Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill

I move, That the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill be now read a second time.

Members of this House can still change their minds, and—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Stop—hold it. [A disturbance occurred in the gallery and a member of the public was removed on the instruction of the Speaker] Now, let me make it very clear that if anyone else in here thinks that’s an acceptable intervention in the activities of this Parliament, they will be treated harshly by the officers of the law, who are here. It’s completely unacceptable. We live in a democracy. This is the place where opinions are given, not from the gallery.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Members of this House can still change their minds and send this bill onwards to a referendum of the people, and I ask that members listen carefully to understand the choice they’ll be denying the New Zealand people if they oppose this bill.

Five decades ago, this House passed the Treaty of Waitangi Act, saying that the Treaty had principles but failing to say what they were, and those principles, as a concept, are not going away. The National Party and New Zealand First commitment to review the principles will not get rid of them, the review will not touch the Treaty of Waitangi Act itself, and it will only review other bills with the help of Te Puni Kōkiri.

With the unelected Parliament silent on the principles for 50 years, the unelected judges, the Waitangi Tribunal, and the public servants have defined them instead. They say the Treaty is a “partnership between races”. They say that one race has a special place in New Zealand. The effects of these principles have become more and more obvious lately. We’ve seen a separate Māori Health Authority—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Just stop. We’re going to hear the balance of this speech and all others in silence. It’s not a matter to be excited about; it’s a parliamentary process. Everyone has the right to speak and be heard, and they will be today.

We’ve seen a separate Māori Health Authority. We’ve seen resource management decisions held up for years awaiting cultural impact assessments due to Treaty principles in the Resource Management Act. We’ve seen half the seats governing three waters infrastructure reserved for one-sixth of the population. We’ve seen public entities appoint two chief executives to represent each side of this so-called partnership between races, and we’ve seen a history curriculum teach children to believe history is a simple story of victims and villains divided by their ancestry.

Some will say that a Government can change these policies case by case, and, indeed, I’m proud to be part of a Government that is doing that. The problem is, though, that another Government can just as easily bring them back if the bad ideas behind these policies are not confronted, and that’s why we see professional bodies, universities, the Public Service, and schools nurturing the divisive idea that the Treaty is a partnership, hoping it will grow again at some future time.

The partnership principle tells us that Kiwis should be ranked by the arrival of their ancestors. We’ve seen it in recent weeks. Just one disgraceful example was the attack on my colleague Parmjeet Parmar by the dean of a law school for being a migrant who proudly chose this country. She faced no consequences for that, and it shows how low our country has sunk.

The idea that your race matters is a version of a bigger problem. It’s part of that bigger idea that our lives are determined—

💬 Rawiri Waititi: The Treaty doesn’t mention anything by race.

—by things out of our control, and I hear the leader of Te Pāti Māori saying, “Oh, it’s not about race.” He named his party after a race. Of course you have a problem with race in this country under our current policies. They may have occurred, these problems, these ideas that determine our future—these events may have occurred before we were even born. We face a denial that we can make a difference in our own lives and that we have a right to do so by this old-fashioned, primitive determinism that should have no place in a country that is founded and lived in by pioneers.

We are all thinking—we are all valuing beings. We should all have “ngā tikanga katoa rite tahi”—the same rights and duties—just as the third article of Te Tiriti itself says, and that’s why the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill would finally define the principles in line with the Treaty itself, giving all Kiwis equal rights. Let me read those proposed principles, because if anyone wants to vote against this bill in this House today, then let them explain specifically why they oppose the words in the bill.

It says, “Principle 1: The Executive Government of New Zealand has full power to govern, and the Parliament of New Zealand has full power to make laws, … Principle 2: (1) The Crown recognises, and will respect and protect, the rights that hapū and iwi Māori had under the Treaty of Waitangi … at the time they signed it.”, so long as those rights are extended to everyone who lives here or are set out in a Treaty settlement, and “Principle 3: (1) Everyone is equal before the law. (2) Everyone is entitled, without discrimination, to—(a) the equal protection and equal benefit of the law; and (b) the equal enjoyment of the same fundamental human rights.” People who oppose this bill should ask themselves what is the best argument they have against these principles and are they prepared to say that argument out loud, and, if not, perhaps they should support the bill so the people of New Zealand can have a say at referendum.

I now turn to the submissions from the Justice Committee, and I’d like to thank the chair and most of the members of the committee. They heard 80 hours of submissions, which was nearly a record. However, submissions are not a referendum. If MPs believe that the bill should be passed depending on public opinion, they should front up, vote for the bill, and send it to an actual referendum, which is what the bill does. There are many bills that have attracted large numbers of opposing submissions, and yet been very popular with the general public. The end of life choice and abortion law reform both had 90 percent of submissions against them at select committee, but proved overwhelmingly popular with the public, and so it is with the principles I’ve just read out that, on average, enjoy support from the public by two to one when all New Zealanders are asked on an equal basis.

Select committees, while they may not tell us about numbers, can, though, tell us about ideas, and I believe that this submission process has actually been very useful. Some argued against the bill’s first principle that this Parliament has the full power to make laws. They said that the chiefs never ceded sovereignty when they signed the Treaty; what they cannot explain is how a society is supposed to work without clear laws that apply equally to all. The answer is that it does not and cannot work. People who believe, for example, that an American county or an Indian band in Canada having limited jurisdiction in a limited territory is the same as shared sovereignty are not taking the issue seriously. Still others argue that maybe Parliament can make laws, but not this law. What they’re really saying is that our constitutional future can be decided by the unelected, but not the elected, and certainly not the people in a referendum. Those are the fundamentally undemocratic propositions anyone opposing this bill is really signing up to. They do not trust the New Zealand people to determine their constitutional future, and I’m so proud to stand for the one party in this House that most certainly does.

There were two objections that cancelled each other out. One said that the bill isn’t needed because Māori don’t actually have special rights in New Zealand; other objections said that the bill is an abomination because it denies Māori equal rights. Which one is it? It can’t be both. Well, the truth is that we are all equal deep down, but too many of our policies aim to treat people differently based on their ancestry. This is why we have to remove that idea that New Zealanders have different rights and are ranked by the arrival of their ancestors.

A more interesting objective is that Māori have group rights to such things as language and culture. Some Māori have been told that this bill will take away the mana of their reo and their tikanga, but that is simply untrue. This bill supports all people to cherish their taonga. If we’re going to have Diwali, Lunar New Year, and the Highland games, of course we should have kapa haka. We have media in many languages. There’s no reason not to have te reo Māori. The bill provides for that; we just don’t need to divide the country in a “partnership between races” to do it.

Other critics say that the bill must be wrong because the bureaucracy said so. Of course they do—if the bureaucrats got it right, we wouldn’t need the bill in Parliament. But the problem is what the bureaucracy has invented in the last 40 years is contrary to equal rights in liberal democracy.

Finally, some critics say that the debate is divisive. Well, I say it has revealed the division. I say it’s revealed a sizeable minority of New Zealanders who oppose equal rights, liberal democracy, and treating each person with the same basic dignity.

I want to end my speech with a quote from a Jewish man who wrote a book in Christchurch while he was hiding from Nazis in World War II. The book is The Open Society and its Enemies. It’s been described as the most important book ever written in New Zealand. His name was Sir Karl Popper, and he said, “The more we try to return to the heroic age of tribalism, the more surely do we arrive at the inquisition, the secret police, and a romanticised gangsterism. Beginning with the suppression of reason and truth, we must end with the most brutal and violent destruction of all that is human. There is no return to a harmonious state of nature. If we turn back, we must go the whole way. We must return to the beast. But if we wish to remain human, there is only one way, the way into the open society. We must go on into the unknown, the uncertain, and insecure, using what reason we may have to plan as well as we can for both security and freedom.”

Members of the House and the public of New Zealand, a free society takes hard work and uneasy conversations. I’m proud that my party has had the bravery, the clarity, and the patriotism to raise uneasy topics, and I challenge other parties to find those qualities in themselves and support this bill. We will continue to fight on for the truth that all Kiwis are equal. Āke, ake, ake. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tihei mauri ora! Te Whare e tū nei, te papa e takoto nei, tātou katoa te hunga ora, tēnā koutou katoa.

[The breath of life! The House that stands here, the land that lies here, all of us, the living, greetings to you all.]

Normally when I rise in this House to speak on a bill, I say it’s a great privilege to speak on the bill. That is not the case today. This is a grubby little bill, born of a grubby little deal. It has had a colossal—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Excuse me. I’ll make it clear just once: the gallery do not interfere in the activities of Parliament. Another outburst like that and we’ll clear the galleries—everyone will be going.

It has had a colossal impact on the fabric of our nation, and this bill will for ever be a stain on our country. But what I do take pride in is the way New Zealanders have come together over the last six months to say, loud and clear, that this is not us—this is not Aotearoa New Zealand.

For 185 years, Māori and non-Māori have worked together to make progress. We honour those who have come before. We stand on their shoulders today, and when I say “we”, I mean those on this side of the House: Labour, Te Pāti Māori, and the Green Party—united in our determination throughout this debate to defeat this bill, to end the division that it has created, and to bring this country together.

