David Seymour speaks about the Treaty Principles Bill before going in for his submission. Video / Julia Gabel
People for and against the controversial Treaty Principles Bill had their say in Parliament on Monday as the Justice Select Committee held its first day of public submissions.
Treaty principles – ways of interpreting the Treaty in legislation – have been developed over decades by the courts and Waitangi Tribunal. If enacted, the bill would replace those principles with ones developed by Parliament.
But it will almost certainly not be enacted. Act’s partners, National and NZ First, have both said ad nauseum they will only support the bill until the first reading.
Impassioned arguments for and against the proposed legislation were heard on Monday while thousands of people watched the Parliamentary live stream. Usually, committee livestreams have fewer than 100 people watching them.
Lobby group Hobson’s Pledge said it supported the first and third principles of the bill but not the second, which it described as “critically flawed”.
Civil litigator and trustee Thomas Newman said his rights as a New Zealander did not depend on a document signed in 1840.
Newman backed one of David Seymour’s key arguments for the bill – that Parliament should develop the principles, not courts or the Waitangi Tribunal.
He said laws should only be made by sovereign entities and “the fact is that this Parliament is the sole sovereign of these lands”.
“There is no other serious contender for sovereignty in New Zealand. It continues to have sovereignty because it is a representative institution with members elected through free and fair elections.”
During the submission, Hobson’s Pledge member Elliot Ikilei claimed the group had not been given a slot to make an oral submission. Ikilei said this was “outrageous when you consider our leading voice and the tens of thousands that support us”.
Ikilei said this was “incomprehensible” and Democracy Action had given Hobson’s Pledge its time slot to present to the committee.
Justice Committee chairman James Meager initially said Hobson’s Pledge was invited over email to make a submission but did not respond by the deadline.
However, the Herald has subsequently seen an email from the Justice Committee Principal Clerk admitting that this was wrong.
“This was incorrect, and based on advice provided to the chairperson, which itself was the result of a miscommunication, which I take responsibility for,” the Principal Clerk said in their email.
“Please accept my apology for this. Hobson’s Pledge responded by the specified deadline, but after the speaking slots for this week’s hearings had been allocated. The chairperson corrected his earlier statement to this effect during public session of the committee today, around 4.00pm.”
Andrew Little
In his submission, Former Treaty Negotiations Andrew Little spoke about equality and a topic that has been key to Seymour’s argument for the bill – that there are currently not equal rights for all New Zealanders.
Former Labour Cabinet minister Andrew Little. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“In fact if you look at the Act party website, they use that language, that not everybody is treated equally. The point I want to make is those comments imply or assume rights are not presently equal or not equally enforced or upheld and the Treaty represents a source of equality.
“I just want to say that must be totally rejected. The Treaty, if it represents anything, is a recognition of pre-existing rights and interests of Māori and the promised protection of them.
“Correcting wrongs does not create inequality, it restores the situation to what it was or should have been.”
Marilyn Waring
Former MP Marilyn Waring also spent a large part of her submission discussing the concept of equality.
She said around the world, the meaning of equality was so contested “no one knows what it means”. She said the Treaty Principles Bill was based on an old approach that everybody was born equal and people could have the same treatment regardless of differences.
“You might find this approach in a history of ideas and an undergraduate philosophy course, that’s where you find Aristotle and Plato. If you are interested in equality and rights, the foci are outcomes and results. When a person or peoples have been subject to socially constructed, historic, systemic and systematic, accumulative disadvantage, equality cannot be achieved through equal treatment.
“There can be no question that iwi and hapū in Aotearoa have been subjected to socially constructed, historic, systemic and accumulative disadvantage. You address this through substantive equality, through equality of outcomes and equality of results.
David Seymour
Before his submission, Seymour told reporters outside the Select Committee room he had a “thick skin” and was ready for name-calling and abuse.
Seymour also said he was “absolutely” open to having his mind changed during the select committee process.
”This is a 185-year debate and counting. No doubt there will be new ideas that I haven’t heard before.”
In his opening remarks to the Justice Select Committee, Seymour said his beliefs on the issue were long-held and sincere.
“What we have witnessed in recent decades is how the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal have sought to define the principles of the Treaty as incompatible with freedom under the law, a free society, where each of us has equal rights.
“This bill, some will say, may not pass. We shall see. But I can tell you that you are part of something important and inevitable.”
Seymour referenced previous bills that did not pass when they were first introduced but were later enacted, like those for homosexual law reform and end-of-life choice.
Lady Tureiti Moxon followed Seymour’s submission. She told the committee Te Tiriti was a contract between iwi Māori and the Crown to govern over our own.
“Replacing the Treaty principles with notions of civil government, equality and historic rights is an attempt by this coalition Government to rewrite Te Tiriti in favour of itself to retain power and control.
Lady Tureiti Moxon.
“It is designed to subjugate, humiliate, assimilate and oppress iwi Māori.”
‘The laughing stock of the Western world’
Sir Edward (Taihakurei) Durie, who helped establish the Waitangi Tribunal and served as its chairman as well as a chief judge of the Māori Land Court, said the bill had ignored 50 years of work by well-qualified Māori and Pākehā on the Waitangi Tribunal that had gone in to inform the current Treaty principles.
“The principles of the Treaty as described in the bill do not, in fact, reflect the purpose and intent of the Treaty as recorded in both Treaty texts. They are not therefore Treaty principles if they do not emanate from the Treaty. There is an extraordinary ignorance in presuming otherwise.
“If this bill would pass, I believe that our Government would be the laughing stock of the Western world who understand how responsible states today seek to manage relationships with their Indigenous people.”
Commentator David Farrar also provided an oral submission on Monday. He told the committee he believed it would “be a very good thing” to have parliamentary or legislative definitions of the principles of the Treaty.
He said it would provide certainty. “A lot of the challenges we have had in the five to 10 years are people are uncertain. They are anxious about how interpretations of the Treaty impact them.
“You can say, ‘Let’s leave it up to the courts'. But ultimately these are political issues, they are not just judicial issues.
“I would love to see Parliament step up and actually do its job as legislators and say, ‘These are what we think are the principles of the Treaty’.”
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.
