A lot of good points here about the simplistic narratives being presented by those who don't appear to have taken the time to examine the actual historical context of the bill, both in its relation to 1840 and to 1975. While I'm not sure this bill is the best way to solve the constitutional crisis revealed by the 'co-governance' policies of the Ardern/Hipkins government, I'm hoping now that it is in select committee we can actually have a rational debate about the problem.
One point I would also note is that part of the problem in the current debate is a poor understanding in modern New Zealand culture of what The New Zealand Wars were about. The modern 'settler-colonial' narrative where colonial culture is prima facie an evil concept has led many to make blanket assertions that the New Zealand Wars were a land stealing exercise where evil and corrupt British colonists weaponised the Treaty of Waitangi against the naive, indigenous Maori.
While it is true that there were illegal land seizures, many of which have been the subject of treaty settlements post 1975, this bowdlerized and inaccurate history portrays Maori as lacking agency and intelligence during the founding of New Zealand. This narrative ignores the fact that the government forces consisted of both British and kupapa Maori who believed in a single government for New Zealand, whereas their opponents were dissenting revolutionaries and non-signatories to the treaty who denied the sovereignty of the post-treaty government.
In my mind, our nation has already fought one set of wars about the interpretation of the treaty where the belief in a single sovereign government for all New Zealanders ultimately emerged victorious over various alternative views. I don't want another war to be fought over the same ideas and think it is very irresponsible for Jenny Shipley to claim that The Treaty Principles Bill could lead to a civil war as it completely ignores this historical context.
However, I do feel there is a valid point to be made that the nascent government of New Zealand favoured British views over Maori views and that the 1975 legislation recognised this. That being said, our nation has done a lot of work to redress this balance and one reflection of this work is that our current parliament has the most Maori MPs of any NZ parliament - https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/record-number-of-maori-mps-elected-to-new-zealand-parliament/
My feeling is that as we are coming closer to achieving a balance of opinions in our society that meets the initial intention of the treaty, those who have benefited from the new radical interpretation of partnership (which you state gained momentum around 2014) are retrenching their position to gain special privileges and turn our constitutional framework into something that only experts who subscribe to the radical interpretation of partnership can have an opinion on. This is profoundly undemocratic and it is no surprise that the majority of New Zealand voted against 'co-governance' at the 2023 election.
Outstanding analysis David. Perhaps you could email this to Mr Waititi and Ms Ngarewa-Packer and ask them to reduce their anger for a time, take some deep breaths and read it slowly. Then we could ask them the simplest of questions: how will your life be different if this bill became law?
Peter - thanks very much for your kind comments. If I were to email Waititi and Packer I wonder what the digital equivalent to tearing up a piece of paper might be. No doubt the usual veto words such as pale stale male, colonialism and racism would be flung around.
I wonder that the piece may be a bit subtle - or confronting - for them.
I would suggest they have a cup of tea and a lie down - or is that too much of a "colonial" solution
Thank you. At least I could understand what I was reading as I have become so confused with all the different "experts" on this subject I had no idea of what was correct. One thing though, I was not happy with the haka and performance in Parliament, with supporters in the gallery (hmmm), and the so called hikoi where people have had transport and have had so much media attention on this whereby many don't even know what it is about! Who is paying for this as well? I hope it isn't us, the taxpayer.
No - I don't think so. I know one who wouldn't sign because he disagreed with the propositions advanced but others may have other reasons or perhaps even were not approached.
This makes the whole thing out to be a complete waste of time. As a mere citizen, I'd like to see the political capital spent elsewhere, on reigning in the courts etc. which is where most of the problem comes from. I'd support a law to the effect that any reinterpretation of a law by the Supreme Court must be put back to parliament to endorse.
This is what the Bill attempts to do - it becomes the lodestone for interpreting the Treaty. I think your suggestion of legislative approval for judicial activism would compromise judicial; independence and the Courts as an arm of Government
The debate is about much more than Court interpretations. It’s actually an attempt to put a genie back in its bottle, that is the two biggies, sovereignty and partnership. NZ must out a stop to any idea that partnership is an equal relationship - Modlik stated the ultimate am, a seperate Maori political system. This Bill is the Capital letters NO to that idea. Parliament rules, Maori can group together to further their interests eg sell some land, offer a view n gang patches, build a house, just as Chinese NZers can if they wanted to. But that’s it, Parliament makes the rules.
There is no doubt that there is a sense among some Maori (I hope a small minority) that democracy is destined for the scrap heap because it has not served Maori well. I agree entirely with your last propositions.
