The winners, losers and political legacy of the ‘cremated’ Treaty Principles Bill

Friday, 11 April 2025

The passage of the Treaty Principles Bill has reached its end, after it was voted down in Parliament at its second reading, bringing to a close a chapter that saw record-breaking civic engagement.

From a 42,000-strong hīkoi that reached Parliament in November, to the 300,000 submissions made to the justice select committee, to acres of online debate, column inches, and many more soundbites; for a bill that was destined to fail, it preoccupied the country since its architect David Seymour negotiated its inclusion in the Government’s coalition agreement 18 months ago.

The bill attracted vociferous opposition from Te Pāti Māori, Labour and the Greens, and National and NZ First only pledged to support it to the select committee process.

Despite that, the proposed legislation activated the country.

It was voted down on Thursday night, with just 11 votes in favour from ACT. The second reading saw a protester ejected from the House, Labour’s Willie Jackson thrown out by the Speaker, and Labour leader Chris Hipkins calling it a “grubby little bill, from a grubby little deal”, characterising it as having a “colossal impact on the fabric of our nation”.

“This bill will forever be a stain on our country.”

Upon leaving the Chamber, Seymour indicated to reporters he would keep trying.

'We'll never give up on equal rights, and the next steps we take on this journey will be clear to people before the election, so they can make up their mind if they want to jump on the journey.'

Seymour said he had been thinking over the last couple of years of 'different ways that you could approach this, and if one doesn't work, you try another'.

On the other hand, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said it was 'one battle won … But we've got to be vigilant about other harmful policies that are coming out of this House.'

Treaty debate will persist

“What’s the legacy of this bill? The fundamental disagreement in New Zealand society doesn’t go away,” said politics academic and author Dr Grant Duncan.

The bill, Duncan said, while generating strong debate, was a missed opportunity for bipartisan work on an issue that was ultimately going to endure. He would like to see more in-depth surveys of public sentiment.

“Public opinion is still divided, the issue doesn’t go away, it lives to breathe another day,” he said. “In my opinion, there is a way out of this, but nobody has the statesmanlike leadership to broker and lead the country through this. That’s disappointing. There’s been a lack of leadership on both sides of the house.”

Political commentator Ben Thomas, who has worked as a press secretary for National, and as a campaign advisor for ACT, said the political winners of the day were ACT and Te Pāti Māori.

“Te Pāti Māori probably would hope that the legacy is that it has mobilised a lot of people, particularly people not normally interested in politics,” Thomas said. “Because that number of [select committee] submissions is extraordinary.

“For Te Pāti Māori it’s much more about the activation and about building up the strength of their movement.”

Political winners and losers

But for ACT the bill has also been a boon, with a most recent poll showing it steady on 9%, notable for a minor party that’s halfway through a term of government, Thomas said.

It also united the opposition parties - with Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori issuing a rare joint statement at the end of last year, calling on New Zealanders to mobilise against the bill with them.

Political commentator and former National Party adviser Brigitte Morten said the bill had “really galvanised Te Pāti Māori’s voters”.

“For the National Party, it’s been a massive risk … this will probably give them a warning about whether they want to engage in Treaty issues going forward. They have a very clear agenda around economic growth … that’s clearly the biggest issue for the majority of voters,” Morten said.

“The National Party has had to carry a lot for the ACT Party on this, and a lot of the political weight … it may mean it’s more difficult for David Seymour to put up Treaty-related issues in the future.”

Luxon has repeatedly worn flak for agreeing to support the bill at first reading - Luxon was conspicuously absent from the second reading, blaming a busy schedule - and the ongoing debate has been a distraction for the Government wanting to talk up its economic progress, Thomas said.

“They’ll be very glad to see the back of it. You can imagine this must have been an extraordinarily exasperating period for the prime minister who really was blindsided by the amount of space it took up in the public discourse in that first year of government.

“One, because it distracts attention away from what he and his National ministers are doing, their messaging about the economy, the second thing is because Luxon himself has relatively orthodox views on the Crown-Māori relationship.”

