Act’s principles bill hangs over Waitangi

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

Waitangi events got under way yesterday with the National Iwi Chairs Forum in Kerikeri, where coalition Government leaders began five days of facing the music rarked up by their policies regarding the Treaty of Waitangi, te reo and axing the co-governance arrangements of the previous government.

Prime Minister Christpher Luxon, Act leader David Seymour and NZ First  deputy Shane Jones led a large Crown delegation into the forum. Media were only allowed in for opening remarks, the most substantive of which came from forum co-chair Rahui Papa, who is also the Kīngitanga spokesman.

Papa said this year’s Waitangi celebrations, discussions and relationships would be focused on the nation’s two founding documents, He Whakaputanga — the Declaration of Independence — and Te Tiriti. Concerns around health, education, the economy and climate change would also be discussed.

It is sure to be a return to some of the more challenging and protest-driven Waitangi experiences, and no one will be surprised about that.

The three parties in Government all campaigned on policies in relation to Māori that would be controversial on their own — then brought them all together in their coalition agreements: National’s abolition of the Māori Health Authority, Three Waters and resource management co-governance plans; NZ First’s plan to either define relevant Treaty principles in legislation or erase the references, and to relegate te reo in the public service; and Act’s Treaty Principles Bill.

It is the latter that is at the heart of the anxiety over Government policies, with its attempt to assign to history the notion of Te Tiriti representing a partnership between the Crown and Māori. In place of an understanding of principles developed by court and Waitangi Tribunal rulings over the past 40 years, it seeks to define the principles in a way that seriously distorts the meaning and context of Te Tiriti as signed up to by leaders across Māoridom in 1840 — and then put these faux principles to a referendum.

That it is performative and doomed to fail is by the by. This will remain a major thorn in the Government’s side until Seymour’s bill does not get past the select committee stage which his coalition partners have committed to — while making increasingly clear that will be all.

The principles of Te Tiriti and how it fits together with democracy do need to be discussed and probably always will be. As Sir Bill English said this week, the Crown needs to “find its footing” and give greater clarity about the limits of partnership with Māori — while pointing out that New Zealand has a good track record of resolving or reducing the tensions that have come to the fore at Waitangi over the years.