Thanks. Interesting that a fine legal kind such as yours can arrive at these sound (imho) conclusions, and yet 40,000 people and a group of dipshit woke KC’s cannot. Or will not perhaps. The Bill is well intentioned and democratic. The opposing narrative is complete BS, to use the legal term. Of course the protest is not due to genuine grievances, but because elite Maori fear their power slipping away. The lure of a continued Gravy Train drives their desperate efforts to cancel Seymour before he can awaken more Kiwis from their slumber of political naïveté. But it’s a great summary thank you & I’ve sent it to my kids for their continued edification (& hopefully to share with their woke uni mates. You’d be horrified at the volume of ‘Likes’ the protest is receiving from ignorant students)
Thanks Boris. Much appreciated. As to the "likes" from students as I recall from my student days, in the words of Shax, "it is the cause, it is the cause my soul"
One wonders as to how much of the PM's opposition to the bill is itself theatrical?
Has Seymour rather been employed to do the dirty work of fronting on this matter, while National can claim impunity by keeping it all at arm's length, though they really wanted this to be done as a necessary circuit breaker???
Isn't that the exact same process that gave us the End of Life Choice Act and referendum?
Thanks for this great analysis David, saved for citations for our submissions.
In my email to David Seymour I queried the removal of the universal private land and property rights from the first draft. The first draft was clear there are no competing rights or race-based privileges carried forward:
The Bill’s second draft defers to existing legislation in which no single other Act (even including NZBORA/HRA) exclusively protects ALL NZers land and property.
I have suggested the simplification of the second principle to more closely align with the article the second and to mirror the wording and original intention of the signed Te Tiriti, with an eye on the matching Littlewood draft, for the benefit of most of NZ who do not speak te reo. This would be as a protection with legal implications against the subsequent Freeman’s rogue Olde-English version (which was not signed) mentioning forests and fisheries ( a kawharu back-translation of taonga1975, 1989) and added race-based property rights in favour of Iwi.
- ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani (to all the people of New Zealand) te tino rangatiratanga (the ownership) o o ratou wenua (of their land) o ratou kainga (of their homes) me o ratou taonga katoa ( and of all their posessions).
But of course all of the above could be seen as "meddling" with the treaty.
It is not. It is simply upholding the signed contract.
Govt is failing both Maori and pakeha in the protection requirement. We consent to be governed on the basis that the law abiding will be protected. For the last six years we saw criminals and liars being protected while the law abiding were targeted. Police are today more focused on civil debt collection and enforcement than on enforcing the law and catching criminals. Competency is a core of trust and we have seen a lowering of standards across many once trusted professions. This lowering of trust sees many innocent people being harmed for no good reason and far too many criminals escaping prosecution. Govt agencies are failing miserably on their “protection” obligations.
Quick question, David: In which 1991 case did the Tribunal find that "...there was a cession of sovereignty to the Crown in return for the protection of Rangatiratanga"? Thanks very much.
That's a welcome clarification. My question is why do we not go back to the Articles of the Treaty itself? Unravel the 'interpretations Hugh Kawharu and the Waitangi Tribunal have made that are causing this inflammatory situation? The final Littlewood draft, which wasn't found till after 1975 shows the clear English. The written history all make it very clear that the chiefs understood they were ceding sovereignty. Sir Apirana Ngata also spelt it out in his explanation of the treaty. In here https://issuu.com/esisite/docs/sir_apirana_ngata_book/2, he confirms: Article 1 - Sovereignty was ceded. Article 2 you have the right to your land, homes and possessions. (not the seabed and the foreshore) Article 3 you have the protection of the crown and all the rights of a British citizen. There were no principles. There was no partnership. You cede sovereignty absolutely as stated in the treaty you are not partnering up. What I think David was trying to do in the first version of the bill was to put those articles into plain English. The reworked bill presented in Parliament has a dubiously reworded 2nd principle that could be used to foster further confusion and disagreement for decades to come. A personal concern of mine is that the separatist movement is being influenced by the UN through UNDRIP to create a divide and conquer situation as one of the many paths that are being implemented currently to destroy the West and are either completely oblivious to being manipulated into participating in this destruction or are willing perpetrators of it. Instead of battling each other we need to acknowledge what is up and join together to direct our focus on our common enemy.
Surely the angst (as you put it) over the Bill is about process. To move to a legislated rule around an important topic for us all, ahead of widespread discussion and debate is totally awry.
A lot of good points here about the simplistic narratives being presented by those who don't appear to have taken the time to examine the actual historical context of the bill, both in its relation to 1840 and to 1975. While I'm not sure this bill is the best way to solve the constitutional crisis revealed by the 'co-governance' policies of the Ardern/Hipkins government, I'm hoping now that it is in select committee we can actually have a rational debate about the problem.