Today, National and New Zealand First join the opposition to this bill, but they can claim no victory, no virtue, and no principle. They get no credit for finally starting to fight the fire they helped to ignite. Today, their votes will fall on the right side of the ledger, but they will for ever be on the wrong side of history when it comes to this bill. Not one National MP should walk out of this debating chamber today with their head held high, because when it comes to this debate, they led nothing, they stopped nothing, and they stood for nothing, unlike the 300,000 New Zealanders who stood up to be counted when it comes to this bill. All those who marched in the streets together—Māori, non-Māori, ethnic communities, young, and old—were saying that this is not New Zealand and this will not define who we are as a country, because this is a bill based on a mythology, a mythology that is far too easily turned into outright lies: the myth of Māori special privilege.

Having a life expectancy seven years lower than for other New Zealanders is not special privilege. Being twice as likely to die from cancer as others is not special privilege. Having a higher rate of childhood hospitalisation, 40 percent of Māori living in the highest areas of deprivation compared to just 10 percent of Europeans—these are not signs of privilege. But too often these statistics are twisted to suggest that Māori are wanting the Crown to save them. I’ve been up and down the country in recent years speaking to Māori all over New Zealand, and that could not be further from the truth. How ignorant, how blind, and how wrong those statements are.

Māori have been very clear that what they’re asking for is partnership: for the Crown to walk alongside them and to embrace by Māori, for Māori solutions. Māori want to do the mahi themselves and they want the Crown to stop acting as an impediment to that. I say it’s time we listened and it’s time we acted on that.

When it comes to Māori politics and politicians, I’ve found that there are two approaches in common, and I spoke about these before the last election. One approach is playing the race card, spreading the myth of Māori special privilege, talking about one law for all, and playing on people’s fears, but on the other side is the middle ground, keeping quiet, and, too often, watering down policy so as not to be seen as being too pro-Māori. I said before the election, and I will say it again today: I reject both of those approaches, because when Māori thrive in New Zealand, all of us benefit, all of us will thrive, and non-Māori have nothing to fear from Māori getting ahead here in New Zealand.

Once again, I say to the members opposite in the National Party where are the voices like Christopher Finlayson, Doug Graham, Jim Bolger, Jenny Shipley, John Key, and Bill English, who were proud of the Treaty partnership and who embraced concepts like co-governance—and they didn’t call it divisive? Our work in Government—which has been the subject of much debate on that side of the House—actually built on the foundations that were set by successive Governments, both Labour and National. It is that history of progress that today’s National Party have turned their backs against.

In my lifetime, we have changed as a nation for the better, from one that punished kids for speaking te reo Māori to one that embraces te reo Māori in all of our classrooms, from one that ignored our history to one that teaches all of our kids in all of our schools Aotearoa New Zealand’s history, and from one that turned a blind eye to the wrongs of the past to one that makes amends and commits to not repeating the same mistakes again—until today, that is. Christopher Luxon called Te Tiriti o Waitangi “a little experiment”. Winston Peters claims that Māori are not indigenous to Aotearoa.

In fact, as I was rereading my notes from before the election, I was reminded of a quote by a New Zealand First candidate in this most recent election campaign, which I’m going to quote directly from: “Cry if you want to, we don’t care. You pushed it too far. We are the party with the cultural mandate and the courage to cut out your disease and bury you permanently.” That was a New Zealand First candidate speaking about Māori in New Zealand. It made me sick to my stomach then, and it still does now, because Te Tiriti is not a little experiment; it is a bold promise and a bold vision. It is not a source of division; it is what binds us together, and, yes, it is a partnership, a structure—something to work towards and a promise to uphold, because, as I’ve said, when Māori thrive, all of Aotearoa New Zealand thrives.

Over 185 years, we’ve worked together to fulfil the promise of Te Tiriti—the good and the bad—and there has been far too much bad in that work. We have discussed, debated, and argued about the meaning of Te Tiriti. We’ve argued about what the visionary rangatira who signed it had intended.

That 185 years of history, of debate, of discussion, of argument, and of progress informs how we interpret Te Tiriti today, and no member of this House simply gets to wipe all of that 185 years of history away to suit their own purposes, because Te Tiriti o Waitangi is not just history. It’s not just ink on paper; it’s a living promise. Today, on this side of the House, we honour that promise. We commit to continuing to strive to do better, to bring people together, and to move our nation forward. Me mahi tahi tātou mō te oranga o te katoa—we must work together for the wellbeing of all, work together in partnership.

Coming together does not mean being the same. It does not mean thinking the same. It does not mean acting the same. It means embracing our differences, but working together to find common ground so that we can all move forward together.

So let’s finally consign this grubby little bill to the scrap heap of history, where it can take its place alongside the other darker acts of this House that have also been consigned to our history, and let’s instead move forward together. Let’s find a positive, lighter path where we can bring the country together, where we cannot play on prejudice but seek to reconcile our differences, and where we can celebrate our history—the positives of it—and recognise the ugly parts for what they were, and commit to doing better.

This debate has not been helpful for the fabric of Aotearoa New Zealand. It is well and truly time for it to be over.

The people have spoken and, like them, the Green Party opposes this Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill.

I have never felt so much FOMO than when I was unable to be working and was mostly confined to my home and felt the kaha, the wairua, and the beautiful energy of the hīkoi all around the country and the hīkoi to this place, te Whare Pāremata. Tēnā koutou e te whānau. Tēnā tēnā tātou katoa. I was so inspired by your beautiful kotahitanga energy that I ran and found my tino rangatiratanga flag and took a photo in my backyard of me trying to grab any contribution to feel like I could be a part of the movement that the people so brilliantly created off the back of this miserable little piece of bill. That backyard photo went a little bit viral, but nowhere near as viral as the haka that happened in this place. Nei rā taku mihi ki a koe, e te rangatira Hana Rāwhiti.

[This is my salute to you, distinguished Hana Rāwhiti.]

It is perhaps ironic then that this is the first and only chance that I get to speak to this bill, but I will be using my space today mostly to amplify the voices of the submitters—after all, that is what a second reading speech will most normally do. This House will and should hear repeatedly today that 90 percent of the submissions opposed—and that’s from 307,000 submissions; record-breaking submissions to the Justice Committee—this bill. Also, a record-breaking 80 percent of the oral submissions also opposed this bill, and that is also from 529 oral submissions. The people spoke and there was one clear message: “Toitū Te Tiriti.”

Part of the reason why the people were not fooled at all by this bill is because we now have generations of understanding that Te Tiriti was always a dream from my and your ancestors—the promise of peoples to take the best possible care of each other. That is an iconic kōrero from Bishop Manuhuia Bennett, which actually needs to be the understanding of where we are going to.

We can take even further the voice of one of the submitters Dayle Takitimu, who said, “We assert that Te Tiriti is a core agreement that affirms the place to belong and a place to stand for everyone in Aotearoa”. We can also look at the incredible poetry of another submitter Karlo Mila, who outlined perfectly the vision for Aotearoa, for our mokopuna to come. Karlo said, “The answer is te Tiriti, not separatist exclusion. It’s the fair terms of inclusion, an ancestral strategy for harmony, a covenant of cooperation. It’s how we live ethically on land that was never ceded.”

The Green Party is proud to have always affirmed the mana motuhake, the tino rangatiratanga, the self-determination of iwi and hapū guaranteed by Te Tiriti. We had a dig around. We did a bit of research and what we found—which I know that the pushers of this bill did not anticipate—was that there has not been another bill with a record-breaking number of submissions to select committee that was met with such overwhelming power of opposition, and I am so proud once again to highlight that the people have spoken and they have spoken clearly and strongly. The people are not fooled by the ACT Party trying to ignore the injustice and inequity that has seen, for example, that Māori are three times more likely to be arrested and convicted of a cannabis-related crime than non-Māori are—but let us be clear—for doing the same thing. So this is what we need to point out: Māori are three times more likely to be arrested and convicted for doing the same thing.

The ACT Party—I challenge them to release their myth of special Māori treatment and find their equity bone, to find their equity analysis, and to ignore their myth of Māori privilege and find their equity analysis deep within their bones. I implore them to, so that they do not bring any more embarrassing bills like this to the House.

Te Tiriti is for ever, and that’s what we have heard and that’s what I will say again and again. But what we know is that this Crown has not yet actually upheld its promise—its side—of taking care of each other. Again, we can go to the words of Karlo Mila. In the second part of her passage that I read out earlier, she said, “But we watch political parties sow seeds of disunity using disingenuous history. Harnessing hate speech, and the haka of destiny. Scapegoating vulnerable enemies, sharing just a joke fantasies of blowing up ministries targeting ethnic minorities.”

This was an incredible opportunity for the Prime Minister, who is not even here receiving the harm—

💬 Hon Member: Point of order.

I take that back.

💬 SPEAKER: Withdraw and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. It would have been a fantastic opportunity to see the leaders across all of our parties be here—

💬 SPEAKER: No, I’m sorry, that’s the same line. Just move on.

OK, I’ll move on. Where are our leaders listening to us today—

💬 SPEAKER: No, no, you can’t do that. The member’s speech will be terminated if it doesn’t come back to point.

