‘Let it become an echo chamber,’ says former National minister.

Former National minister Hekia Parata has spoken out against the Act-backed Treaty Principles Bill, calling it a divisive, backwards step in New Zealand race relations. “I just think it’s a misuse of the select committee,” she said. “I’d rather we all just boycotted that select committee and let it become an echo chamber of that small, easily identified crowd.”

Under the National-Act coalition agreement, the bill – providing for a referendum on a freshly defined set of Treaty principles which as proposed make no reference to Māori or iwi – should be introduced to parliament and supported to selected committee “as soon as practicable”. National has indicated it is unlikely to support the bill beyond the select committee stage.

“I think that is just wasting time and costing a lot of unnecessary emotional distancing by rehearsing what someone’s version of democracy is,” said Parata, speaking to The Spinoff in an interview for the podcast series Juggernaut: The Story of the Fourth Labour Government. 

“We have one party attempting to reframe what democracy is by saying how the principles should now be cast, and criticising courts and tribunals – who, by the way, are one of the pillars of democracy – because they’ve made judgments that don’t happen to coincide with this current drive. I don’t think you can have the features of democracy you like and say that you don’t like the other features of democracy.”

She added: “Actually, entering into treaties are a feature of democracy. Individual and personal rights are a feature of democracy. And our beautiful kind of democracy here in this Pacific nation is one that was founded on this biculturalism, which then created the whāriki  for the diverse and multicultural population and communities we’re becoming. So I think that [the bill] is really unhelpful. And I do think that Pākehā New Zealanders who see the value of who we are as this country need to be speaking out. I mean, it gets exhausting as a Māori person where you are constantly having to carry forward what is good for our country on your own.” 

New Zealand had proved itself “a leader in the world in how you navigate the difficulties and the legacy of history between an incoming settler crowd, colonisers, and indigenous people,” said Parata. “What the principles help us to do is say, how do we practically apply [the treaty] in this modern time and for the future? Not how do we take from 1840 what that word said or what order it came in. But much more the intention is to create a better, fairer, prosperous society for all of us, without giving up the identity we have, and yet creating a new, shared one of being an Aotearoa New Zealander.”

She added: “I think the principles are much more powerful, and forward looking and positive about how we describe our citizenship and the provision for this citizenship now and into the future. … The intent was we’re going to find a way to work together to create this new nation. And there are trade-offs from both sides. But we’re going to do this together. That’s what treating with each other means. 

Act leader David Seymour responded by urging Parata to take part in the select committee process.”The question of what the Treaty means to modern New Zealand is one of the most important questions of our time,” he said. “It’s not just up to the courts, the Waitangi Tribunal, or the public service to answer it. A select committee process means all the people of a multi-ethnic modern democracy get a say, not just the ‘easily identified crowd’, whoever that’s meant to mean.”

He added: “I really hoped Hekia would have an interesting contribution to make but if not it is ultimately her loss.”

Parata’s link to the issue goes back almost four decades. In March 1989, she was part of a small group dispatched to the Solway Park hotel in Masterton to come up with a draft of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

“And we came back with, I think, the first seven principles,” said Parata, reflecting on her time as the first treaty adviser in the prime minister’s advisory group during the fourth Labour government, as part of an interview for the Spinoff podcast Juggernaut. “They were understood to be a starter, you know, it was like: how do we translate this idea into something meaningful and practical, that we can then give guidance to government departments about what the government means when they say the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”

The idea of treaty principles – a way of expressing the meaning of the document – had emerged in the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act, which established the Waitangi Tribunal. There was an added urgency, however, because of controversy arising from a requirement in SOE legislation, that “nothing in this Act shall permit the Crown to act in a manner that is inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.”

“I’m not saying it was perfect by any means,” said Parata of efforts to articulate the principles, “But the intent was, how do we have a better New Zealand where there is absolute recognition of and space for the indigenous iwi of this country to be involved in the development of it? Because that’s what the Treaty intended.”

She said: “I have always seen it, therefore, as a relationship management agreement. And it is akin to a marriage and the sense that two partners think: we can build something new and different together while still retaining who we are. And that’s how I saw the Treaty of Waitangi … So how do we translate that founding document into the honourable intent that it had for practical application? That means that in article three, all New Zealand citizens Māori and non-Māori alike enjoy the rights and privileges akin to those of the British, caveated by iwi being the authorities in their own regions, caveated by this newfangled thing called a nationwide government. It’s really that simple and that fabulous, if you see it for what it is.”

In Juggernaut, Parata recalls another notable moment, after drafting a speech for David Lange to deliver at the Chateau hotel in the Tongariro National Park. 

“I had put a sentence in that I pointed out to him … I had written, you know, ‘we need to honour the Treaty of Waitangi as the founding document of our country, of our nation’. And I said to him, so I’m using the definitive the. And he said, I see and understand that, and I will deliver that speech. And so from that time, I then had the responsibility and the great pleasure of telling government departments, that is what the government sees as the status of this document.”