The Government’s cynical manipulation of the Treaty Principles Bill

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, November 6th, 2024 - 20 comments
Categories: act, david seymour, Maori Issues, maori party, political parties, Politics, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, treaty settlements, uncategorized - Tags:

Te Pati Māori were planning a big hikoi to Parliament on 19 November to protest the introduction of the Treaty Principles Bill. The intent was for Māori to express in no uncertain terms its view on the bill.

What do you think would be the most mana degrading cynical abuse of power thing that you could do in response to this?

How about bring forward the introduction of the Bill by two weeks and scheduling this on a Thursday as all attention is on the US election results.

And not tell anyone, or at least as few people as possible until it was too late.

Surely they would not be so cynical?

If you thought that you would be wrong. Because this is exactly what is happening.

From Giles Dexter at Radio New Zealand:

The government intends to introduce the Treaty Principles Bill this Thursday – earlier than expected.

The bill was not set to be introduced until later this month, on 18 November, but a memo sent to lawyers by the Waitangi Tribunal and seen by RNZ, said the Crown had indicated it will be put before the House on 7 November.

The office for the acting leader of the house, Simeon Brown, has confirmed to RNZ the bill will be introduced on Thursday.

They did not even tell the other parties at the recent Government and Administration Committee meeting.

In response to this the Waitangi Tribunal has released its second interim report into the bill and has stated that if enacted the bill would be the “worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/te Tiriti in modern times”.

In as strong language as I have ever read in a judgment the Tribunal has said:

“Underlying the significant change across all statutory regimes that affect Māori, the Bill would end the Treaty/te Tiriti partnership and any formal relationship between the Crown and Māori.

At present, the progressing of the Bill is having serious impacts on the relationship but the Bill if enacted would kill that relationship. This is deliberate”.

David Seymour has countered by attacking the Waitangi Tribunal and accusing it of breaking the government’s trust.

Again from Radio New Zealand:

“[The Tribunal] demands information from the government, such as the date the Treaty Principles Bill is to be introduced to Parliament, but the information becomes public within hours of them knowing. Respect should go both ways”.

It appears quite likely that the leak came from a lawyer rather than the Tribunal. I am pretty confident that there would have been a number of lawyers incensed at the Government’s manipulation of the process. To accuse the Tribunal itself of leaking the information is unprecedented.

Together with a number of other affronts to Māori this will not be forgotten.

Update: As pointed out by Jonathan Milne in this Newsroom Article bring the bill forward may have had an even more cynical motive, preventing the Waitangi Tribunal from releasing its second report on the bill because the Tribunal is unable to commment on matters before Parliament.

20 comments on “The Government’s cynical manipulation of the Treaty Principles Bill ”

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  1. Tiger Mountain 1
    6 November 2024 at 10:41 am

    It will not be forgotten Micky. There will likely be direct action taken against National and Act’s supporters. Some younger Māori and long time activists I talk to in Tai Tokerau are getting organised and have had enough Hikoi–which are a significant undertaking–“you get back home and life goes on…” one said to me “we want lasting action and justice”.

    The bal’heads will come to regret this further blatant disregard for the Māori world.

    • James Simpson 1.1
      6 November 2024 at 11:03 am

      There will likely be direct action taken against National and Act’s supporters

      Can you elaborate on that Tiger Mountain? What do you mean by direct action. What is being planned?

      • Tiger Mountain 1.1.1
        6 November 2024 at 12:02 pm

        My lips are sealed James, but use your imagination–what do environmental activists do…CoC business owner supporters and others in sectors like mining and fishing will get some heat.

        • James Simpson 1.1.1.1
          6 November 2024 at 3:09 pm

          Protests? That's all good. I thought you were inferring something much more objectionable.

  2. SPC 2
    6 November 2024 at 10:53 am

    They did not even tell the other parties at the recent Government and Administration Committee meeting.

    The government undermines the mana of parliament with their approach.

    It's only defence, this is just a sop to ACT/Seymour – no one else takes this one reading only bill seriously.

  3. Macro 3
    6 November 2024 at 11:06 am

    I simply can't believe just how mean spirited this CoC SoS Govt is. Almost everything they have done since gaining the treasury benches is to divide and make life more difficult.

    They think they are great managers of the economy. So how come after one year of their mangling do we have unemployment at a 4 year high and record numbers of brightest and best heading to a better life offshore?

  4. Tony Veitch 4
    6 November 2024 at 11:46 am

    Two things are crystal clear:

    1 – that this is an ACT led government. Seymour is calling the shots!

    2 – the introduction could not have happened without Luxon's?/Natz agreement, so whatever happens Luxon OWNS this piece of shit.

    • Macro 4.1
      6 November 2024 at 12:05 pm

      Seymour and "leader of the house" Simple Simeon Brown hatched this plot. Might have told the "boss" but PM Luxy is more concerned about his daily Press Ministrations.

    • Tiger Mountain 4.2
      6 November 2024 at 12:20 pm

      Yes, PM Baldrick has enabled this potential tear of the fabric of NZ society to occur. It would be surprising in fact if some weasel accomodation is not reached to allow Act’s filthy referendum to happen.

