Treaty Principles Bill: Auckland Council calls bill ‘unworkable’, Ngāi Tahu leader says it could breach $170m settlement

Monday, 17 February 2025

Māori Language Commissioner Rawinia Higgins speaks to justice committee on threat to te reo by the Treaty Principles BIll.

Auckland’s council fronts to select committee - says the only people getting privilege from partnership with Māori is the council.

A bill supporter points to US vice president JD Vance as an example of how anyone can overcome poverty and dysfunction and find success.

Ngāi Tahu leader Justin Tipa warns if the bill passes it would breach that iwi’s long-settled Treaty claim - likely triggering legal action.

Auckland Council has rejected the Treaty Principles Bill as unworkable - and says the only people who get any special privilege from a relationship with Māori is the council itself.

Delivering the council submissions at Monday’s justice committee hearing on the Treaty Principles Bill, councillor Richard Hills said it opposed ACT’s proposal.

Auckland City councillor Richard Hills says the proposed law would be unworkable. (File photo)

He said there was a lack of good faith engagement with Māori - the bill would create legal uncertainty and damage the council’s relationship with Māori.

“Tāmaki Makaurau has the largest population of people of Māori descent in the country, accounting for over a quarter of the total Māori population.”

Only half of the 19 iwi in the Auckland region had settled Treaty claims, which would create serious problems with the bill’s proposed second principle.

“The legal uncertainty, inequity and confusion that would arise from any attempt to apply proposed principle two, makes this bill not only wrong, but unworkable.”

Councillor Angela Dalton was asked by Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi whether she thought Māori got any special privileges from partnering with the council.

“Maybe for us,” she said.

‘I do not identify as a white person, I identify as a New Zealander’

Fiona Mackenzie, who supported the bill, said a 185-year old “constantly reinterpreted document” should not be used to suppress and denigrate the contributions of all our forebears.

Mackenzie thanked ACT for promoting the bill, “for the sake of our country’s future”. Until this bill, many New Zealanders were afraid of speaking out about such issues without losing jobs or “being cancelled”, she said.

“The private sector, media, education and professional bodies are persisting in their ideological agenda, showing total disrespect for New Zealanders.” This was “eerily reminiscent of the cultural indoctrination of Mao’s China”, Mackenzie said.

Being in need was not “exclusive to those with Māori ancestry”. She pointed to the likes of US vice president JD Vance, in the Trump administration, as an example of success despite an impoverished, dysfunctional upbringing.

Asked by Greens MP Steve Abel if she recognised that as white people they had better treatment in the justice, health and education systems, Mackenzie disagreed, furthermore she did not “identify as a white person”, but as a New Zealander, she said.

“But you are a white person,” said Abel.

“How do you know that?” Mackenzie said.

Palmerston North City Māori ward councillor Roly Fitzgerald: ‘Māori have paid the ultimate price’. (File photo)

“White is a colour,” said Abel.

‘Imagine people camped on your front lawn’

Meanwhile Palmerston North City Māori ward councillor Roly Fitzgerald was having to defend being Māori for a second time before the committee, he said, after appearing last year on Māori wards legislation. “Here I am again, in the same seat.”

Ngāi Tahu kaiwhakahaere Justin Tipa: ‘We do consider it a breach ... we had absolutely thought we had a full and final settlement.’ (File photo)

That previous legislation returned binding community polls that could dump Māori wards from dozens of councils around the country - including Palmerston North.

This threat to Māori wards followed the same narrative that “the majority get to dictate and decide how the minority should be treated”, he said.

Fitzgerald said the bill did more than redefine existing Treaty principles - it sought to unilaterally change the Treaty and principles at the expense of Māori.

Māori paid the ultimate price after becoming a signatory to the Treaty in 1840, he said, “our lands, our language”.

Māori Language Commissioner Rawinia Higgins spoke on the Treaty Principles BiIl at the justice committee. (File photo)

“Imagine if you all woke up in the morning, opened you blinds, and there was another group of people camped on your front lawn. That’s what colonisation did to Māori, that’s what assimilation continues to do to Māori.”

Bill could breach $170m Treaty settlement

Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu kaiwhakahaere Justin Tipa said the bill’s impact was bigger than what it would do to Ngāi Tahu - it was “destroying the fabric of our nation“.

The ACT leader, also the sponsor of the Treaty Principles Bill, made his submission in support of the bill at the Justice Committee at Parliament on Monday.

However, it also had implications for the iwi’s own Treaty settlement, he said.

“We do consider it a breach … we had absolutely thought we had a full and final settlement and consigned this to history, in order to move forward. So, if the bill was passed as it stands it would certainly open that up for relitigation.“

Ngāi Tahu settled with the Crown in 1998, which included a Crown apology and $170m compensation.

Tipa said reasonable and decent New Zealanders should cherish and protect the principles as they stand - “reasonable and decent New Zealanders should reject the bill, that is our position.”

Bill a significant threat to reo Māori

Māori Language Commissioner Rawinia Higgins said the bill posed a significant threat to the future of te reo Māori.

By narrowing the interpretation of Māori rights to those explicitly outlined in Treaty settlements, the bill risked stripping Māori of the “tino rangatiratanga” needed to protect and promote the language, she said.

Te reo was the cornerstone of Māori identity, culture and self-determination, Higgins said.

She said more New Zealanders were embracing te reo “as a vital part of our national identity”. “Yet those supporting this bill appear to be largely monolingual and threatened by their limited understanding of te reo and te Tiriti.”

The Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Māori at Victoria University said she had enrolment forms ready for those people if they wanted to learn te reo.

There are numerous Treaty principles, developed through courts, the Government and Waitangi Tribunal over decades. Only decisions from the courts have created a binding precedent on Treaty principles. The principles are used to guide the Government on how to apply the spirit and intent of the Treaty.

ACT’s bill would replace them in law with the three found here. The law would need majority support in a public referendum to come into force.

Select committee hearings, where more than 16,000 applicants to speak were short-listed down to 80 hours of speakers, run till early March.