One point I would also note is that part of the problem in the current debate is a poor understanding in modern New Zealand culture of what The New Zealand Wars were about. The modern 'settler-colonial' narrative where colonial culture is prima facie an evil concept has led many to make blanket assertions that the New Zealand Wars were a land stealing exercise where evil and corrupt British colonists weaponised the Treaty of Waitangi against the naive, indigenous Maori.
While it is true that there were illegal land seizures, many of which have been the subject of treaty settlements post 1975, this bowdlerized and inaccurate history portrays Maori as lacking agency and intelligence during the founding of New Zealand. This narrative ignores the fact that the government forces consisted of both British and kupapa Maori who believed in a single government for New Zealand, whereas their opponents were dissenting revolutionaries and non-signatories to the treaty who denied the sovereignty of the post-treaty government.
In my mind, our nation has already fought one set of wars about the interpretation of the treaty where the belief in a single sovereign government for all New Zealanders ultimately emerged victorious over various alternative views. I don't want another war to be fought over the same ideas and think it is very irresponsible for Jenny Shipley to claim that The Treaty Principles Bill could lead to a civil war as it completely ignores this historical context.
However, I do feel there is a valid point to be made that the nascent government of New Zealand favoured British views over Maori views and that the 1975 legislation recognised this. That being said, our nation has done a lot of work to redress this balance and one reflection of this work is that our current parliament has the most Maori MPs of any NZ parliament - https://www.parliament.nz/en/get-involved/features/record-number-of-maori-mps-elected-to-new-zealand-parliament/
My feeling is that as we are coming closer to achieving a balance of opinions in our society that meets the initial intention of the treaty, those who have benefited from the new radical interpretation of partnership (which you state gained momentum around 2014) are retrenching their position to gain special privileges and turn our constitutional framework into something that only experts who subscribe to the radical interpretation of partnership can have an opinion on. This is profoundly undemocratic and it is no surprise that the majority of New Zealand voted against 'co-governance' at the 2023 election.
Thanks for your very thoughtful comment Stephen. Much appreciated.
Outstanding analysis David. Perhaps you could email this to Mr Waititi and Ms Ngarewa-Packer and ask them to reduce their anger for a time, take some deep breaths and read it slowly. Then we could ask them the simplest of questions: how will your life be different if this bill became law?
Peter - thanks very much for your kind comments. If I were to email Waititi and Packer I wonder what the digital equivalent to tearing up a piece of paper might be. No doubt the usual veto words such as pale stale male, colonialism and racism would be flung around.
I wonder that the piece may be a bit subtle - or confronting - for them.
I would suggest they have a cup of tea and a lie down - or is that too much of a "colonial" solution
Thank you. At least I could understand what I was reading as I have become so confused with all the different "experts" on this subject I had no idea of what was correct. One thing though, I was not happy with the haka and performance in Parliament, with supporters in the gallery (hmmm), and the so called hikoi where people have had transport and have had so much media attention on this whereby many don't even know what it is about! Who is paying for this as well? I hope it isn't us, the taxpayer.
Who else would pick up the tab? I suggest that TPM via John Tamahere and taxpayer support.
...and how about the KC's who didn't sign the open letter? Are they indifferent or agreeable?
No - I don't think so. I know one who wouldn't sign because he disagreed with the propositions advanced but others may have other reasons or perhaps even were not approached.
This makes the whole thing out to be a complete waste of time. As a mere citizen, I'd like to see the political capital spent elsewhere, on reigning in the courts etc. which is where most of the problem comes from. I'd support a law to the effect that any reinterpretation of a law by the Supreme Court must be put back to parliament to endorse.
This is what the Bill attempts to do - it becomes the lodestone for interpreting the Treaty. I think your suggestion of legislative approval for judicial activism would compromise judicial; independence and the Courts as an arm of Government
The debate is about much more than Court interpretations. It’s actually an attempt to put a genie back in its bottle, that is the two biggies, sovereignty and partnership. NZ must out a stop to any idea that partnership is an equal relationship - Modlik stated the ultimate am, a seperate Maori political system. This Bill is the Capital letters NO to that idea. Parliament rules, Maori can group together to further their interests eg sell some land, offer a view n gang patches, build a house, just as Chinese NZers can if they wanted to. But that’s it, Parliament makes the rules.
There is no doubt that there is a sense among some Maori (I hope a small minority) that democracy is destined for the scrap heap because it has not served Maori well. I agree entirely with your last propositions.
Thanks. Interesting that a fine legal kind such as yours can arrive at these sound (imho) conclusions, and yet 40,000 people and a group of dipshit woke KC’s cannot. Or will not perhaps. The Bill is well intentioned and democratic. The opposing narrative is complete BS, to use the legal term. Of course the protest is not due to genuine grievances, but because elite Maori fear their power slipping away. The lure of a continued Gravy Train drives their desperate efforts to cancel Seymour before he can awaken more Kiwis from their slumber of political naïveté. But it’s a great summary thank you & I’ve sent it to my kids for their continued edification (& hopefully to share with their woke uni mates. You’d be horrified at the volume of ‘Likes’ the protest is receiving from ignorant students)
Legal ‘mind’ (!)