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order, Mr Speaker. Speakers’ Rulings make it very clear that there’s a convention not to mention a member’s absence. But there is an exception to that where it is a particularly important moment, and this is a particularly important moment, where hundreds of thousands of people have made a submission and one member in particular has chosen not to be here.

💬 SPEAKER: Actually, Dr Webb, you’ve just exacerbated the problem, and I’d advise you not to push that too much further. Marama Davidson, return to the basis of your speech without reference to anybody else in this House.

I no longer need to—thank you, Mr Speaker.

I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the movement and I will also take this time—I think it’s appropriate—to acknowledge the incredible Hinewhare Harawira, who lies right at this time at Whakapara. As her whānau says, she was an unstoppable force in the drive for tino rangatiratanga. I think it is really appropriate that we acknowledge her particular presence and passing in this House today, and Hinewhare and so many others were just part of generational work that has amounted to the huge uprising from a diverse range of people from diverse communities who have said very, very clearly, “We’re not falling for what this bill is trying to do.”

We have now got generations of examples of us working together and upholding Te Tiriti, seeing the value and the benefits and the beauty in the vision of taking good care of each other, working together at the grassroots level, and understanding they knew what this bill was trying to do. They could sniff the division a mile away, and they came to the select committee, they marched the streets, they signed petitions, they wrote postcards, and they said, very clearly, “Toitū Te Tiriti. Te Tiriti is for ever, and we are not fooled by the attempt to divide us.”

In fact, there was a particular moment in the select committee submissions where we even had an ACT MP attempt to drive a migrant away from centring Te Tiriti, where the Muslim community leader Anjum Rahman was asked by that ACT MP if she was comfortable with new migrants potentially being left with different rights to Māori. She said, “I reject your framing. I reject your question. This is a way to try and sow division between communities and we see you.” That is what she said. She said, “When you go to ethnic minority communities and try and promote division between our community and theirs, we hear you when you say, ‘Oh, your community suffers racism too, and [they get] special treatment.’ ”, and she said in her submission that Māori did not get special treatment and they did not get privileges, but “They are getting the rights that were promised to them, and the help that should have been upheld in a very minuscule way.”

I am so pleased that the people came and spoke. We are proud to stand here today to oppose the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill. Toitū Te Tiriti.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The outcome of the vote today has been known since the Treaty principles bill was introduced. National has consistently said that we’ll not support it into law, fundamentally because we regard the bill—which seeks to impose a particular interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi by simple majority and referendum—as a crude way to handle a very sensitive topic. National believes in equal citizenship and equal opportunity for all New Zealanders, and we hold that there are better ways to defend those principles than through this bill.

It was clear from the beginning that the Treaty principles bill was not going to pass, and yet it still generated 300,000 submissions. Of those, more than 16,000 New Zealanders wanted to come and talk to the Justice Committee, and more than 500 actually did. In the meantime, some 40,000 people marched to Parliament to oppose it, and it’s dominated two summers. So what are we to make of this?

Clearly, it shows that many people feel passionately about the topic, and I want to acknowledge the effort that so many people put in to expressing their views. Some of the submissions were truly remarkable. It’s equally true that the bill has provided a convenient vehicle for political campaigns on all sides, and that is politics. We’ll hear all sorts of hyperbole today—as we already have from the Leader of the Opposition—about how terrible it is for National to allow this bill to even be introduced. That is just froth and spray. Coalitions require compromises. National opposed the bill and would have preferred it not to have gone forward, ACT wanted to have the bill passed into law, but none of us got what we wanted. That is life under MMP.

Our country is not so fragile that we can’t withstand a debate about the role of the Treaty, and we certainly won’t take lectures from Labour about division. I’ll never forget seeing Willie Jackson on TV casually declaring that democracy in New Zealand had changed, as his Government was pushing an agenda of co-governance on public servants, and all of us were wondering what on earth he meant, when had we discussed this, and when had the people of New Zealand been asked whether they wanted their democracy changed.

National opposes this bill, but we do not oppose the open and frank discussion about the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in our laws and within the context of a modern democracy. That discussion is alive and well, and it will continue. The critical thing is that we try our best to conduct that conversation with good grace. We live in a turbulent world with examples every day of how societies can tear themselves apart. For all our faults and our disagreements, we hold things together very well in this country, and I have every confidence that we can continue to find a way through.

Parliament first referred to the principles of the Treaty in the 1970s, but it never defined them. The courts stepped into that vacuum, as we know, and over the past 30 years, principles of the Treaty such as the concept of partnership have been given greater weight.

The interpretations of the court are not gospel—they should be debated—but, if enacted, the Treaty principles bill would have short-circuited that debate. Parliament would simply have set down its interpretation of the Treaty, and then sought a majority of the public to confirm that in a referendum. That would have at the stroke of a pen unwound more than 30 years of jurisprudence, and, as I said at the first reading of the bill, there will be a wide variety of views within Māori, just as there are amongst any other group. But those opposed to the changes would likely conclude that fundamental change was being imposed upon them by a majority if it were to pass, and that would risk stoking an already keen sense of grievance.

That’s why National hasn’t supported this bill. We continue to believe there are better ways to address the many legitimate questions about the role of the Treaty in our democracy today, and it is to progress with the numerous specific changes that we’re making, case by case, issue by issue.

The guiding principle is that in our efforts to honour Treaty of Waitangi commitments and Treaty settlements and to acknowledge tangata whenua, we should never lose sight of the basic expectations of people living in a modern, democratic society, such as equal voting rights, equality before the law, and, broadly speaking, an equal say in matters affecting their lives and in the world around them. There can be a tension between those two things: between honouring commitments to Māori flowing from the Treaty and the basic expectations of equality in a modern democracy. This is a tension that we can’t just gloss over and ignore. Our proposition is that, as a nation, we should be serious in our commitment to the first, but, in doing so, we should be careful never to lose sight of or drift too far from the second.

People, ultimately, have choices where to live and where to invest. For our country to continue to succeed, those basic expectations of equality before the law must remain. This is not a topic, I don’t think, that lends itself to neat, tidy, single solutions. It has to be worked through issue by issue. That’s why we’ve reasserted the principle that healthcare should be delivered on the basis of need alone. That’s why we’re pushing back against the previous Government’s move against equal voting rights in local government. It’s why we’ve unwound co-governance arrangements in core public services, and a separate Māori health authority. It’s why we’ve also taken the unusual step of introducing legislation to overturn the marine and coastal area Act—a decision in the Court of Appeal—and we’re now considering following the Supreme Court’s decision in terms of what next steps are necessary, if any.

That’s why we’re embarking on the challenging task of reviewing the Treaty references in existing legislation to ensure that they’re clearer about what Parliament does and doesn’t mean, or to remove the Treaty references if there is no clear reason for having them—none of this is easy—and, at the same time, we’re committed to continuing and completing the Treaty settlements process that was begun in the 1990s. Around two-thirds of the settlements have been completed, with many under previous National Governments. It has been a bipartisan effort across many decades and has involved thousands of Māori up and down the country studying history, negotiating, and forming new structures to manage settlements. Successfully, we have re-established strong financial bases, confidence, and ambition.

The settlements have never been an exercise in achieving perfection. Many Māori complainants will rightly point out that the settlement payments reflect only a fraction of what was lost, and that’s true. Equally, the process requires today’s iwis to spend sums running to the billions and to agree to bespoke arrangements in specific places, often because of events going back as far as 180 years or earlier. So Treaty settlements require grace on both sides, as well.

Treaty settlements and the continued substantial investments in preserving te reo and Māori culture, and expanding their reach, alongside investment in a great variety of Māori solutions to the challenges we face, are all part of the effort we make as a country to address the injustices of the past, to recognise our unique history and blended culture, and to build a better future. We’re proud of those efforts, and this Government will never lose sight of the reality that the things that most Māori want are the same as what most other New Zealanders want. They want a strong economy that will deliver jobs and incomes that will sustain our standard of living, they want decent housing, they want to feel safe in their communities and for their kids to have access to a great education that will set them up to succeed in the modern world, and they want to have access to quality healthcare when they get sick. The reality is that in each of those areas, Māori, on average, currently have worse outcomes than the average New Zealander, and we want to work together with Māori New Zealanders to change that.

The work we’re doing to fast track consents for infrastructure and new industries across the country are designed to raise income for Māori and all New Zealanders alike, and that’s why Māori businesses are keen to be part of it. The effort to restore law and order and to deal with truancy will help Māori most because they are more likely to be victims of crime and to not attend school regularly. The amazing progress we’ve made to reduce smoking rates and to increase immunisation rates will help Māori most. When we think of a referendum in 2026—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Sorry, that member can take herself out of the House, if that continues.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. When we think of a referendum in 2026, our preference is for the election to be a referendum on this Government’s success or otherwise in making progress on those massive challenges, and I have every confidence that we, together, will make genuine progress in these areas. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill. I acknowledge that our leader, the Deputy Prime Minister, is wanting to be here, but, unfortunately, is boarding a plane as we speak.

