events, a clear alternative National Day is readily identified. That day is May 24.

In 1852, the New Zealand colony was granted a representative constitution by the British Parliament.

Provincial councils were established and a bicameral legislature consisting of a House of Representatives and a Legislative Council were set up.

The historian Michael King was to say of these events: " ... this constitution in effect brought the Crown to New Zealand and laid the foundation for the manner in which the country was to be governed for the next 150 years."

On May 24, 1854, the House of Representatives first met. It was the birthday of the reigning sovereign, Queen Victoria.

So what then might happen on our National Day? It would be a day of celebration of one of the oldest continuing functioning democracies in the world.

It would be a day to celebrate the achievements of our artists, sporting heroes and educators. We might publish the honours list on that day.

Above all, it would be a day of thanksgiving.

* Richard Worth is the National MP for Epsom.