Act leader David Seymour says debate about a referendum on the Treaty of Waitangi principles bill that will be introduced to Parliament under the coalition agreement could be deferred until later in the legislative process.
“I think it’s helpful if the content [of the bill] and the referendum are dealt with separately,” he told the Herald.
“The content is critical. The principles are the lens through which we view the Treaty from 1840 in the present day and there are few things that are more important to our constitution.”
Seymour also welcomed King Tuheitia calling a national hui in January to discuss his bill and the Government’s Māori policy agenda.
“I actually think it’s a very positive thing. It’s exactly what I hoped would happen – that this initiative would finally lead to some public dialogue about what these principles mean.”
Seymour said there had been very little debate on the principles apart from in the courts, the Waitangi Tribunal and the public service.
Act won the support of coalition partners National and New Zealand First to support a bill to select committee which would define in law what the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi should be.
The bill would almost certainly be a Justice bill and therefore be taken through Parliament by Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith.
But it would not be introduced in the first quarter of next year. And Seymour wanted a long select committee process, possibly nine months.
He said that if the bill passed a second reading after getting out of a select committee, any proposed referendum could be added during a debate on the commencement clause in the committee stages of the bill – or by the select committee itself.
And he said the three principles would be put as an amendment to the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and he would be open to change at the select committee.
“The End of Life Choice Act that emerged from Parliament was quite a lot different from the bill I introduced … but for better or for worse, you put yourself before the parliamentary process which is designed to make laws.
“It annoys me when people say the Act party wants to rewrite the Treaty. A) it’s the principles and B) we’re just introducing the first draft.”
The principles Seymour originally proposed to put into law have changed since he first promoted them in a speech last year.
After feedback, he decided that it would be better if the wording of the three principles was closer to the articles of the Treaty.
The bill will propose the principles say that: 1. The New Zealand Government has the right to govern New Zealand; 2. The New Zealand Government will protect all New Zealanders’ authority over their land and other property; 3. All New Zealanders are equal under the law, with the same rights and duties.
When Seymour first proposed a referendum in a speech in March 2022, he proposed that the principles state: 1. All citizens of New Zealand have the same political rights and duties; 2. All political authority comes from the people by democratic means including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot; 3. New Zealand is a multi-ethnic liberal democracy where discrimination based on ethnicity is illegal.
Currently, under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 setting up the Waitangi Tribunal, one of the functions of the tribunal is to determine the meaning and effect of Treaty principles given the differences between the English and Māori versions of the Treaty.
Among the principles established by the tribunal and the courts have been the principle of requiring the partners to the Treaty to act in good faith, the principle of redress and the principles of partnership, participation and protection.
Seymour said the partnership principle had “morphed into this requirement for the state to be dichotomised at every level.”
The news of the Human Rights Commission getting a Maori co-manager was the latest version of it but those kinds of positions had been established all through the public service in recent years.
“Then if you look at the Māori Health authority, for example, the Plant Variety Rights Council with its Māori equivalent, all through Government there has been this idea that the consenting panels under the Natural and Built Environment Act or the representation group boards in the Three Waters entities, just about every area of public policy we have seen partnership morph into the need to co-govern public affairs.
“And we believe to win that argument you’ve got to defeat that wrong notion that the Treaty actually requires these co-governance structures because its principle is a partnership.”
Seymour rejected a suggestion that his bill would promote a renewed push for Māori sovereignty under the guarantee of tino rangatiratanga in article two of Te Tiriti.
“What comes out of the bill as we promote it is the idea that we have equal citizenship and the right to self-determine and these values are universal.
“If anything, I think it shows that the New Zealand state is a place that will protect your rights to tino rangatiratanga and extend that right to everybody.
“At that point, people are going to have to turn around and explain why they need separate sovereignty when the state in question gives them everything that they could want.”
Asked what his objection was to the principles of partnership, participation and protection, Seymour said that they were “fundamentally collectivist terms”.
“They suggest that the contract is between groups of people rather than upholding the rights of individuals which is what you get from the Treaty itself.
The logic that your partnership as a group mattered more than your value as an individual summed up some of the worst political movements in history.
He said the notion that the state would have an obligation to protect some citizens but not all was divisive - and the same argument could be made for the principle of participation.
“It’s the difference between a collectivist view of the world and a humanist view of the world.”
Te Pati Māori, which won six of the seven Māori electorate seats, organised a day of action across the country a week ago to coincide with the opening of Parliament.
King Tuheitia, with the support of Tuwharetoa paramount chief Sir Tumu Te Heuheu and Ratana Tumuaki Manuao te Kohamutunga Tamou, has called a national hui at Turangawaewae on January 20 for Māori to discuss the future.
Kīngitanga chief of staff Ngira Simmonds said there had been a lot of unhelpful and divisive rhetoric during the election campaign which many New Zealanders were feeling – both Māori and non-Māori.
“There’s strong opposition to the Government’s statements on the Treaty of Waitangi which could undermine decades of hard-fought justice and equality for our nation,”
“Now is the time for Kotahitanga and focusing on what we have in common.”
Simmonds said King Tuheitia would host the hui and would then carry the mauri of the hui into the annual Ratana and Waitangi Day celebrations in the days that followed.
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