I’m honoured to be able to give this contribution, and I want to reflect on what it is we are here to debate. Despite the absence of any judge or academic being able to clearly define the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, the ACT Party believed that it could. Despite what has been suggested in the purpose of the bill, legislation would have taken us back into the courts, which is the last thing this country needs. To put this issue before the courts is exactly what we needed to avoid, and, alarmingly, it appears that in the political posturing this bill has brought to this House, no thought was given to the turmoil should a referendum fail. We saw the “car-koi” when it was clearly known that the bill would not pass, and the political noise and upset that it created around communities—all this posturing and political point-scoring that distracted us from the real work we need to do as a nation.

We have heard that in the forming of a coalition Government, there are compromises. There have been compromises, and New Zealand First knows that because we have been part of those coalition agreements on many occasions. We know that we can agree to disagree on many aspects. Even if we agreed, which we don’t, and even if it were to pass—and it won’t—a subsequent Parliament could change the definitions, and so the cycle would continue.

The unintended consequence of this legislation, something that does not need legislation—and what would the courts do with this legislation? It is plain wrong to take the responsibility of determining the role of Te Tiriti o Waitangi from the highest court in the land, to the judiciary, which would have been the outcome of this bill. Even Sir Kenneth Keith, the lawyer’s lawyer, pointed out that it is undesirable for constitutional issues to get settled by courts. If we look back to our history, Sir Apirana Ngata was a strong advocate—

💬 Rawiri Waititi: Oh, here we go again.

—for protecting the Treaty from being ratified by Parliament—and I find it abhorrent that the mention of Sir Apirana Ngata’s name is treated with such contempt in this House. Let us do what is right—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: All right, the balance of this speech will be heard in silence. There are members down there who have been pushing it pretty hard who won’t be staying for the balance of the debate if they keep on interfering.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Let us do what is right for us as a nation. When I last spoke on this bill at its first reading, I talked of the dignity of this House. I talked of the obligation we all have in this House to ensure that this esteemed debating chamber is not censored. There is nothing to fear from challenging ideas and presenting different positions. This House is strong enough to withstand fractious debate, as long as we protect the duty we have to honour the rules that guide us and respect the decisions that are made.

New Zealand First may not support this bill being brought to this House, but we support our democracy and we know that we can challenge the status quo and debate something contentious. That is the democracy we must protect. The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill is one such contentious debate. It seeks to legislatively define the principles, with the premise being that this bill will fill a silence on who we are as a nation, it would deliver unity, and it would resolve the debate in perpetuity. As I’ve said, perhaps that is not what we would achieve.

New Zealand First has the longest uninterrupted position on the place the Treaty of Waitangi has in our collective identity as a nation. It is in the signing of this Treaty that our nation was formed. It started our journey and forged our identity. It is through the forming of our nation that we came together as a people over time; not instantaneously on 6 February 1840. We had much to resolve; we still do. Our iwi at the time did not consider themselves unified as one people, and in ceding sovereignty, no impact was immediately felt. In fact, very little changed, as our history will attest, immediately after the Treaty was signed, but we did change. This Parliament was established; laws were passed, and our great country flourished. One nation, one flag, one people—that is who we are.

New Zealand First has been challenged. I have been challenged as to why this bill is not supported. Our message is simple: the foundation of our country was the Treaty that brought us together, not principles that were loosely fashioned in an effort to expedite settlement processes and divisive interactions between Māori and the Crown.

Defining principles is not a debate that takes us forward or brings us together. To take us forward, we needed to understand in each piece of legislation what the obligation is that we owe to each other as citizens to give effect to the intentions of each law, and, in particular, how democratic Governments respond to issues raised by Māori—not the courts or tribunals, but by Māori—to their elected representatives. What will deliver the outcomes needed to benefit our communities? That is what New Zealand First has committed to delivering—not entrenching a reinvention of the Treaty and what it means to New Zealand, but providing a clear path forward to a better nation. We will deliver a pathway to economic prosperity for iwi to allow them to be unshackled from a narrative of grievance.

I have spent years defending our rights as New Zealanders to be treated respectfully and equally before the law. Whatever journey brought us to this nation, we are owed the same rights in this House as a duty to ensure that that is what our laws provide. We do not need new legislation in this space; we need to clarify, simplify, and verify our existing laws. To do this, we need to recognise and respect an honest account of our history. Importantly, an honest account of our history will make sure we are not oppressed by the racism of low expectations. When we can look to our tūpuna for what they achieved, we can silence the narrative that we are a nation of two peoples. When we look to our tūpuna, we can understand what personal responsibility means, what honour and dignity means, what sacrifice and hard work means, and we can be aspirational, not divisive. This is the legacy that is to be honoured.

I have spoken at the first reading of this bill about the reverence of New Zealand First leader and Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Winston Peters, in speaking about our great Māori leaders who forged the path for a better New Zealand. Sir Apirana Ngata, Sir Peter Buck, Sir Māui Pōmare, and Sir James Carroll all shared the position that there were no principles to the Treaty, and this remains New Zealand First’s position. It is under the shared knowledge and understanding of our history that New Zealand First has remained committed to the purpose of the Treaty. As Dame Whina Cooper said, we signed the Treaty to become one people. We cannot allow the Treaty to be weaponised and we cannot allow it to take a place that will for ever position us, as New Zealanders, in conflict with each other as a result. That is the very antithesis of what was intended by the bill.

This Parliament must hold fast to our democracy and retain supremacy over the direction we take as a country. New Zealand First knows this means clarifying our existing legislation. New legislation that entrenches a definition of the principles is not the solution for our country. It is not an end position. It would be a launching platform for those who gain political relevance by driving a narrative of victimhood in the absence of doing the hard work to improve outcomes.

New Zealand First is the party of practical action. We know what New Zealanders are calling for, and it is not more noise, but a pathway to First World wages, top-class education, a warm, dry home, and access to healthcare when they need it. We talk much in the House about what divides us: our quantum of Māori, whether we have a vanilla lens, or who is qualified to speak for who. That is what oppresses us. That is what deprives our future generations of achieving their potential.

It is time to put this bill to rest. We have work to be done and serious decisions to be made. New Zealand First is up for the challenges that are ahead. We know we need to work effectively together and we know how important it is that Parliament is respected. If New Zealand First believed this bill had merit, we would have supported it. We do not. New Zealand First does not commend this bill to the House.

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke—a split call.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka.

E Rangi e, whakataka te hau ki Taupiri.

[O Rangi, the wind falls on Taupiri.]

Tangihia ngā mate nō ngā hau e whā o te motu. Kua hinga ngā tōtara nō te wao nui a Tāne.

[Grieve for our dearly departed from the four winds of the nation. The great tōtara of the great forest of Tāne have fallen.]

Some of our greatest trees fell on this journey. From the West, te pā whakawairua o Te Pāti Māori [the spiritual leader of Te Pāti Māori], Tariana Turia. To the East, te māreikura o Te Kōhanga Reo, Iritana Tawhiwhirangi. Ki te mōrehu whakamutunga o te Rua Tekau Mā Waru [To the last survivor of the 28th Māori Battalion], Sir Bom Gillies, and, recently, the fearless fighter from the Far North, Hinewhare Harawira. Hoki mai ki te ika nui, te whare ariki [Returning to the esteemed deceased, the royal family], Kiingi Tuheitia, who left a message of unity to the four winds.

Kei taku ariki nui, Kuini Nga wai hono i te po e noho nei i runga i te torōna, rire rire hau, pai mārire.

[To my great leader, Queen Nga wai hono i te po, who sits upon the throne, peace and goodwill.]

This speech has been the most daunting speech I’ve ever had to write, and I’ve said, oh no, what am I going to say now? How are we supposed to voice the 270,000 written submissions, the 13,600 oral submissions, the 300,000 signatures on the petition, and the biggest hikoi, with 100,000 footsteps, marching to Parliament? How do we piece this all together in a five-minute speech? Here’s how: we’re not going to talk about the Treaty principles bill today. This bill was an undebatable and a non-negotiable debate, and the whole world knows our view on it.

The real issue is not this bill, nor is it doing a haka or practising our indigenous customs in Parliament. The real problem is that this institution—this House—has only ever recognised one partner, one culture, and one language from one Treaty. When will the rules of this House acknowledge the laws of this land: tikanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi? That is the real question of privilege here.

At our darkest hour, we could have chosen to fight this, but we chose to survive this. This bill hasn’t been stopped; this bill has been absolutely annihilated.

Aotearoa New Zealand made it clear to our country that it does not support this bill. We are not divided, but united, with 90 percent of our country’s submissions saying no. Why would we even entertain the 8 percent divisive rhetoric that this bill tries to achieve, and waste $6 million worth of taxpayers’ money when that could have been given and spent on proper food for our tamariki?

It was the voices from Times Square in New York to Kaikohe, and from the streets of Oxford to Ngāruawāhia; the Waitangi Tribunal; the art on kākahu; the anonymous person who sponsored thousands of Te Tiriti books; the hundreds of submissions from Whatawhata to Whangārei; and the call for unity with hui-ā-motu across the country. We could write hundreds of books on the oral submissions and their gems spoken from people like Tā Timoti Kāretu, Dr Kalo Mila, Maia Te Hira, and more, and on the rangatahi from Te Aupōuri who carried the banner all the way from Te Rerenga Wairua to the forecourt. This ignited an emotion that echoed with all walks of life, all races, all ages, and all genders across the world. Just remember, it was their voices—their powerful voices—that engaged to drown out this bill.