Thanks Boris. Much appreciated. As to the "likes" from students as I recall from my student days, in the words of Shax, "it is the cause, it is the cause my soul"
One wonders as to how much of the PM's opposition to the bill is itself theatrical?
Has Seymour rather been employed to do the dirty work of fronting on this matter, while National can claim impunity by keeping it all at arm's length, though they really wanted this to be done as a necessary circuit breaker???
Isn't that the exact same process that gave us the End of Life Choice Act and referendum?
I wonder if this could be part of a long game on Seymour's part plus an opportunity to bleed some support from National.
Thanks for this great analysis David, saved for citations for our submissions.
In my email to David Seymour I queried the removal of the universal private land and property rights from the first draft. The first draft was clear there are no competing rights or race-based privileges carried forward:
“The New Zealand Government will honour all New Zealanders in the chieftainship of their land and all their property.” https://web.archive.org/web/20240405120238/https://www.treaty.nz/
The Bill’s second draft defers to existing legislation in which no single other Act (even including NZBORA/HRA) exclusively protects ALL NZers land and property.
I have suggested the simplification of the second principle to more closely align with the article the second and to mirror the wording and original intention of the signed Te Tiriti, with an eye on the matching Littlewood draft, for the benefit of most of NZ who do not speak te reo. This would be as a protection with legal implications against the subsequent Freeman’s rogue Olde-English version (which was not signed) mentioning forests and fisheries ( a kawharu back-translation of taonga1975, 1989) and added race-based property rights in favour of Iwi.
- ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani (to all the people of New Zealand) te tino rangatiratanga (the ownership) o o ratou wenua (of their land) o ratou kainga (of their homes) me o ratou taonga katoa ( and of all their posessions).
But of course all of the above could be seen as "meddling" with the treaty.
It is not. It is simply upholding the signed contract.
Govt is failing both Maori and pakeha in the protection requirement. We consent to be governed on the basis that the law abiding will be protected. For the last six years we saw criminals and liars being protected while the law abiding were targeted. Police are today more focused on civil debt collection and enforcement than on enforcing the law and catching criminals. Competency is a core of trust and we have seen a lowering of standards across many once trusted professions. This lowering of trust sees many innocent people being harmed for no good reason and far too many criminals escaping prosecution. Govt agencies are failing miserably on their “protection” obligations.
https://www.reputationguardian.nz
Quick question, David: In which 1991 case did the Tribunal find that "...there was a cession of sovereignty to the Crown in return for the protection of Rangatiratanga"? Thanks very much.
Waitangi Tribunal, The Ngai Tahu report 1991. Vol. 1. Wellington: Brooker and Friend, 1991, p. 236
Thanks, David - deeply appreciate your analysis on this topic.
That's a welcome clarification. My question is why do we not go back to the Articles of the Treaty itself? Unravel the 'interpretations Hugh Kawharu and the Waitangi Tribunal have made that are causing this inflammatory situation? The final Littlewood draft, which wasn't found till after 1975 shows the clear English. The written history all make it very clear that the chiefs understood they were ceding sovereignty. Sir Apirana Ngata also spelt it out in his explanation of the treaty. In here https://issuu.com/esisite/docs/sir_apirana_ngata_book/2, he confirms: Article 1 - Sovereignty was ceded. Article 2 you have the right to your land, homes and possessions. (not the seabed and the foreshore) Article 3 you have the protection of the crown and all the rights of a British citizen. There were no principles. There was no partnership. You cede sovereignty absolutely as stated in the treaty you are not partnering up. What I think David was trying to do in the first version of the bill was to put those articles into plain English. The reworked bill presented in Parliament has a dubiously reworded 2nd principle that could be used to foster further confusion and disagreement for decades to come. A personal concern of mine is that the separatist movement is being influenced by the UN through UNDRIP to create a divide and conquer situation as one of the many paths that are being implemented currently to destroy the West and are either completely oblivious to being manipulated into participating in this destruction or are willing perpetrators of it. Instead of battling each other we need to acknowledge what is up and join together to direct our focus on our common enemy.
Surely the angst (as you put it) over the Bill is about process. To move to a legislated rule around an important topic for us all, ahead of widespread discussion and debate is totally awry.
First, the Bill will go no further. Secondly, the Select Committee will allow for widespread discussion and debate.
Thanks for this. It explains a lot in language with out emotion.
Thanks for your comment. I like to think of it as sweet reason.