David Seymour says Treaty principles movement will succeed eventually

Monday, 27 January 2025

Treaty Principles Bill architect David Seymour has been grilled by the Opposition in the first select committee hearing on the contentious bill, where submitters have had the first opportunity to speak to the proposed legislation.

Seymour compared the bill to previous work around homosexual reform, end of life choice and the end of slavery, saying while there might be opposition to the bill now, previous so-called contentious legislation that changed the country’s thinking around a topic had eventually passed.

Meanwhile, submitters in opposition have rejected the bill, and also criticised the Government’s erasure of te reo or Tiriti references while also referencing an erosion in the relationship between Crown and Māori.

The select committee will hear from about 50 submitters today, with over 80 hours of submissions planned - a large number for in-person submissions but a fraction of the more than 300,000 written submissions made on the bill.

There was little to no sitting room for the justice committee kick-off at Parliament this morning, with an overflow room for expected crowds. Although committee chair James Meager reminded members not to interrupt submitters, and that he would judge the relevance of the submissions and questions, the initial oral submissions were delivered without interruption or fuss.

Seymour was the first to start , and was immediately questioned by Te Pāti Māori leader Debbie Ngarewa Packer, Labour MP Ginny Andersen and Green Party MP Tamatha Paul.

‘The work that you do … will make a very important contribution to that movement’

Seymour began, “Members of our current Parliament believe that this country would be better off as a, quote, ‘Tiri-centric’ Aotearoa, where people are divided into tangata whenua, land people, and tangata Tiriti, Treaty people. Just this summer, we saw a concert where the ticket prices were differentiated with different prices for tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti, with different amounts to pay.

“We see consultation on resource management consents, the structure of local government, and some central government departments taking this divisive approach.

“Dividing people into racial groups is the definition of racism, just as sexism is to judge a person first by their sex and then their other characteristics. The belief that roles in society should be preserved with race as the primary qualifier is the definition of racism, something we all should give nothing to, and should all do everything in our power to expunge from our society.”

Seymour said even if the Treaty as a partnership was a way of achieving equality, “you’ll find that it is not necessary, nor is it sufficient”. “It is possible to help disadvantaged people without dividing a country into two groups based on ancestry.”

“Many people, for many reasons, find themselves in New Zealand, disadvantaged. Not all of them are Māori. In fact, far from it, and not all people who are doing well are not Māori.”

He disputed that Parliament didn’t have the right to make law regarding the Treaty.

“Finally, this bill, some will say, may not pass this time. We shall see, but I can tell you that that you are part of something important and inevitable. In the past, Parliaments, including this one, have seen the end of slavery … we’ve seen homosexual law reform first introduced to this Parliament in 1973, passed in 1986, we’ve seen end of life choice first introduced in 1995, passed in 2019.

“Once you have an idea that relates to emancipating people and freeing them from systems that oppress them, by giving some privilege to one group at the expense of another, which the partnership principle most certainly does, then eventually the tide for human freedom, the tide that people will want to join… that idea will eventually succeed.

“The work that you do over the next 80 hours of hearings, and the next five months of deliberating, I believe will make a very important contribution to that movement. So I hope that you will enter into it in good spirit and do it well.”

Seymour said he was deliberately being efficient in his submission, to allow time for questions.

‘The idea that there was two sovereign nations, I’m sorry, I don’t subscribe to that’

Ginny Andersen was given the first question, and addressed Seymour in te reo, before asking what his understanding was of article 2 of the Treaty.

Seymour responded that the te reo version guaranteed Māori tino rangatiratanga, while the English version was “more specific”. The definition of “taonga” had been widely debated, Seymour said, but the Treaty Principles Bill would “make it clear that we are committed to continuing to honouring the rights that hapu and iwi Māori had in 1840.

“What we’d like to do is ensure that that happens within a democratic framework, where each New Zealander has the same rights to make claims to their property, to their language, to their culture”.

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer asked Seymour how Māori rights and interests would be protected in health, education and resource management. Seymour responded, “They would have exactly the same rights as any other person in this country.”

Ngarewa-Packer spoke briefly over Seymour saying her question was “specifically” about how Māori rights and interests would be upheld, then following with, “how would the bill improve outcomes for Māori?”

“I think having a free society where everyone’s equal before the law … that is good for all people,” said Seymour.

Ngarewa-Packer responded: “I specifically asked for Māori communities, minister.”

“I think the difficulty we might be having here is that I believe … Māori are people, we are people, we are New Zealanders,” said Seymour. “A lot of people have their own community, but in a society with greater prosperity, greater growth, where it’s easier to own a home, where we have more devolution, flexibility of social services, actually benefits everybody, so we don’t need to divide ourselves by race.”

Tamatha Paul asked Seymour why he believed the Treaty was signed between races rather than two sovereign nations, when he also believed New Zealanders shouldn’t be firstly identified by race.

“The idea that there was two sovereign nations, I’m sorry, I don’t subscribe to that,” said Seymour. He said he was quoting the Court of Appeal in references to Treaty being signed by two races.

Seymour’s 10 minutes was then up.

‘An attempt by this coalition government to rewrite Tiriti in favour of itself’

Seymour’s submission was followed by National Urban Māori Authority chair Lady Tureiti Moxon, Kings Counsel Gary Judd and Ngāti Toa Rangatira’s Helmut Modlik.

Moxon said the Authority rejected and opposed the bill, alongside the more than 40,000 who had marched on Parliament in opposition to it in November.

“We all were an independent nation prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, and yet we sit and have to listen to a whole lot of people telling us we don’t belong here. Replacing the Treaty principles with the notions of civil government, equality and historic rights, is an attempt by this coalition government to rewrite Tiriti in favour of itself in order to retain power and control, further it is designed to subjugate, humiliate, assimilate, and oppress iwi Māori.”

It was “absurd” to think Māori had ceded sovereignty to “colonialists from England”.

“Sovereignty [has been described as] the inherent authority of a people to govern themselves, and that’s what the Treaty was about when it was signed by our tipuna all those years ago, and it doesn’t matter how you want to dress it up or how you want to minimise it, it happened.

“Furthermore, it concerns us greatly and it should concern you too, that this government intends to take away every reference to Tiriti of Waitangi in every piece of existing legislation, to nullify our right to justice in this country. These actions and the bill are a stark reminder of when… [chief justice, Sir James] Prendergast declared Te Tiriti worthless.”