So where to next? These past two years have been completely about survival. This next chapter needs to be about steps to thriving, and our road map to our next destination has never been so clear. For us to thrive, our job over the next few months will be to create bills, policies, and legislation to remove significant barriers that disallow Māori from accessing their basic rights—not privileges.

Aotearoa hou isn’t a fantasy. It’s a place where there is unity, and the road map has no roadworks on it and it doesn’t stop us from accessing our basic rights, like proper healthcare without a two-week wait. It’s not having to decide whether to learn our language with student debt. It’s being able to come home to build without having to wait three years for the Māori Land Court. It’s Māori owning the first ever supermarket to break down the supermarket duopoly. It’s being able to swim in your tupuna awa, not chemical quarries. It’s 14 Māori seats in Parliament. It’s not having a five-year waiting list to enrol your tamariki in kōhanga. It’s a place of having 4,507 Māori tamariki coming out of State care. It’s having Maunga Kahurānaki back for its uri.

This is tino rangatiratanga—control over our daily decisions that we make. Brick by brick, we will move from surviving to thriving. Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora! Ka mate te pire! Ka ora te iwi Māori! We had two choices: to live or to die. We chose to live. Ka ora tonu tātou āke ake ake!

Te iwi Māori, tangata Tiriti—that’ll teach him. This treaty principles bill has been an emotional rollercoaster. I know that for many of the people who made their voices heard, they didn’t have the time or the money or the energy to give, and yet they showed up in droves. The whole process was so difficult because at every juncture in this journey, we gave those members an opportunity to change their minds. We battled in the select committee at every single meeting and said, “OK, New Zealand First and National Party, let’s get rid of the bill, then, if you don’t support it so much.”, and those opportunities were turned down.

It was a privilege to absorb all the knowledge and the wisdom from all the people who came to talk to us, from Ani Mikaere to Vincent O’Malley and the Hon Chris Finlayson. I felt so much shame and so much sadness in many of those submissions. As we had iwi come and talk to us, some so angry they were shaking, they couldn’t even articulate the trauma that this whole process has rehashed, and this was an example of Parliament sticking the knife in again and again and again.

I was fighting for my life in the Justice Committee. I remember very tense conversations, even amongst Opposition parties, because there is more than one way to skin a cat and there is more than one way to kill a bill, and we all had different ideas, but we all knew that this needed to go in the bin. So I want to acknowledge Duncan Webb, Tracey McLellan, Ginny Andersen, and Tākuta Ferris for all of the mahi that we did in representing the kotahitanga that our people wanted to see and that they deserve, and it was behind closed doors—hard, methodical, genuine mahi behind closed doors—as well.

As satisfying as it would be to say a massive “Shame!”, I will leave it with a whakataukī that Te Tahinga-o-te-rā, one of my tūpuna from Ngāti Awa, said. “Waiho mā te whakamā e patu”—“Let shame be their punishment”.

I want to give a special mihi to all of my colleagues who have put in the mahi. We collected 13,000 signatures, we collected 640 postcards, we went into schools, we went to touch tournaments, we went to community hui, and we also went into the clubs and collected submissions.

I also want to acknowledge my friend and colleague Steve Abel for being my tag team partner in all of the submissions. Steve represents a generation of people who were not lucky enough to be taught about Te Tiriti in schools, but whose earnest dedication to learning and to fighting beside iwi to stop the ransacking of our coastline, our forests, and our whenua is what made him realise that our interests—tangata Tiriti and te iwi Māori—are not different. They are the same. So to every tangata Tiriti who made their voices heard and said that that little man does not represent your views, kia ora to you.

I would like to acknowledge Eru Kapa-Kingi, Riana Te Ngahue, and Luke Fitzmaurice-Brown for bringing the kōrero to TikTok and bringing it to the new generation to understand what the conversation meant and that their voices were important. I want to thank the Zanes, the Bloody Samoans, the Kassies, the Rawhitiroas, and the Shamias for bringing this conversation to the people and making it accessible.

E te iwi, the fight is not over, despite their crocodile tears. We still have a Government that is willing to use our mana as a cheap bargaining tool. Despite what the New Zealand First member has just told us, they are the ones who want to remove 28 general Treaty clauses across legislation. That is disgraceful. They are the ones who want to introduce the fast-track bill, which will ride roughshod over important Treaty rights for our whenua.

Attacks on indigenous people everywhere are happening right now. This was not unique to Aotearoa; this was part of a coordinated plan to undermine indigenous people everywhere. But I say to my first-nation brothers and sisters in Australia, as I do to the Palestinians—who are having bombs dropped over their heads in Gaza right now—that we stand together. They will not win. They may have deep pockets, but we have the people power and we will not be quiet, and this is a valuable lesson to leave our Tiriti alone.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As the now former chair of the hard-working Justice Committee, I wanted to focus my contribution today on the process that the committee went through in considering this bill. As I do so, I would like to acknowledge the work of the clerks—[Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Good, OK—just hold it there. Some of the conversations that are going on now need to stop.

I’d like to acknowledge the work of the clerks and the Select Committee Services team on this bill. It was an interesting test case, juggling three different clerks throughout this process and the number of staff that we had helping us, but at all points they were up front, they were clear in their work, and they provided consistent advice, sometimes in the face of quite significant severe personal reflections from members of the committee. So I wanted to acknowledge the work of the clerks and team on this bill.

In doing so, can I also acknowledge the work of the committee, and MPs on the committee, who generally worked collegially and collectively in this work. It’s helpful, I think, to point to Appendix B in the select committee report for the record of decisions made by the committee, and I think that the public should look at that appendix and should analyse it for the consistency and the amount of unanimity that actually existed in the committee. Most of the decisions in the committee, if not all of them, bar a few, were made unanimously on things like the length of submissions, the number of hours of submissions we would hear, how to treat form and template submissions, and how we would set criteria for what submissions would be heard. They were all decisions that were agreed to unanimously by the committee, and it showed the collegiality and what can happen when members of the committee work together well.

I did want to provide the public with some reassurances after the past few weeks and some of the information that’s been going around there. I want to reassure the public that every submission that has been made to the committee has been read by someone. It has been read by an official in the ministry and the themes from those submissions have been integrated into the departmental report, and I would encourage anyone out there who is interested in this process to read the departmental report. It is rich in information, it is rich in content, and it reflects the incredibly hard work done by the ministry officials in reading over 300,000 submissions and synthesising them into that document.

Every submission that has been made to the committee has been available to all members of Parliament, and not just those on the committee, at all times. I wanted to clear that up. There has been some misinformation out there that members have not had access to those submissions. Again, if you go through the record, you can see that we agreed to the process of accessing submissions from the clerks’ team. All members agreed to that, and it is very disappointing to see suggestions that suggest otherwise out there. Every submission that has been made to the committee that meets the criteria set by the committee will be published and tabled and released publicly for everybody to see so that they can see for themselves the content of those 300,000 submissions.

Again, the committee has reported the bill back because there is no further work to do. There were some suggestions that this has been outrageously rushed back into the House, but following the end of 80 hours of submissions and over 529 people making oral submissions, at the end, all of the work programme has been completed. Members all agreed unanimously that no changes to the bill needed to be made. They all agreed that the Parliamentary Counsel Office did not need to draft a revision-tracked version. They all agreed that the report back would come soon. They all had three chances to consider the draft select committee report, and, at the end, every single member on that committee voted for it to be reported back to the House. So that needs to be placed on the record for the reassurance of the public.

There is a lot to go through when it comes to considering what we went through on this bill. I wanted to touch on a few things—a few lessons maybe learnt by the Parliament—if this was to ever happen again. In early January, the select committee was called back somewhat early from some people’s holidays to deal with the issue of the parliamentary website crashing. Now, I want to provide some reassurances to the public that at no time has there been any suggestion of foreign interference or scurrilous behaviour in that process. It is simply a matter of what we all did throughout our careers and throughout university and school of leaving it to the last minute and of the website not being able to handle the volume that came through on the very last day—that is it. No conspiracies, no interference—that’s what happened.

I think we learnt a lesson there in terms of setting the time for responding to submissions. Generally, submissions are set to be due by 11.59 p.m. at night, and that of course meant that any issues with the process were unable to be answered by the select committee team and by the parliamentary team. So, moving forward, I think that on bills of significance, we should consider setting those deadlines to be in the middle of the day so that people have a chance to deal with any of those issues.

Questions remain throughout the public about how easy or how hard it was to make a submission. There were complaints sent through to my email and to our office about the fact that it is a very straightforward process to make a submission, and I think there are questions to the House about whether or not there are restrictions put in place. I actually think it’s a good thing that it is as simple as possible for the public to make submissions to the select committee. All you need to do is go to the Parliament website, enter your submission, and it is done, or, alternatively, write it in and write it in hard copy.

