Waitangi Tribunal slams Treaty Principles Bill

Written By: - Date published: 9:27 am, August 17th, 2024 - 15 comments
Categories: act, leadership, national, nz first, Politics, same old national, treaty settlements - Tags:

We are entering into unchartered waters.

The Waitangi Tribunal has in a scathing interim report slammed Act’s Treaty Principles Bill.

This paragraph from the letter of transmission addressed directly to the Cabinet is possibly unprecedented. From the Judgment:

With respect to the Treaty Principles Bill policy, we have found that the Crown’s agreement to pursue it unilaterally belies the existence of this partnership. Despite the constitutional significance of defining the Treaty principles in legislation and the importance of this to Māori, the Crown agreed to pursue the policy without any engagement or discussion with Māori. Māori did not want this policy and in fact many have been strongly opposed to it from the beginning. We find in this report that the policy of a Treaty Principles Bill ‘based on existing ACT policy’, as the coalition agreement requires, is a solution to a problem that does not exist ; there is no policy imperative that justifies it ; it is ‘novel’ in its Treaty interpretations ; it is fashioned upon a disingenuous historical narrative ; its policy rationales are unsustainable ; and its current text distorts the language of the Treaty / Te Tiriti. Logically that means it has been pursued without any consideration of the Crown’s constitutional and Treaty / te Tiriti obligations to Māori. Senior officials gave clear advice to Ministers on this, also warning that it would damage the Māori–Crown relationship, and risk undermining social cohesion.

This is scathing. Just consider these extracts:

  • “[T]he Crown agreed to pursue the policy without any engagement or discussion with Māori”;
  • The bill is “is a solution to a problem that does not exist”
  • “[T]here is no policy imperative that justifies it”
  • “[I]t is ‘novel’ in its Treaty interpretations”
  • The bill is “fashioned upon a disingenuous historical narrative”
  • The Bill’s “policy rationales are unsustainable”

The report recommends that the Treaty Principles Bill be abandoned and that the Government take steps to repair relations with Māori.

Christopher Luxon was asked about the ruling. He said that the decision was premature and that Cabinet had not discussed the issue yet. He also repeated earlier statements that National would support the bill to select committee and there is no commitment beyond that.

I just wish he would say categorically that National will kill the bill after the select committee process. Otherwise there is always the chance that National will wriggle out of earlier commitments and actually support the bill or some new version of it.

Seymour thinks that the report is a helpful discussion to the debate. And he wants us to have a debate.

He also came out with a whole bunch of nice sounding phrases which implied that doing away with the treaty was akin to the United States Civil Rights movement. From One News:

“New Zealand can have a bright future, but it requires casting off the divisive notion that the Treaty is a partnership between two classes of New Zealanders each with different rights.”

He said that was “not only untrue, it is incompatible with the fundamental democratic value that all citizens are equal under the law”.

“Each of us is united by universal humanity. The same rights, the same dignities for every person. That is what has driven all the good movements in human history.

But Seymour and his party are not interested in genuine equality. You just have to look at who his backers are and the party’s determination to enhance the wealth of the already wealthy. They are not interested in making sure that we all have enough. They just want to have more and more of everything we have.

And it is bizarre that a party that talks about the rule of law and the sanctity of property rights should be so keen to extinguish those rights for a group based on their race.

And to suggest that Māori are privileged is bizarre. I have a whole bunch of statistics to show otherwise.

Yes let us have a debate between one version of the treaty that has been authoritavely described as fashioned on a disingenuos historical narrative and the other version that has been fashioned over time by some of the greatest legal and historical minds that the country has.

Lets have a debate where one version is no more than barely disguised red meat to a minor party’s racist base and which causes deep affront to Tangata Whenua.

If Luxon was a leader he would find a way to kill the bill. But clearly he is not. Stand by for the circus.

15 comments on “Waitangi Tribunal slams Treaty Principles Bill ”

  • Comments are now closed

  2. Tony Veitch 2
    17 August 2024 at 10:33 am

    In reality, Seymour has Luxon by the balls!

    All he needs to do is to threaten to break up the CoC for Luxon to cave!

    And Seymour know this – he's hinted already that Luxon might have second thoughts about how far he supports the bill.

    Luxon, after all, is interested only in power so he can enrich his donors and gain himself a knighthood. He doesn't give a flying f**k about bottom feeders!

    PS – signed the petition and forwarded it to mates!

