PM John Key let the genie out of the bottle when he agreed to make self-serving political deals with the Maori Party, and authorised the preparation of a written version of the NZ constitution.
Very necessary, but entrenching the treaty of Waitangi within it? What possible mandate did he have, to almost unilaterally organise this interference in the democratic process?
Check the makeup of the panel of 12 charged with the initial stage - undeniably worthy people, but do you sense a possible bias there, also including the fact that only the National and Maori parties are involved in this matter of such national importance? To date. The fact that the public will be invited to offer input soon is hardly comforting, given the above.
Considering that the race with whom the treaty was formed no longer exists in purity (often pointed out), that the intention and meaning of the treaty is still hotly contested, that evidently more than one version is in contention - and that the population proportions and makeup have changed out of sight since the 1800s - what madness to even consider its inclusion without vigorous open discussion in a transparent and democratic way and serious adaptation to present conditions.
Also, that the highly controversial Prof. Margaret Mutu has permission to draw up a parallel constitution is laughable, given her very public highly infl ammatory and racist proclamations.

Why allow the latter if it is then ignored ? Which is a worry. What sort of parody of democracy is all of this? Prof Elizabeth Rata (Auckland university) has studied this and similar situations. She says it is now 'neotribalism, in which tribal wealth is based on privatisation of public assets.”
She has long warned about the corruption of the settlement process which has become a massive rort on the NZ public and few really appreciate the scale of public resources that are being appropriated to the tribal elite, which not only create an ongoing public liability but elevate the rights of iwi above all other citizens 'Do we for a moment think that this was the intention of The Crown? (Check her out on internet.)

D. Holm, Tauranga.