There are questions around whether or not you need to provide ID and whether or not you can do them on behalf of other people, and I will put a thought out there: if you are wanting to make a submission to the Parliament as an individual or as an organisation, do that on your own steam. Do not rely on third-party organisations or third-party activists or political parties who go out there and want to collect your data and harvest your data and who purport to provide your submission on your behalf. If you want to make a submission to this Parliament, use the process that is made available. It is easy, it is straightforward, it makes the clerk’s job incredibly straightforward and easy, and it means we do not run into issues of people having their submissions counted or not counted in terms of them being form submissions.

I wanted to touch on the purpose of the select committee process because members today and throughout the process have talked about the numbers and talked about it being a record-breaking achievement. The purpose of the select committee process is not a poll. It is not a petition. It is not a referendum. It is not a platform for advocacy. It is a process to allow legislators in this House the opportunity to scrutinise legislation, to offer improvements, and to make amendments. That is what it is for. It is not an advocacy platform. It is not a performance piece, and members across the hall can laugh all they want, but if you are a parliamentarian and you are committed to the process of scrutinising legislation put forward by the executive—by the Government—you will take that process seriously. It is not a popularity contest, it is not a numbers game, and comments like it is “record-breaking” are very unhelpful to that process.

In the time remaining available, I want to clarify some remaining pieces of misinformation that may be sitting out there in the public, and this is primarily a message for parliamentarians and how they conduct themselves within select committees. Partial disclosure of incomplete information that is designed for political gain and that results in confusion and anger in the public is deeply unhelpful for our democratic process. We have had to spend a significant amount of time and resource, including in the Clerk’s Office, to deal with that misinformation being spread by members of Parliament deliberately for political purposes.

So let me state once and for all, for the record, that the appendix in the select committee report outlines every decision made by the select committee up until the deliberation phase. There is only one side which has been consistent in our desire to ensure that people have had their say and their voices are heard throughout the entire process—and Tamatha Paul is correct that they did try at every opportunity to stop people from having their say. We voted the bill through the select committee as per the coalition agreement; we did not oppose the open discussion. We called for public submissions and allowed the public to have their say; the Opposition voted for the bill to be reported back on the same day it was introduced to the select committee. We were the ones that called for oral submissions to be held; the Opposition called for only written submissions and to prevent every single oral submission from being held. That is part of the record.

We were the ones that instructed the ministry to prepare a departmental report; the Opposition voted for no departmental report to be written and, therefore, no analysis of submissions and no opportunity for members of the public to have their submissions read and synthesised into the report. We were the ones that invited the Minister in charge of the bill to present and make his case to the select committee; the Opposition opposed that opportunity. Finally, I need to make it clear that the committee unanimously wrote to the Business Committee to seek the agreement to make sure that every single submission was counted while the outstanding ones were processed for consistency with the Standing Orders, and it was the Opposition which opposed that process.

I have tried my best to set the record straight on some of those issues and to provide some reassurances for the public out there. But I do finish my contribution by extending my gratitude to the hundreds of people who did take the time to present to us in person in select committee and who did so with grace, with a sense of measure and with composure, and with a level of respect and manners that I don’t think was always afforded to them by members of our committee, and that is a great shame. For those individuals who were treated disrespectfully by members of Parliament when they gave their submission, I want to apologise to them.

I want to thank all of those who have sent kind words to the committee for the hard work undertaken in terms of considering this bill, whether they supported it or not. I’m glad that we are bringing this piece of legislation to a conclusion this afternoon. I’m glad that we can look forward to the task of rebuilding our economy and building a brighter, more prosperous future for all New Zealanders. The members opposite may laugh, but that is what we are focused on here. In saying that, we do not support this bill passing and I’ll conclude my contribution by saying that we do not commend this bill to the House.

💬 Hon Member: A total waste of time.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Well, that’s the “Prime Minister”!

That is the last outburst that that member is to contribute to the House.

I wanted to acknowledge the Harawira whānau, firstly, because this week they lost one of their matriarchs and one of their leaders—Hinewhare Harawira—and my marae hosted the tangi for a day and a night. I mention her because she was one of the biggest fighters against this bill, and I mention her also because Te Pāti Māori turned up. They were there a little earlier than me, and they gave a copy of the bill to put in the hole with Hinewhare tomorrow. So e mihi ana ki a kōrua mō ā kōrua mahi ātaahua.

[Thanks to the both of you for your beautiful work.]

But we remember her well and her fight for Māori rights. So we mihi to that whānau today, to Hone Harawira and the whānau, and they’ll be burying her tomorrow.

I want to also thank today the Justice Committee, particularly Duncan Webb, our leader over here, and Ginny Andersen over here, who did a fabulous job. I also congratulate the chair, although I wasn’t too happy with his speech today. But without doubt, he’s the next leader of the National Party—and probably the first Māori Prime Minister—when the coup takes place in National over the next few months.

The Treaty principles bill has highlighted the very worst of our democracy and, at the same time, the very best of our democracy. This race-baiting political stunt has been a right-wing obscenity masquerading as equality. You should be ashamed on that side of the House—they should all be ashamed for allowing this hate into Parliament. What is most offensive is the way that the ACT Party and the political right have twisted the narrative to fit in a racist agenda.

The Treaty, as people have said, is not about racial privilege or racial superiority. It is and always has been about legal rights that Māori have in their contract with the Crown.

Once and for all, for the benefit of David Seymour and his supporters, Treaty rights are not special privileges, or even extra rights, as he likes to paint them. They are rights that were in place before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. The Treaty simply reaffirms those rights. The rights acknowledge language, culture, identity, and property rights, and it’s ironic, isn’t it, that the great advocates of property rights—the ACT Party—are so opposed to this. We get it now: property rights only count if you’re Pākehā. But if you’re Māori—if you’re Māori—forget about them.

Those indigenous rights didn’t suddenly disappear when Māori signed the Treaty or when Mr Seymour dreamt up his Treaty principles bill. To therefore twist Treaty rights into some claim of apartheid is not only disingenuous; it is bad faith, and those two words sum up this whole disgraceful episode—that is, “bad faith”. ACT never wanted a genuine debate on the Treaty, because this was never about a real engagement of ideas. This was always about whipping up racist hysteria and calling that a debate.

We heard David Seymour today. He compares his end of life bill referendum with this political stunt and tries to claim that they’re similar. No, they are not, Mr Seymour. The end of life bill referendum was a conscience issue, whereas rewriting the Treaty and forcing it upon the indigenous people by using the tyranny of the majority is an outright assault on our history and on our rights. You cannot compare the end of life bill referendum with an attempt to erase Māori legal rights. On a philosophical level, the end of life is an individual right. Rewriting the Treaty is not an individual right; it is a property right that has enormous impacts that go well beyond the individual.

Finally on referendums, Mr Seymour, they’re not always the solution that you make out they are. Sometimes—believe it or not—the majority get it wrong. Your Government is an example of that.

Let’s look at referendums. Let’s ask the Aboriginal people of Australia what they think of referendums when they were, sadly, defeated in their vote to recognise their indigenous rights last year. Or maybe the rainbow community—do we really think that homosexual law reform would have been passed in the 1980s? Give it a break—no chance. Or perhaps when my Auntie Hemara Jackson, the nanny of young Hana over here—when she presented the Māori language petition over 50 years ago, talking about rights for te reo Māori and talking about te reo being an official language, do you think the public would have supported that? Do you think that she and Ngā Tamatoa and all of our Māori language advocates would have been successful if this was the subject of a referendum? Not at all. Not a chance—not a chance.

Here’s the real question for all the brilliant lot in ACT: rather than test the legitimacy of the Treaty by a simple referendum, why not respect the decades of Treaty jurisprudence that’s been developed by both Māori and the Crown and, more particularly, the leading legal minds of this country? But, no—“I’m Always Right Seymour” refuses to do this. It’s an absolute disgrace how he refuses to accept the words of our greatest legal minds, politicians, academics, and, of course, Māori. Very similar, I might add, are people who believe that the world is still flat and not round, and that sums up him and his nutjob supporters.

While ACT and their band of appalling supporters are the very worst of our democracy, the way people have responded in rejecting this is our democracy at its best. Of the over 300,000 submissions, 90 percent spoke against this lie. Over 100,000 people around the country—100,000 were marching to call the stunt out for what it was. The massive cross-section of civil society—our young people, our Pasifika whānau, our Pākehā allies, tangata Tiriti, the disabled community, the rainbow community, unions, churches, and academics all combined as one to cry out that the Treaty is our shared identity. [Interruption]

💬 SPEAKER: Can you just cut out the conversation down here.

The Treaty is our hope and it is our shared unique feature that defines us.

There are vastly more of us who see the Treaty as a positive, rather than a weapon to divide us. ACT’s hate has been defeated here today. Let us not forget that all of this divisiveness, all this naked racism, and all this spite and malice has been whipped up by them in a redneck agenda that, sadly, in our view, was allowed because the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon did not stand up against David Seymour.

But, wait a minute, he didn’t even have to stand up—he didn’t even have to stand up. As we found out, this wasn’t even a bottom line in negotiations. So much for the great negotiator Christopher Luxon! It defies belief that we’re talking about the Treaty principles today, given that we now know the full story behind the coalition agreements. Shame on the Prime Minister.