    • bwaghorn 2.1
      17 August 2024 at 10:49 am

      just wish he would say categorically that National will kill the bill after the select committee process

      I'd imagine polling will guide luxon more than right or wrong

    • mickysavage 2.3
      17 August 2024 at 11:29 am

      Winston's stance is important. He could theoretically torpeto the bill at first reading which I am sure is what he wants to do to deal to Seymour. But he approves the anti treaty rhetoric and it is hard to understand why he would do this. He and NZ First are stuck in a difficult position …

  3. Mike the Lefty 3
    17 August 2024 at 10:48 am

    I like the bit where the Tribunal urges Luxon to kick Seymour and his cronies out of the coalition because their actions are unworthy of a party of government.

    We know it won't happen because Seymour has Luxon by the short-and-curlies but at least they are not afraid to voice what a growing number of people are thinking.

  4. barry 4
    17 August 2024 at 1:19 pm

    He said that was “not only untrue, it is incompatible with the fundamental democratic value that all citizens are equal under the law”.

    We are a hereditary monarchy. Fundamentally in our inherited British law, some people have more rights than others.

  5. Incognito 5
    17 August 2024 at 1:33 pm

    I don’t think David Seymour and ACT want to have genuine debate as such. I think they want to have ‘pretty legal’ platform to set the tone and control the narrative and what better place than being in CoC.

    ACT and its shilling mouthpieces such as Hobson’s Pledge use all tricks to manipulate public opinion by sowing division and stirring up negative sentiments (e.g. resentment) in both directions. You can see examples of all mechanisms of moral disengagement in action: moral justification, euphemistic labelling, skewed advantageous comparisons, displacement & diffusion of responsibility, distortion of consequences, and dehumanisation.

    Similar arguments and criticisms apply to the repeal of Section 7AA, which is of course a related issue, by ACT and Karen Chhour, but I never got around to write a full Post on this, unfortunately. Chhour is, in my opinion, a textbook example of somebody who tries to distance herself from her past, and uses many tools to morally justify her actions as Minister (and not so much as ACT puppet). But this OP is not about that per se.

  6. TeWhareWhero 6
    17 August 2024 at 2:13 pm

    On one level I quite like seeing the the plastic libertarian spouting off because it amuses me to imagine him practising his statesman pose and delivering his little homilies to the mirror before he fronts the media.

    The "fundamental democratic value that all citizens are equal under the law" blithely ignores the vast gap between principle and practice in most facets of the law, especially the criminal justice system, and in NZ (second only to the US in the OECD for rate of incarceration) especially so for poor people and for Māori.

    "Each of us is united by universal humanity." The tortured English aside, he ignores the yawning chasm between the goal of internationalism rooted in universal humanity (socialist in origin) and the material reality of a burgeoning hyper-nationalism being cynically manipulated by global capitalism.

    "The same rights, the same dignities for every person." And that's a Tui moment if there ever was one. The same rights in principle; grossly differential in practice. Dignity for some; gross indignities for a growing number of others.

    The formal right to vote is rendered meaningless if you can't easily exercise it. The formal right to equality before the law is meaningless if every stage of a civil or criminal process is weighted against you because you are poor or otherwise marginalised. Equality of employment opportunity is between socio-economic peers for the most part in a system characterised by gross inequalities, in terms both of remuneration and status, between different sorts of job.

    Does he believe his synthetic rhetoric or is he doing his masters' bidding, ie is the anti-Treaty stance a juicy bone for the pit bulls among his supporters, or is it a position emanating from the libertarian right aimed at undermining the whole concept of indigenous rights which might get in the way of intensification of extractive industries, for example.

  7. thinker 7
    17 August 2024 at 2:45 pm

    I get what the Tribunal is saying, but there must be a lot of Maori who trusted National to do better by them and ditched the left in 2023.

    I hope they think twice come 2026.

    • Karolyn_IS 7.1
      17 August 2024 at 4:12 pm

      I don't think ACT or National are very interested on what Maori people think. It's all about clearing the Waitangi Tribunal and related policies, to enable NACT to proceed with their privatisation agenda, and free up resources for profiteering corporates.

  8. georgecom 8
    17 August 2024 at 8:43 pm

    yet more wasting of tax payers money by Spendmore and ACT

    $150 million on charter schools that have a history of making no difference to education outcomes
    Millions will be spent on his bloated ministry of red tape including most recent $170k on a spin doctor
    Millions to be spent on reviewing gun laws which will make it easier for gangs to get guns
    Millions of rate payers mioney spent on referendums for already existing maori wards

    Now wanting to waste millions or maybe tens of millions on referendums and work etc on treaty principles
    Not sure if we have had a political party for a long time that wastes so much money on ideological things

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