More New Zealanders believe the Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand's founding document, but knowledge of the document is the lowest since 2002, according to a new poll.
[comment caption=What do you think about the Treaty?]The poll is published in the Treaty chapter of the annual Race Relations Report.
The chapter has been released this week in advance of Waitangi Day in an attempt to promote discussion around the Treaty.
The UMR poll, conducted late last year, shows 59 percent of people agreed the Treaty was New Zealand's founding document.
The result is the highest since the question was first posed in 2005, with the previous highest result of 55 percent being recorded in that year.
However, people's self-declared knowledge of the Treaty, with just 34 percent saying they knew a lot about the document, was the lowest since the annual poll was first conducted in 2002.
The poll of 750 people has a margin of error of 3.6 percent.
Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres said it was good to see the Treaty was accepted by a majority of New Zealanders.
He said the decline in declared knowledge could be a result of the Treaty no longer being seen as a "hot button" issue by the media.
Overall Mr de Bres applauded recent progress on Treaty issues.
That included:
* The completion of the $400 million central North Island forestry settlement;
* 1800 new claims presented in the 2008 year after the September cut-off date for the lodging of historic claims with the Waitangi Tribunal;
* the National-led Government's confidence and supply agreement with the Maori Party;
* the Government's promise to review the controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act and instigate a cross party examination of the place of the Treaty in the country's constitutional arrangements.
Mr de Bres said if the Government was to meet its goal of settling all historical claims in the next six years, recent progress would need to continue.
