Aotearoa take a bow

Written By: - Date published: 8:14 am, April 5th, 2025 - 27 comments
Categories: act, david seymour, Maori Issues, Politics, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, treaty settlements, uncategorized - Tags:

The Justice Select Committee has returned Act’s odious Treaty Principles Bill to Parliament.

In its report it has referred to the submissions and broken these down into those who support the bill and those who oppose.

I had always feared that the Act Party, Hobson’s Pledge and the collection of Atlas resourced organisations that inflict our politics would skewer the result and suggest that there was a groundswell in the country in support of decimating the Treaty.

My fears were misplaced. Because the overwhelming number of submissions opposed the bill.

From Radio New Zealand:

The bill received approximately 300,000 submissions, and requests for 16,000 oral submissions. In the end, the committee heard 529 submitters, over 80 hours, over the course of five weeks.

Written submissions were 90 percent opposed, 8 percent supportive and 2 percent unstated. Oral submissions were 85 percent opposed, 10 percent supportive and 5 percent unstated.

The breakdown of the reasons submitters raised for and against the bill show an interesting contrast between those who really thought about the subject and those who parrotted Act’s talking points.

Again from Radio New Zealand:

The committee’s 45-page report said the themes raised by opponents were:

  • inconsistency of the bill with the Treaty/te Tiriti
  • flaws or inadequacies in the bill development process
  • the bill’s promotion of formal equality over equity
  • the negative effect of the bill on social cohesion
  • uncertainty of legal and constitutional implications
  • the negative effect on the Crown-Māori relationship
  • concerns that the bill is contrary to international commitments and would negatively affect New Zealand’s reputation
  • opposition to the use of a referendum and support for a national conversation around the Treaty/te Tiriti
  • unnecessary clarification of already defined principles
  • negative environmental impacts of the bill
  • negative effect on the status of te reo and mātauranga Māori initiatives
  • rejection of the concept of Treaty principles.

The themes across supporters were:

  • lack of clarity and certainty about the principles
  • the importance of equality for all
  • use of a referendum to facilitate a national conversation around the Treaty/te Tiriti
  • promoting social cohesion.

David Seymour has chosen to gaslight a whole nation by claiming in his response that the record number of submissions opposed to the bill does not reflect public opinion.

He also said this:

We will never give up. It doesn’t matter how many of our political colleagues fail to support equal rights. New Zealanders are ready to have this discussion, even if some of their leaders may appear to be letting them down.”

It feels like it does not matter how many times you say that conflating the breaching of Te Tiriti o Waitangi with supporting human rights is plainly dishonest. Seymour will continue to say this with uber Trump quality confidence.

The reporting back debate should be a farce. Expect fireworks.

But for now the good people of Aotearoa who believe in respect for the Treaty should take a bow.

27 comments on “Aotearoa take a bow ”

  1. Ad 1
    5 April 2025 at 8:23 am

    Also shoutout to whichever officials at the Speakers Office pushed him to actually get a parliamentary amendment to get all the submissions on the record.

    That was a big support for democracy itself.

    It shouldn't have come to that and it's great that Seymour trying to steamroller democratic process and our voice was actually stopped.

    I would have been pretty pissed if my submission hadn't got in there.

    Reply
  2. Tiger Mountain 2
    5 April 2025 at 8:36 am

    Great result.

    Knobhead’s (Seymour) fall back position was always to push for a referendum if he lost the public debate which is now clearly the case.

    Will the PM fold again and give him one?

    Reply
  3. Dennis Frank 3
    5 April 2025 at 10:05 am

    That ratio of 10:1 defines the minority group Seymour represents. Partisan politics never seems to work. All that happens is the partisans strengthen their solidarity, anchoring in dissident group identity. Democracy provides representation for such minor groups, but people tend to favour common ground.

