Māori health advocate condemns Treaty Principles Bill as harmful and false

The Hīkoi to Parliament was a massive show of strength from New Zealanders. Photo / Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images

THREE KEY FACTS:

• The Treaty Principles Bill, tabled in Parliament, has been condemned for falsely claiming it privileges Māori.
• Health Coalition Aotearoa co-chair argues the bill undermines te Tiriti principles and Māori health.
• The bill could exacerbate health disparities and increase racist rhetoric against Māori, impacting their wellbeing.

As a professor of nutrition and Māori health I was incensed and distressed to see the Treaty Principles Bill tabled in Parliament.

Of all the lies wrapped up in this bill, the one that is truly breathtaking in its falsity is that the Treaty privileges Māori.

As co-chair of Health Coalition Aotearoa, I advocate for policies and actions to reduce health harms from alcohol, tobacco, nicotine products and unhealthy food. In academic speak, these are the “commercial determinants of health”.

These harmful products saturate our environments and increase the risk of diseases such as diabetes, stroke, cancer, heart attacks, mental illness - and early death.

Despite having no alcohol, tobacco or mass-produced unhealthy food prior to European settlement, Māori were, and are, disproportionately impacted by these harmful industries. They also play a significant role in the seven-year gap in life expectancy between Māori and non-Māori.

The evidence is stark. Compared to New Zealand Europeans, daily smoking rates are almost three times higher for Māori, youth vaping rates are more than double for rangatahi Māori. Alcohol harm is greater for Māori, and Māori children are five times more likely to see alcohol marketing around their school and neighbourhood.

When it comes to food and nutrition, Māori children are twice as likely to miss out on a good meal because they live in households where food runs out. Māori are more likely to face barriers to nutrition and wellbeing including food insecurity, poor urban design, access to quality housing, safety, longer working hours, lower income.

Māori health is not helped by poverty and poor housing. Photo / Ben Fraser.

Anyone with only a rudimentary knowledge of New Zealand history can draw a direct line between the many breaches of Te Tiriti by the Crown and the health status of Māori. A report by the Human Rights Commission on racism experienced by tangata whenua found the “undermining of rangatiratanga [self determination], dispossession of land, suppression of te reo Māori, and dismantling of iwi, hapū and whānau has had a devastating cumulative inter-generational impact on the health and wellbeing of Māori”.

Instead of receiving all the rights and privileges of British citizens (including equal access to health care), the Crown went to war against Māori to obtain control of our lands and resources. Successive settler governments created laws to wrest ever more land and resources from us, and to erase our culture and self-worth in their push for assimilation.

In this context te Tiriti principles, developed over the past 50 years by Waitangi Tribunal reports and 40 years of case law, brought hope. They offer a framework for government agencies to give effect to te Tiriti as was originally agreed in 1840.

Professor Lisa Te Morenga.

If implemented, the principles provide a form of redress for the years of inferior and culturally incompetent health care Māori have received while also providing equitable health care for all. The Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act, governing the Ministry of Health, includes specific requirements to give effect to te Tiriti principles including:

Tino Rangatiratanga (the ability of Māori to design and deliver health services that best meet their needs)

• equity, options and active protection (ensuring Māori have access to services in proportion to their health needs);
• partnership (co-design of health services and policy).

Replacing these principles with those of the Act Party would erase the history and founding document of this country and remove recognition of Māori as tangata whenua, along with the specific responsibilities of the Government in relation to them.

With the eradication of the unique position of Māori as the first nations people of Aotearoa, the proposed bill would nullify the framework best placed to address the continuing disproportionate health harms for Māori - the established te Tiriti principles. The Waitangi Tribunal found the Treaty Principles in the bill “bear no resemblance to the text or meaning of te Tiriti”, “advance the discredited agenda of assimilation” and are “designed to end the distinct status of Māori as the indigenous people of this country”.

The bill’s tabling in Parliament is a powerful platform for false, harmful ideas and rhetoric. As we saw in the aftermath of Brash’s Orewa speech our people will face increased levels of racist rhetoric and overt racism in the places we live, work, and learn. We will be called snowflakes for complaining and grifters for asking for our rights to be honoured. These micro and macro aggressions are stresses with real health consequences, adding to the already disproportionate health harms our people are experiencing.

I can only conclude the Treaty Principles Bill is a deliberate strategy to throttle our voice, undermine our te Tiriti rights and cause us harm - an unmitigated tragedy.