Treaty bill rush on eve of protest hīkoi no coincidence

Sunday, 10 November 2024

The Govt's controversial bill will be introduced to Parliament about two weeks earlier than expected. Te Pati Māori says it's to get ahead of a planned hikoi, but ACT leader David Seymour is calling that a conspiracy. Nick Truebridge reports.

Vernon Small is a former press gallery journalist and former Labour government adviser.

OPINION: To be berated by the Waitangi Tribunal and face one of the biggest protest hīkoi seen at Parliament might be a price worth paying for something you plan to do – especially if the majority of voters are with you.

But it is a high price to pay for something that you have ruled out. Especially if it comes with a six-month select committee stoush where those who want you to do it, and those who don’t, attack you in equal measure.

PM Christopher Luxon and Deputy PM Winston Peters being welcomed onto Rātana Marae earlier this year. National and NZ First have both said they will oppose ACT’s Treaty bill.

That is the bizarre situation National and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon have got themselves into over Act’s Zombie legislation, the Treaty Principles Bill.

“Zombie” because it is the walking dead of law changes, with only Act willing to show it the light of day beyond the select committee stage.

But at the same time, only National and Christopher Luxon would rather put it back in the crypt now.

Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori all stand to benefit from the issue being drawn out.

Act is harvesting donations and political support from it, with Seymour whacking National for being “afraid of taking on hard issues”.

In a note to supporters this week, Seymour said the Bill was about “equal rights” and urged people to sign up to the campaign and contribute to the campaign fund.

“You’ll soon hear more about ACT’s planned campaign in support of the bill. Needless to say, there’s plenty in the pipeline,” he said.

Despite taking the same stance as Luxon, NZ First’s opposition is going under the public’s radar.

Luxon could have lessened the pain by shortening the length of the select committee process. There was nothing written in the coalition deal with Act which required a full six months of deliberations. But perhaps he thought it was a good-faith concession, given National would kill the bill after the select committee hearings.

The Opposition parties were clearly alive to the opportunities to embarrass the government and to draw a comparison between them and a divided coalition.

The three parties issued a rare joint statement this week calling for Luxon to block the Bill, and criticising the Government for ignoring the concerns of Māori and the Waitangi Tribunal report.

They also threw their backing behind the Toitū Te Tiriti protest hīkoi, calling on all New Zealanders to mobilise against the Bill and advocate for a future that respects the Treaty.

All this in a week that saw the little-watched Roy Morgan poll show National taking a dive to 31% per cent, Labour rebounding to 29% and the combined opposition ahead of the coalition for the first time since the election, by a wafer-thin 48% per cent to 47%. Perhaps more significantly, the measure of the country’s direction – the right track-wrong track numbers - turned marginally negative.

It’s against that background that the Government made the surprise decision to introduce the Treaty Principles Bill last Thursday, some two weeks before originally signalled.

ACT leader David Seymour is courting votes and donations with his campaign against the Treaty of Waitangi

It gave the Waitangi Tribunal a heads-up, prompting the tribunal to rush out its final opinion, because it is barred from commenting on legislation once it is in the House. The tribunal said if this Bill were enacted it would be the most comprehensive breach of Te Tiriti in modern times.

The four-page Bill contains some changes from the earlier outline.

One, perhaps made necessary because of clumsy drafting, clarified a suggestion that only pre-existing Common Law rights that hapū and iwi had when they signed the Treaty would be protected.

The other major change narrows those rights that will be protected, if they differ from the rights of everyone, to those agreed in the settlement of a historical treaty claim under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. The previous version had said they would be protected “only when they are specified in legislation, Treaty settlements, or other agreement with the Crown”.

The reasons for bringing forward the introduction date of the Bill are not totally clear.

It is hard to swallow the limp argument the Government dished up that it was because the legislation was ready, ahead of other draft laws, and there was nothing unusual about a change of date.

Would sir or madam like a side of scepticism with that?

The Government’s programme has already attracted a number of protest hīkoi.

The more believable motives for its early introduction come down to a hīkoi, a handover and an international hui.

The change shifts the Bill’s introduction away from November 18, when the hīkoi will arrive in Wellington for what was planned to coincide with the Bill’s introduction.

The first-reading next Thursday now clashes with Luxon’s trip to the Apec hui in Peru, so he will not have to front in the House.

Less obviously, the select committee’s deliberations and report back to the House will now likely be closer to mid-May 2025 than to the end of May.

Act leader David Seymour is due to inherit the title of deputy prime minister from Winston Peters on May 31. An event close to that date that highlights divisions between Act and its coalition partners would be an embarrassing distraction.

Much better to have it tidied away before Seymour ascends the second throne.

If the hīkoi, the PM’s trip to Apec and the timing of the Peters-Seymour handover weren’t part of Government’s strategists’ thinking, then they would not be doing their job.

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