The opposition to David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill is heated, getting hotter, skirting hysteria, despite the Prime Minister’s repeated assurances it will never become law.
So why do its opponents, literally, want to shut down debate on the issue?
Fears are expressed that Māori rights and aspirations will be set back decades. Some academics, activists, politicians and bureaucrats say it is already all done and dusted.
The principles have been established through legal process and, principally, through the research, consultations and conclusions reached by the Waitangi Tribunal. Treaty workshops and courses now educate company, corporate and departmental personnel on what they mean.
The principles have been developed over the last few decades. In 1989, Labour set out five which were quickly seen as giving too much authority to government. They were soon overtaken by a series of court cases, the first significant one being the judgement in the 1987 Lands Case which first raised the concept of partnership.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) endorsed by the Key government in 2010, although not binding, is wide-ranging and has provided multiple grounds for the progression of Māori rights and claims.
There have been numerous other court cases involving issues between Māori and the Crown, mostly as a consequence of investigations by the Waitangi Tribunal, which has issued non-binding reports and recommendations to government. Perhaps the most significant came in 2015, which stated that Māori never ceded sovereignty when the Treaty was signed in 1840 and, related to UNDRIP, that only the Māori version is valid.
Lately, the principles have been broadly summarised as Partnership, Protection and Participation.
There is a widely held perception that the development of the principles and their application has been a closed circuit between the "Star Chamber" of the Waitangi Tribunal, the judiciary and the Crown with scant reference to New Zealanders at large, and rarely appearing as part of political party policies.
There has been growing unease about this, not helped by some academics, politicians and judges telling New Zealanders that they know what’s best for them, or at least for Māori, and that any questioning is ignorant or racist or both.
The Treaty has been given the status of a "sacred covenant" by some church leaders, putting it on a level with the Ten Commandments, not to be disputed.
The problem here is that at least the Ten Commandments are clear, whereas the three clauses of the Treaty and the principles that have since been derived from them will always be open to doubt and dispute.
This is exacerbated when fluent Māori scholars and leaders argue from the Māori version of the Treaty which leaves more than 90% of the population who do not speak te reo at a distinct disadvantage.
Another argument often used against Act New Zealand’s Principles Bill is that only 8.6% of the electorate voted for Act in 2023 and, therefore, 91.4% of voters did not want this Bill. It is deeply disingenuous to declare that no one voting for National, New Zealand First or even Labour did not broadly support the need to come to grips with what the principles are or should be.
One poll showed that over 60% of the country want to have a structured debate.
The wobbly development of Treaty principles, the lack of clarity and intent, needs looking at. The last government did not have the confidence to bring the subject out into the public light of day, progressing an agenda based on an attitude of "Trust us, we know what we’re doing, just be kind and everything will turn out fine".
I am not an Act supporter, far from it. I believe that the wording of the Bill, as presented so far, is fundamentally flawed, and a referendum is a dumb idea.
But I am willing to acknowledge Seymour has had the courage and transparency to place this major national issue on the front steps of Parliament for everyone to see and to have their say about it.
Amid all the noise and shouting, we need to calm down and start listening hard, to all sides of the argument, to everyone and work towards a consensus on what the principles of the Treaty mean for Māori and everyone else.
The status quo is not tenable, nor is "leaving it to the experts" who have led us to the current situation.
Submissions to the Principles Bill at the select committee stage will provide everyone with the opportunity to have a say. Better still would be the inauguration of our first Citizens Assembly to consider the principles that should guide us into the future.
The late King Tuheitia said: "We need to focus on getting in the waka and working together."
Suppressing debate and keeping some of the paddlers out of the waka is no way to achieve this. There has to be a rhythm and discipline to suit all paddlers.
There are many currents to counter and negotiate before we find the best way downstream.
• Dr Philip Temple ONZM is a Dunedin author and historian.
