The controversial legislation, which the ACT Party said would end preferential treatment for Māori, was defeated after no other party voted in support
After months of controversy—including a protest march the length of both islands of New Zealand and a record 300,000 written submissions—the ACT Party’s Treaty Principles Bill became a footnote in history on April 10 as every party voted against its second reading.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was absent as well as Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins, who is also typically absent on Thursdays, changed his diary so he could attend and speak.
The libertarian-ACT Party leader David Seymour led off the debate but had hardly said a word before a man in the public gallery began a loud haka (Māori challenge).
Speaker Gerry Brownlee rose to his feet and called for order, but the man remained unfazed, leading an angry Brownlee to ask, “Where are the police who said they would help us?”
Eventually, parliamentary security got to the man and escorted him out. Shortly afterwards, a crew from Māori Television, who later said they’d obtained permission to livestream the debate, were also forced to leave.
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When calm was restored, Seymour argued that the effect of the Bill was “to review the principles, not get rid of them” and that a nationwide referendum would make the final decision.
He claimed that “unelected judges, the Waitangi Tribunal, and public servants” had instead defined the principles.
“We’ve seen a separate Māori Health Authority [since dis-established by the government of which ACT is a part]. We’ve seen resource management decisions held up for years awaiting cultural impact assessments due to treaty principles in the RMA [Resource Management Act, which the government recently repealed].
“We’ve seen half the seats governing three waters infrastructure (drinking water, wastewater, and sewage) reserved for one-sixth of the population,” Seymour said.
“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.”
Although he acknowledged the National-ACT-NZ First coalition government was changing many of these policies, the “problem is that another government can just as easily bring them back if the bad ideas behind [them] 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.”
He called such ideas “old-fashioned, primitive determinism.”
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Next up was Hipkins, who claimed the proposal played the “race card, spreading the myth of Māori special privilege, talking about one law for all, and playing on people’s fears”—which brought cheers from the gallery and another warning from Brownlee that he would have it cleared entirely if the public wasn’t silent.
Hipkins said the coalition partners, the National and NZ First parties could claim “no victory, no virtue, and no principle. They get no credit for finally starting to fight the fire they helped to ignite today (by agreeing to support its first reading).”
Listing a range of statistics which showed Māori health and education outcomes were lower than those of other races, the Labour leader said none of them showed any sign of special privilege.
“Maori have been very clear. What they’re asking for is partnership—for the Crown to walk alongside them and to embrace by-Māori-for-Māori solutions,” Hipkins said.
Co-leader of the Green Party, Marama Davidson, called the treaty a blueprint for “the fair terms of inclusion, an ancestral strategy for harmony, a covenant of cooperation, [and] how we live ethically on land that was never ceded.”
Meanwhile, the Maori Party’s Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke claimed, “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 … has only ever recognised one partner, one culture, one language from one treaty.”
Maipi-Clarke had previously led the viral unauthorised haka in parliament, which saw MPs summoned before the Privileges Committee and reprimanded.
“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.”
Although there are only seven Māori seats, the Party’s leadership later announced that it would be standing candidates in general seats in addition to their campaign to have everyone eligible change their enrolment to the Māori roll since any major increase in numbers would require additional seats being created.
Applause as Bill is Defeated
Speakers from National and NZ First confirmed that they, too, would not be voting for the Bill’s second reading, and when it was finally put to the vote after a dozen speeches, it was easily defeated.
National’s Paul Goldsmith, the justice minister, said the party opposed the bill because it was a “crude way to handle a very sensitive topic.”
As to why National had supported it this far: “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. 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.”
Although the outcome was obvious as the Clerk asked each party whip for the numbers, it wasn’t until Brownlee read the numbers and officially announced, “The motion is lost,” that the gallery erupted again, this time in applause.
That was followed by a waiata (traditional Māori song) from MPs from Labour, the Māori Party and the Greens—this time with the speaker’s permission.