Our nation required leadership on race issues, but Christopher Luxon wanted to be the Prime Minister at all costs. He was blinded to ACT’s demands—well, they weren’t even demands in the end—and instead of resisting them, he caved in to them. And where is the Prime Minister now? That’s the question.

Let it be known that history is watching this day, and the people will not forget who turned up and who didn’t, and who led and who didn’t. Our leader turned up. What a fabulous kōrero from him today. It was fabulous. His kōrero about coming together and celebrating our differences is resonating with our communities, and his acknowledgment that Māori did not concede tino rangatiratanga, or sovereignty, is the first time that any leader of a mainstream party has admitted that in Aotearoa. Why? Because he knows that 80,000 Māori are not going to give up rangatiratanga, or their whole lives, to 2,000 settlers. So well done to our leader, who shows courage, which is, sadly, lacking from the Government at the moment.

I said in the first reading that David Seymour was talking falsehoods, ignorance, and nonsense. I’ve had time to reflect on my speech, and it may come as a surprise, but my views haven’t changed with regard to Mr Seymour. But I want to say again how proud I was of the select committee. I want to honour that committee today, so in my final words in terms of my kōrero today, I have to say to David Seymour—and say it to you straight—oh, he’s left the building.

💬 Hon Member: No, he’s over there.

He’s over there. Well, I’ll say to you, wherever you are—oh, there you are, David Seymour. You’re a disgrace to this House, and when it comes to the Treaty of Waitangi, you will always be a liar. Kia ora, Mr Speaker.

The member will withdraw and apologise for that statement. Mr Jackson, you need to withdraw and apologise for making that statement.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Well, Mr Speaker, if I was to withdraw and apologise, it would be an insult to 270,000 select committee submitters who all think that Mr Seymour is a liar also, so—

Good. That is your opinion. Leave the House.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: —I can’t do that.

Leave the House.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Do you want me to leave the House?

Leave the House.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Again?

Yep.

Hon Willie Jackson withdrew from the Chamber.

Point of order, Mr Speaker. I don’t think he was talking about his character. Actually, David Seymour was lying on the ground over there.

Rima Nakhle—and we will go back to listening to speeches in silence.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Ahiahi mārie to everyone who has tuned in, and haere mai to all gathered in our parliamentary Whare, particularly my quasi-niece, Ripora, who has travelled all the way from South Auckland to witness this kaupapa. Welcome, habibti.

I rise to convey my whakaaro on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill in its second reading. I believe I’ve exercised my duty on the Justice Committee as a member as best I could, and I want to thank the former chair the Hon James Meager, who sits beside me, and my colleagues across the committee for the work and for the passion that they put into this kaupapa. It was often very testing and quite emotionally taxing, but I felt privileged throughout the process to see, firsthand, New Zealand’s dialogue and history unfolding.

I often share my National Party values where appropriate, and here, if I may, I would like to share one of our values that’s been around for a long time: equal citizenship and equal opportunity for all New Zealanders. The challenges of the Treaty are complex. They’re complex and, as I’ve said, they’re challenging, and for over 185 years, we have grappled with these challenges together and, together, we will continue to do so. This model has served New Zealand relatively well, and I truly believe that we are a more open-minded and tolerant country because of our Treaty discussions.

As we’ve heard earlier and throughout this whole conversation, the National Party strongly asserts that a referendum on the Treaty would be a simplistic approach to a very extremely complex and challenging issue, and so today, we are voting to ensure it will go no further. I say this respectfully to our coalition partners, but this is our strong view.

As I look around the gallery, I see it filled with beautiful faces, many of whom I am in the blessed position to know. There are friends sitting above from both sides of today’s kōrero, friends whom I have sat down with in my home as we’ve shared Lebanese kai that I’ve cooked and we have discussed these challenging and complex issues that our country faces. We’ve disagreed and we’ve agreed and we’ve disagreed again, but all from a place of honesty because we are in this together, and that is what I hope we can take from today.

I hope that we will continue approaching our relations on a measured, case by case basis because that’s what our profound history deserves. Let’s underpin our conversations, not with our desire for political points, but rather with honest intentions for our collective future. Mātātoa, going forward—active, courageous, and valiant. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare, otirā ko taku mihi tuatahi ki te wāhi ngaro, rātou kua wehe atu. Kāre au e tū i roto i tōku kotahi. Nā reira kei te mihi atu au ki a koutou kua tae ā-kanohi ki te whakatinana i ngā wawata o te tini me te mano, kia takatakahia tēnei pire koretake rawa atu ki raro.

[Thank you, Mr Speaker, indeed my first acknowledgment is to the unseen place, those who have departed. I do not stand on my own. And so I acknowledge you who have come here in person to embody the aspirations of the many and the multitudes, to trample down this absolutely useless bill.]

Hearing speeches of vindication from that side of the House is very hard to swallow, because it has been this National-led Government that has allowed this ugly monster to rear its head in the light of day. The individual whose name this bill is in and his party have suggested the Treaty gives Māori different rights and privileges, and, by God, do I stand here privileged. I am the privileged product of generations of people who have persevered in the face of breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I am privileged to live on my whenua and I’m privileged to speak tāku reo Māori, te reo ōku tīpuna—rights and privileges denied to too many Māori. Rights and privileges that through perseverance we have managed to maintain and that this bill sought to undermine and failed.

Aotearoa and, indeed, iwi taketake from around the world stood united against this backward-looking, divisive bill, and, let’s not forget, it was resource-wasting. He moumou moni.

[It’s a waste of money.]

Three-hundred thousand of you presented your opposition to this bill, and behind you was a nation united. The Aotearoa New Zealand we believe in organised and marched. Some of you, Aotearoa, simply changed your world view, adding momentum to this kaupapa. Mana Māori was never threatened by this bill.

Kāre e taea e te Kāwanatanga te karo i tō mātou mana tuku iho [The Government cannot deny our inherited mana] and throughout this ordeal, people across Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and, indeed, Aotearoa have held fast to your vision for our future. You’re ready to get back to business. Back to the business of ensuring an Aotearoa where our tamariki and mokopuna thrive in our ao Māori me te ao whānui; an Aotearoa where our whenua is nurtured and developed, and whānau have a roof over their heads and our hauora is a priority; and an Aotearoa where you can earn a good living. Back to the business of expanding the thriving Māori economy—and we’re all about it.

So, to get back to that business, e hoa mā, you need a Government that enables your moemoeā, and that ain’t it. I said in the first reading of this koretake bill that we do not need to change the Treaty; we need to change this Government. Toitū Te Tiriti! Part one: tick. Let’s get on with part two. They asked for the election to be a referendum. Let’s deliver. Me rēhita pea, me pōti pea kia panaia tēnei Kāwanatanga, ngā pāti katoa o tēnei Kāwanatanga ki waho o tēnei Whare.

[Perhaps we should register, perhaps we should vote so that this Government, all the parties of this Government, are pushed out of this House.]

I stand once more with pride and privilege to condemn this bill, and I repeat: this Government must not be vindicated. It is this Government that allowed this bill to cause the divisive conversations throughout Aotearoa.

Kei te tū anō awau, me taku pāti, me tēnei taha o te Whare ki te whakahē rawa atu i tēnei pire takahi mana, hoki whakamuri.

Heoi anō rā, Aotearoa whānui, tēnā rawa atu tātou katoa.

[I stand again, along with my party and this side of the House, to strongly oppose this bill that desecrates mana, and takes us backwards.

However, to all of Aotearoa, greetings to us all.]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I had an opportunity to participate in the first reading of this bill, and that debate was a momentous debate in terms of how this House views this legislation that’s proposed before us. At that time, I made it clear that in my view, over successive decades, New Zealand has grappled with how to deal with the Treaty. It’s been a long, continuous, and ongoing debate, and that will be the case after this bill has been put to rest. That debate will continue, that discussion will continue, and, indeed, it will continue long after all of us have left this place.

While we don’t necessarily always agree, successive National Governments have always worked well with Māori on Treaty issues, and we’ve always ensured that there are equal citizenship rights and equal opportunity for all New Zealanders. The challenges that we confront as a nation around the Treaty are complex, and it’s just not realistic to suggest that nearly 200 years of debate, discussion, protest—sometimes—informed debate, education, and input from so many New Zealanders over all those years should be settled just with the stroke of one legislative pen. It’s too blunt, it’s too simplistic, and it risks, in reality, actually stoking grievance and driving division. I don’t think that’s good for our nation. I don’t think that that helps us achieve the goals and aspirations that we all seek to achieve by coming to this place.

National takes, always, the more difficult and realistic practical approach when it comes to working together, and we do so by working through issues in relation to the Treaty on a case by case basis, such as, for instance, the reversal of a number of divisive co-governance policies from the previous Government that would have, in fact, contributed to worse economic and social regulatory outcomes—for instance, three waters and the Māori Health Authority. We’ve also instructed Government agencies in the term of this Government to deliver public services based on needs and to work with iwi and other providers where specific needs exist amongst Māori and other communities, and we are continuing to establish and progress Treaty settlements to address the historical wrongdoings. In another example, we are restoring the rights of communities to determine whether to introduce Māori wards after the previous Government denied local constituents the opportunity to do so. That’s another example of a case by case approach to how we address those issues.