    Polarising comes naturally, yet to yield to that temptation seems inevitably to result in self-harm for a politician. He has to suffer the consequences to learn that lesson. Inducing so many folks into taking political action is an achievement, however…

    Reply
  4. Simbit 4
    5 April 2025 at 10:23 am

    Look, Māori have never benefited from democracy – as imposed – in Aotearoa. We are under massive surveillance (as a researcher in my space) and all your white allyship is very very scarce when the tutae hits the kōwhiuwhiu. To quote that old racist, this is not the end, or even the beginning of the end. It is, perhaps, the end of the beginning…

    Reply
    • tc 4.1
      5 April 2025 at 10:52 am

      Sadly have to agree with you.

      Its a well funded machine that grinds away against indigenous rights globally which seymour, peters and luxon have ridden into power on.

      Seymour isnt rewarded for letting this go so watch for the performances that follow from the owned.

      Reply
    • roblogic 4.2
      5 April 2025 at 10:58 am

      Māori wellbeing has taken a backwards step under this CoC government, but the massive outcry against Seymour's awful bill shows that Te Tiriti is widely supported, and Mister 8% should crawl back under his rock

      Reply
      • Incognito 4.2.1
        5 April 2025 at 11:08 am

        Māori wellbeing has taken a backwards step under this CoC government […]

        Not just Māori wellbeing but the wellbeing of many more New Zealanders. By narrowly focussing on Māori this became the culture war it was designed to be to divert from the real, bigger, and more devastatingly destructive Class War that affects many Māori and non-Māori. Of course, David Seymour and ACT were and are prepared to drop the Treaty Principles Bill, as a strategic ‘sacrifice’, but they have bigger & better weapons of mass destruction at their disposal some of which have already been deployed.

        Reply
        • PsyclingLeft.Always 4.2.1.1
          5 April 2025 at 11:20 am

          I see all that too. All part of their Long Term Plan. They and their backers are Long Game masters.

          Reply
        • Barfly 4.2.1.2
          5 April 2025 at 11:46 am

          yes I agree

          Reply
        • Patricia Bremner 4.2.1.3
          5 April 2025 at 3:56 pm

          Nazis said, "If it takes a 1000 years"

          Atlas are their handmaiden in my opinion, and those three CoC leaders want to join the Billionaire's club lounge like the lizards they are.

          The Regulations Bill and the Fast Track Bill went through during this kaka bill put up by Seymour as an emotional trap.

          He hoped for more racists. All of the 90% have had their standard of living lowered by Mr. Sorted and his side kicks.

          Thank you the submitters. Thank you the Standard and members, Nick Rockel and Mountain Tui Gerald Otto and Bernard Hickey for keeping your readers up with the play.

          Thank you Mac1 for your great explanation of equity versus equality. Cheers Best day for a while in spite of Trump.

          My son says Seymour is like Wormtongue in ‘Lord of the Rings’.

          Reply
      • tWig 4.2.2
        5 April 2025 at 11:12 am

        Seymour tries to rewrite that the submissions don't represent the feelings of most New Zealand voters. Again, the referendum if presented to the electorate must be for citizens only. I have seen a call from Māori for it to be limited to Māori.

        Reply
      • Simbit 4.2.3
        5 April 2025 at 7:35 pm

        How has The Tiriti been supported?? The Crown – ie, democratically elected representatives – has flagrantly denied Treaty obligations for almost two centuries. And continues to do so to the extent of funding (tax payers money) appeal after appeal in the most egregious cases. I'm sure you mean well but you cannot seriously defend what can only be described as the majority's comfort with institutional racism. If you want justice, you have be willing to sacrifice something and in a capitalist system that equals money, property and power. The Crown (supported by most NZers) has the power and will to violently oppress Māori.