Luxon himself, just hours before the bill was due to be read, said National had always been “incredibly clear” about its position on the bill. To that end, National’s Māori-Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka heralded the second reading as the bill’s “cremation day”.

Said Luxon on Thursday, “Frankly, now it’s time for us all to move on.”

Anatomy of a hot potato

Seymour first started talking about Treaty principles in 2021 - it didn’t feature in his party’s 2017 or 2020 election campaigns. In February of that year, Seymour spoke in the House about interpretation of the Treaty as a partnership. Said Seymour at the time, “Let’s just think about that means. On the one hand, the Treaty can mean we’re all people with the same rights and duties as each other; and on the other hand, it can mean we’re two collectives.” ACT recorded its best-ever election result in 2023, launching 11 MPs into Parliament.

Coalition agreement

As part of coalition negotiations between ACT, National and NZ First, Seymour was able to secure an agreement that National and NZ First would support his Treaty Principles bill - yet to be written - past the first reading to select committee. The bill was introduced to Parliament about a year later, on November 7, 2024. According to Seymour, the purpose was to define the principles of the Treaty, “provide certainty and clarity, and promote a national conversation about their place in our constitutional arrangements”. Critics said Seymour was attempting to rewrite the Treaty.

The haka

The bill had its first reading on November 14, and passed - but not without incident. Members of Te Pāti Māori, first led by Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, then joined by co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, and Labour’s Peeni Henare, performed a haka in the House, disrupting the vote, with Maipi-Clarke also ripping up a copy of the bill.

The Speaker immediately adjourned the proceedings, ejecting members of the public and MPs from the House. The House returned - and the bill passed, 68-54.

All of the haka-participating MPs were subject to a Privileges Committee complaint. Henare would later apologise but the Te Pāti Māori MPs have refused to front the committee, with Waititi branding it a “silly little committee with silly little rules”.

Hīkoi ‘a moment for Māori’

Later that November, a hīkoi of an estimated 40,000 people from all across the country converged on Parliament, including children and grandparents. “When I’m an old man, I can tell my grandchildren that I fought for the country,” said then 13-year-old Temahia Hapuku Greening Jack Houkamau Ormond. Seymour briefly greeted protesters, to chants of “kill the bill”.

Record-breaking submissions

After the bill received a record-breaking 300,000+ submissions to the select committee, it was faced with how to get through them all. Parliament had set a deadline of May 14 which justice committee member, Labour’s Duncan Webb, initially said should be extended. When it transpired the committee would finish its work early, with thousands of submissions unread and thus missing from the record and, in the face of criticism from Webb that the committee had “rammed it through”, ACT’s Todd Stephenson moved that submissions could be officially read and archived even after the select committee’s report had been officially submitted. In April the committee recommended the bill not proceed.

What people said

An ACT-commissioned poll run by Curia Research showed narrow support for the bill, with 39% of respondents supporting its passing, 36% opposed and 25% unsure. It was published close to a Post/Freshwater poll which showed 40% of respondents opposed it, and 30% supported it. In that poll, however, more people thought the Treaty principles should be decided through a referendum, rather than through Parliament or the courts. (The Treaty Principles Bill, if passed, would have then gone on to a referendum.)

Helmut Modlik, chief executive officer of Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira, previously wrote that the “biggest problem for Seymour’s bill is it ignores the right to self-determination guaranteed to Māori tribes. He doesn’t have a problem with dual citizens from the UK or USA living here with rights additional to their NZ citizenship. But the ‘citizens’ of sovereign tribes of this land having additional rights is unacceptable, even though they have been formally acknowledged, signed and breached for 184 years.”

Labour MP Willie Jackson said the bill was about “bigotry”, and would go back on a contract signed between the Crown and Māori.

More than 40 high-profile Kings Counsel wrote a joint letter to Luxon and Attorney General Judith Collins saying they had significant concerns about the bill, that it sought to redefine law in respect of the meaning of the Treaty, despite existing principles having passed through the courts for 50 years, which the lawyers equated as “settled law”.

Additional reporting: Anna Whyte