      • thinker 4.2.1
        6 November 2024 at 1:23 pm

        Yeah, not trying to predict anything, but it would be easy to say you weren't going to support this bill past it's first reading, wait for revisions, then support the revised bill.

        There's a cynical part of me that thinks that an over-dramatised bill is being trotted out to get people to vent their spleens so they'll breath a sigh of relief when the real one goes through.

      • tc 4.2.2
        6 November 2024 at 3:09 pm

        Totally ! Not surprising at all TM as the intention is further division and the PM is simply a title as the money owns them all.

  5. Muttonbird 5
    6 November 2024 at 12:45 pm

    A government's popularity is founded on trust. Can't trust these crooks.

  6. Ad 6
    6 November 2024 at 1:13 pm

    +1000

    Mana degrading.

    Completely wrong way to begin serious constitutional dialogue.

    The process is as brutish as the content.

  7. Muttonbird 7
    6 November 2024 at 1:23 pm

    It's good the Waitangi Tribunal got the 2nd interim report out. How does an interim report differ from a final report, with regards the law?

  8. Incognito 8
    6 November 2024 at 2:02 pm

    The agenda and strategy have been clear for years: polarise, divide, and conquer (or at least make major inroads for the next round).

  9. Patricia Bremner 9
    6 November 2024 at 5:14 pm

    Seymour is a dangerous little man in all respects. Pun intended. He has no respect for anything other than Atlas. We know that through Mountain Tui's work.

    To think that snivelling little creep will be acting PM soon is repellant.

    This Government says one thing and does the opposite. 2025 is going to be harder than 2024, because of the lag time it takes to repair such intended damage inflicted by a programme of austerity.

    Next year there will be collapsed businesses and repossessed homes cars boats and tech. A great garage sale for the rich.

    Under the guise of induced low monetary circulation,(Austerity) we will be offered more "Mum and Dad" investments in things already paid for by our taxes. Guess overseas buyers will take up the "opportunity" to buy as we have no cash… the banks are getting that via mortgage rates.

    So to get these things over the line, they need to water down Maori rights. So hence this Bill and the28 removals of references to Treaty in various Department documents.

    This Government always meant to water down, if not remove rights for Maori, just as they have for workers.

    We must vote them out in 2026 and reverse this terrible damage, before we become like the USA or sadly Britain. Owned by the powerful.

    • Drowsy M. Kram 9.1
      7 November 2024 at 12:49 pm

      Owned [and polarised] by the powerful.

      As enabled and normalised by neoliberalism. yesyes Patricia Bremner and Incognito.

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      The ultra-wealthy who invested in a red wave couldn’t wait to congratulate the president-elect (and themselves)

      Later, he [Musk] reprised a gag from his first day as the owner of Twitter, sharing a meme that showed him holding a sink in the Oval Office, with the caption “Let that sink in.”

      An excess of billionaires is destabilising politics – just as academics predicted [31 Oct 2024]

      American Economic Coercion and Elite Re-Globalization [2 Oct 2024; PDF]
      Elite Protection Strategies
      We start from the premise that economic elites seek to maximize their incomes. While increasing revenue streams will often be a function of expanding market shares and diversifying into alternate industries, elites employ a range of non-market strategies. Some seek to purchase influence over politicians, “access” corruption, for information that could be useful to their economic endeavors or to bend laws in their favor to increase rents. Others resort to “grand” forms of corruption where the purpose of political purchases is to obtain direct revenues from the state via government contracts. Across these methods, corruption works as a “tool of government”. In recent years, there has even been a groundswell of businessmen winning political office, from Ukraine to the United States, with tangible consequences for their revenue streams. Economic elites further spend considerable effort guarding the wealth that their businesses deliver. They lobby to lower taxes and, at the extremes, fight for the rule of law and democratization to mitigate the risks from state expropriation.

      Political Polarization Is Making Us Sick
      The researchers define two types of polarization: ideological and affective.

      With ideological polarization, “A specific issue, such as abortion, vaccination or gun control, is said to be polarized to the extent that people tend to take an ‘all-or-nothing’ position on it,” they write. “Once beliefs or attitudes become polarized, they become less amenable to change or compromise.”

      Affective polarization, on the other hand, emerges when “partisans come to love their partisan in-group, loathe the out-group or both.” They note that many streams of research suggest that affective polarization has spiked in the United States over the last 40 years, a phenomenon “largely driven by increased out-group hate.”

  10. thinker 10
    7 November 2024 at 5:49 pm

    Could someone with central government experience please educate me:

    Clearly, this Bill was the property of the ACT party. At least, when it was campaigned on.

    At what point does it/did it transfer from ACT to the government and is the government different to the Crown?

    I'm thinking it might have become government policy when it was built into the coalition agreement, but maybe when cabinet agreed to it being tabled.

    I'm guessing it wouldn't be owned by the Crown until the G-G signs it off.

    I'm just wondering what history would say of this, depending on where it gets to.

    I think history will remember this, because at some point an opportunity will come to reverse it. But who will history damn for it? Seymour? The Coalition? The Crown?

  11. Mountain Tui 11
    7 November 2024 at 5:55 pm

    This is an excellent article.