        Reply
        • roblogic 4.2.3.1
          5 April 2025 at 11:53 pm

          He waka eke noa

          I get the frustration but solidarity and building bridges is the way forward. Most working kiwis are afraid of your kind of rhetoric because they are (like me) on the bones of their arse and struggling to get by in this shitty system

          Te Tiriti is widely supported, judging by the massive hikoi and the record submissions to TPB

          Reply
          • simbit 4.2.3.1.1
            6 April 2025 at 8:44 am

            Kia ora, my point was that Te Tiriti has never been honoured, has never been implemented, and is now threatened in a way that permanently alters how many people interpet it. One thing rarely discussed here is how do Indigenous Peoples operate within a class war? Perhaps another day. Kia pai to ra 🙂

            Reply
            • tWig 4.2.3.1.1.1
              7 April 2025 at 3:36 pm

              Hi simbit, I read this recent article the other day that has a go at placing identity politics within the Marxist working-class struggle framework.

              From Universalism and the Anti-Woke in the New International.

              'Marx long ago understood that the interests of the working class were divided along racial lines. He eventually saw that Irish liberation could only be achieved by Irish workers themselves and not through a generalised (English) labour movement. The English worker had a vested interest in the continued subordination of the Irish…'

              'It is only by recognising the labour-capital relation not as a singular universal category but a collection of divided and sometimes contradictory social relations that we can properly understand racism and patriarchy. They are not simply images of “false consciousness” which will come out in the wash of workerist politics, but a manifestation of economic relations of production and reproduction which benefit capital and some segments of labour. When left critics of woke, identity politics, or DEI make the case for universalism in the face of apparent divisions of the working class, they are replicating the exclusions of liberal universality. They are imposing the specific interests of the white, male, waged-labour subject in the global north on top of the specific interests of several segments of the working class. It is a universality defined by exclusion. One which leaves intact the conditions of exploitation and domination. It is an abstraction away from the material divisions within society, and crucially, from divisions within the working classes too…

              It is only by recognising, and then working through, the material divisions of the various segments of the global working classes and struggling towards a shared program of emancipation that a more productive universality can be achieved. Feminism, anti-racism, trans-liberation, and disability politics are all necessary elements to create a collective movement for emancipation. The goals of all of these diverse movements cannot be subordinated to a universal abstraction which obscures the hidden “privilege” of one reified grouping.'

              Reply
  5. Ad 5
    5 April 2025 at 10:51 am

    I'm just at Dame Ann Salmond's Tearing Up The Treaty seminar in Wanaka.

    An uplifting moment to gather on this after the resounding defeat of the bill this week.

    Reply
  6. Bearded Git 6
    5 April 2025 at 12:03 pm

    I just tried to get into Ann Salmond speaking on Tearing Up the Treaty in Wanaka. No chance….packed out.

    It was an epic failure by Luxon to allow a bill to go forward that threatened the Treaty.

    For this reason alone he should be voted out next year.

    Reply
    • Incognito 6.1
      5 April 2025 at 12:43 pm

      If anything, it shows that there’s increased appetite if not hunger for these sorts of events and grassroots democracy.

      If anything, Seymour, just like overseas, seems to have disturbed the sleepy and apathetic public from its political slumber and once its starts moving it can become highly unpredictable (aka playing with fire).

      Still, the polls only seem to show ripples.

      Reply
  7. Dave Kennedy 7
    5 April 2025 at 4:41 pm

    I was interested in Seymour's response and identified 16 specific arguments he used to support his position. The arguments were factually wrong and largely disinformation and I have attempted to write a response to each.

    Although there is a permanent link to my blog here I thought it may be of interest to provide another link in this comment thread: https://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.com/2025/04/fact-checking-david-seymour.html

    I don't consider myself an expert, so I would welcome any corrections or additional information. I have had to deal with Seymour in more than one capacity and in face to face conversations – I believe he is a dangerous individual. He is a practiced debater, presents convincingly for those who lack knowledge and has growing support in the southern community where I live. Sharing some concise corrections in a timely way will hopefully erode some of his credibility. We ignore him at our peril.

    Reply
  8. KJT 8
    5 April 2025 at 5:45 pm

    Meanwhile what is happening with the regulating the regulations bill?

    An even more dangerous attack on New Zealand society than the treaty bill.

    Reply

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