Having participated in the first reading debate and having watched closely the work of the Justice Committee chaired by my friend and colleague the Hon James Meager, ultimately, I want to reiterate in my closing moments of my contribution in this debate that this National Party, which I am proud to be a member of—our focus and the focus of this coalition Government remains firmly and steadfastly on improving outcomes for Māori and non-Māori. We do that by rebuilding our economy, by restoring law and order, and by delivering better public services for all New Zealand. This bill achieves none of that.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. Well, here we are, finally getting rid of this divisive and wasteful bill.

Now, unlike James Meager, I’m not going to spend 10 minutes whining about process, but I will say two things. Firstly, there are 105,000 submissions that aren’t on the parliamentary record today, and to suggest that that’s all OK is false. There was a room down in the corner with 24 boxes of handwritten and typed submissions—hard-copy submissions—that you had to go in and rifle through if you wanted to find something, and if you wanted to find a particular submission, you had to name it. You had to name the submitter, and I’m sorry, but I don’t know 307,000 people, and, what’s more, whilst that process was still ongoing, the chairman of the Justice Committee moved the motion to report the bill back to the House 40 days before it was due—whilst we were still working through the submissions and putting them on the record.

That is shabby—that is shabby process. But it is not as shabby as what the Government has done and what the Prime Minister has done in letting this bill come to the House. This is a bill that the Prime Minister had the gall to stand up and say that it’s not going to pass, and to then bring it to this House is disrespectful to this Chamber, because this Chamber’s time is valuable and there should be put before this House laws which are seriously being considered, not the flying up the flagpole of some divisive bill.

But I do want to pay tribute to those submitters—all of those people—and I must say it was humbling, not only to see the people who came in person from across the community but also to read some of those written submissions, as well. I want to pay respect to the diversity of the views. The people came and gave their whakapapa and told their stories and expressed their vehement opposition to the bill, not in a way that David Seymour would understand, but in a way that came from a long history. It was not an academic tradition that I’m familiar with, but I engaged with it and I learnt from it. There were the new immigrants who came and said, “I’m proud to be here and to participate in this country, and I understand the Treaty helps me understand my place in this community.”, and I see that David Seymour is already on Twitter, saying that he still doesn’t have a good reason for why this bill is being turned around.

💬 Hon David Seymour: Try giving us one.

Well, I’ll give you one. I’ll give you one: it’s a lie. The bill is a lie because it says one thing and the truth is another. It says that these are the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, but they’re not, and, as Chris Finlayson said, you can’t legislate to make the world flat. The fact is you cannot legislate the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi out of existence—they might be constitutional truisms or they might be undermining the customary position of iwi in our country, but they’re not the Treaty principles. You can’t make up the underlying fabric of the Treaty. So it’s absolutely fatuous to suggest that this bill reflected in any way the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

I want to address head-on two other fallacies which underpin this bill. The first is that his stooges would front up to the select committee and say, “This is about living in a liberal democracy.”, and their concept of a liberal democracy was shallow and impoverished because all it meant was one person, one vote. What it didn’t mean was a respect for human rights and a recognition of indigenous people in the place where they belong. What it didn’t recognise was the rights of minorities. So what we had was an argument which was about a hundred years out of date, and that’s about where they are.

The irony is this: all of the advice that was received, not just submissions but the thoughtful advice, pointed this out, and even the Cabinet Manual, a document which isn’t a political document, makes it really clear that there is a balance to be struck between the rights of the majority—majority power in a place like this—and minority rights. It’s the protection of fundamental social and constitutional values, but the ACT Party is not interested in that. They’re interested in a radical individualism which doesn’t recognise that there are communities of interest, that there are differences between people, and that in a modern liberal democracy—as Bronwyn Hayward so thoughtfully put it—there is a duty to protect those people who are vulnerable, to respect indigenous rights, and to ensure that the majority does not oppress the minority. That’s what a modern, functioning, liberal democracy is.

💬 Hon Kieran McAnulty: They don’t want that.

They don’t want that, Kieran McAnulty; they want the opposite. They want to go back a hundred years and live in a radical, libertarian world.

The other argument they want—and, again, I want to go head-on here. The ACT member on the committee would constantly put to submitters the following question: “Does the Treaty of Waitangi give different rights based on ancestry?”—this absolute trope of inequality. Now, the lie in that and the falsehood underlying that statement is that difference is inequality, but it’s not. Now, there are all kinds of ways we can be different. We can have kaupapa Māori health services or schools or social services, and, in fact, anyone who knows the area will know that you don’t even have to be Māori to access them. They’re for everyone.

But to suggest that to deliver services in a particular way to best serve communities is in some way unequal is an absolute fallacy, and time and again, we heard the resource management trope come up. David Seymour himself mentioned it today. Now, we pressed on that, because if there’s something there, we wanted to know. We asked the question: “What is the special advantage that Māori have under the Resource Management Act?” No one could put their finger on it. If it’s a special advantage for mana whenua to be asked about a project that might impact their customary rights, well, that’s a world I want to live in because that’s actually respecting customary rights and property interests—and you should be respecting that, as well. The suggestion that Māori are precluded in some way is just false. The fallacy is that the provision of services should be in a non-Māori way, and what that does is, essentially, exclude the reality that there is more than one way of doing things—that we can do things which are equal and different—and that’s not appropriate.

So what we have here is a situation where 300,000 people have stood up and many people at the select committee spoke up, but over there, they stood by. They stood by and did nothing, and they actually presided over a piece of legislation which has been exceedingly divisive. Now, you can talk about having a conversation and we are prepared for a conversation, and I’m proud to stand with my colleagues—my Māori colleagues who have spoken today here from the Labour Party, from the Greens, and from Te Pāti Māori. But to have an ill-thought-out bill based on premises which are fundamentally racist is not having a constitutional conversation.

Make the time to talk about how we honour the Treaty in a more fulsome way and about how we live together and address some of the gross inequalities which continue in our society. But to put a bill into the House that we know is never going to be passed so that we can see some of the hateful rhetoric coming out, is simply divisive, wasteful, and wrong.

I’m proud to speak today—proud not of what this House has done, but proud of what New Zealand has done. It has come out in its thousands and hundreds of thousands to say, “We’ll have no part of this.”

My colleagues have already said that this law is a simplistic tool that does not address the underlying issues. They have highlighted the steps that the National-led Government has been taking to address the genuine concerns that Kiwis have, so now let me turn to the vision that National has for our country. We want a thriving, united New Zealand where every Kiwi enjoys equal opportunity and equal citizenship and takes pride in our shared future.

Kiwis do best when we are working together in a spirit of unity and mutual respect. At the heart of our nation’s foundation lies the Treaty of Waitangi, the document that sets out the framework for the relationship between Māori and the Crown. It is our duty to ensure the Crown upholds its obligations under the Treaty and to ensure that historical grievances are addressed in a fair and in a just manner. As my colleagues have also said, while we may not agree on every issue, successive National Governments have worked constructively with Māori on Treaty matters, always ensuring equal citizenship and equal opportunity for all New Zealanders. This is a commitment we will continue to uphold, addressing each case and issue on its own merits, always striving for better outcomes for all.

National also has a proud record when it comes to Treaty settlements, having made more progress than any other Governments in resolving historical grievances. More importantly, we are now seeing the benefits of this progress. The Māori economy has seen remarkable growth, with its asset base rising from $69 billion in 2018 to $119 billion in 2023. This is not just a statistic. It represents real, tangible benefits for communities across New Zealand, and particularly in the regions, where Māori are making a significant economic contribution.

The work we’ve undertaken in settling grievances is vital to ensuring and securing a prosperous future. We must continue to build on this foundation, ensuring all Treaty settlements are completed and implemented, with benefits flowing through to iwi, to communities, and to New Zealand as a whole. We must keep moving forward.

In the past year alone, we’ve achieved notable success. Through partnership with Māori health organisations, over 69,000 vaccinations have been delivered to New Zealanders. We’ve seen more than 20 Māori-led or Māori-partnered projects placed on the fast-track list. We’ve also committed over $200 million to Māori housing providers and have helped nearly 2,000 children, many of them Māori, move out of emergency housing.

When Māori succeed, New Zealand succeeds. Our fates are intertwined. Together, we are working towards a better, more prosperous New Zealand for the future and for the future generations of all Kiwis. National does not commend this bill to the House and it will vote against it.

Before I announce the vote, following this announcement, a waiata has been agreed to. The Ayes are 11; the Noes are 112. The motion is lost. [Interruption] That’s enough. If there is to be a waiata, now is the time.

Waiata—“Tūtira mai ngā iwi”

[A disturbance occurred in the gallery]

No, no, no—fella, excuse me. Good boy—on your way. [Interruption] Someone come and help him out.

I just want to say to the whole gallery who is applauding that that sort of outburst does not help us move forward in the tikanga of this House. It’s most unhelpful.