Government launches review of Waitangi Tribunal’s reach

Friday, 9 May 2025

The Treaty Principles Bill is defeated 112–11, following nationwide protests and 300,000 submissions. But tensions remain, as David Seymour signals treaty issues will return at the next election.

The Government has moved against the Waitangi Tribunal, appointing a review panel to investigate limiting its reach.

A month after the ACT Party’s controversial Treaty Principles Bill was voted down, Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka on Friday announced a review of the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 with the aim of bringing the tribunal back to its “original intent”.

Legislation that could change the tribunal’s remit would enter the House before the year’s end.

The review was immediately celebrated by ACT and NZ First, which obtained the review in its coalition agreement with National. It was condemned by the Opposition as “extremely bad faith” and a “punch down on tangata whenua”.

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the review.

“If [the tribunal] is to have a future role, it absolutely must be tightly focused and stop straying into areas that are promptly settled by politics,” said NZ First Cabinet minister Shane Jones, who would be among ministers receiving the review’s outcome.

“The tribunal, in my view, has sought to turn itself into into an organic body, some type of living instrument. No, it's an administrative tribunal that has a very narrow remit, and it's about to get a 'kina cut', a statutory haircut.”

The announcement came as the Waitangi Tribunal confirmed it would hurriedly hold a hearing over ACT’s Regulatory Standards Bill next week, to get ahead of the Government introducing the bill into the House, which would end the tribunal’s jurisdiction.

Regional Development Minister Shane Jones reacts during the Canterbury Mayoral Forum at Te Ara Ātea in Rolleston, in March.

“What specific body of competence does the Waitangi Tribunal have on the character, extent or purpose of general regulation-making power?” Jones said.

Alongside this, the tribunal also declined to summons Regulation Minister David Seymour in front of the tribunal, as requested by the claimants.

Seymour, the ACT leader, had said there was no reason to appear in front of the tribunal. On Friday afternoon, he celebrated the review and labelled the tribunal as “well beyond its brief” and “increasingly activist”.

“It’s time to put the tribunal in its place.”

ACT leader David Seymour has also celebrated a review into the Waitangi Tribunal.

Labour Party Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said the Government was continually undermining the tribunal

“It is extremely bad faith to conduct a review, right when the Waitangi Tribunal is conducting urgent inquiries into the actions of this Government.”

Green Party Māori Development spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon said the “attack on the tribunal” was an attempt to limit the accountability the Government faces.

“Across this term, we have seen the actions of this Government trigger a record amount of urgent claims with the Waitangi Tribunal.

“Let’s be clear, this is not about improving the Waitangi Tribunal like the minister says, it is about making it easier to trample all over Te Tiriti and punch down on tangata whenua.”

Potaka, in a statement, said the tribunal had made “significant contributions” to the Māori-Crown relationship in its 50 years.

Organisers of major protests against the Treaty Principles Bill are challenging another ACT Party bill in the Waitangi Tribunal.

“Given the progress of historical claims and settlements and concerns about the Tribunal’s current workload, it is timely to review the legislation that determines how it undertakes its inquiries.”

The review would be led by a team of independent experts, headed by lawyer Bruce Gray, KC, Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet deputy chief executive Kararaina Calcott-Cribb, lawyer and former tribunal member David Cochrane, and deputy chair of fisheries organisation Te Ohu Kai Moana Dion Tuuta.

Potaka said the group would “engage directly with peak Māori and Iwi entities, Treaty law experts, and current and former Tribunal members to ensure that the right voices and perspectives are reflected in the recommendations they provide to ministers at the end of their review”.

Late on Friday the tribunal continued to receive filings for the urgent claim into the Regulatory Standards Bill, brought by activists of the protest movement Toitū Te Tiriti, which led earlier opposition to Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill and expanded their campaign to the regulatory bill over summer.

The call for an urgent hearing was prompted this week after Seymour announced Cabinet would decide on drafting instructions for the Regulatory Standards Bill on May 19.

The bill, an ACT Party project 20 years in the making, would create a “benchmark” regime for regulations based on principles including liberty and property rights, and a Regulatory Standards Board to scrutinise and receive complaints about regulations.

The board’s findings would be non-binding and, while government agencies would have to assess regulation against the principles, it would not prohibit lawmaking if the principles are not met. Instead, ministers or officials would have to publicly note the regulation’s inconsistency with the regulatory standards.

As proposed, the bill does not mention the Treaty of Waitangi or the Government’s obligations to the nation’s founding document among its principles.

Toitū Te Tiriti, in its claim, said the Regulatory Standards Bill would, in effect, create a “regulatory constitution” that would “alter the constitutional arrangements between the Crown and Māori under Te Tiriti by stealth and without the consent of Māori as Treaty partner”.

The tribunal will hold a hearing on Wednesday, May 14.