Everything you missed from day eight of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard eight hours of submissions.

Read our recaps of the previous hearings here.

It’s going to be a long week at parliament’s Room 3, where the only thing happening is the final hearings of oral submissions on the Treaty principles bill, scheduled for every single day. On Monday, time was set aside for one half-hour lunch break, and a request for a pee break by 10am from the Greens’ Steve Abel was declined – yesterday was all about getting the mahi done, don’t ask about the treats.

There are so many submissions still to be heard that for Tuesday and Thursday, the Justice Committee splits into two: subcommittee A will be in Room 3 – that’s James Meager (National), Ginny Andersen (Labour), Tracey McLellan (Labour), Tom Rutherford (National), Todd Stephenson (Act) and Lawrence Xu-Nan (Greens). Subcommittee B, comprising Duncan Webb (Labour), Jamie Arbuckle (NZ First), Carl Bates (National), Tākuta Ferris (Te Pāti Māori) and Rima Nakhle (National), meanwhile, will be a Zoom-only affair.

Back to Monday, one of the first speakers of the day was policy professor Jonathan Boston, whose submission criticised the bill’s interpretation of collective, individual and equal rights. He said “positive discrimination” was necessary to address systemic inequalities, and that extending legal equality to all may cause “downright evil” breaches of human rights. “Every person should be treated as an equal, but this does not require equal treatment in every case,” Boston said.

New Plymouth district councillor Dinnie Moeahu (Te Ātiawa, Taranaki, Ngāruahine and Ngāti Porou), who submitted against the bill with his two young sons by his side, told the committee it “reeks of the same stench and sleight-of-hand manoeuvring” as the Crown’s Treaty breaches of times past, and efforts to amend these breaches had been “crumbs to the dollar for a legacy of pain”.

“Every time I look at a map of Taranaki and trace the lines of confiscation, all I see is an arrow piercing the heart of my people,” he said. “This bill pierces the hearts of my people.”

Epidemiologist Michael Baker, submitting against the bill on behalf of the Public Health Communication Centre, said responsibilities to the Treaty were key to responding to “entrenched inequities” across the health sector – such as the treatment of rheumatic fever, which infects Māori tamariki at a rate 20 times higher than European children. Baker said the conditions of the Treaty principles bill would require all New Zealanders to be treated the same, but in the case of rheumatic fever, this requirement “defies reality”.

Submitting against, lawyer Matanuku Mahuika (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa) felt he had “no choice” but to participate in the discussions around the bill, despite it being “entirely inconsistent” with the Treaty. He believed the bill to be divisive, as it had taught the younger generation of Māori that progress was made “by shouting across the room for it, not sitting down in the way that the generations before us did to try and find a resolution that moves us all forward”.

Dunedin mayor Jules Radich submitted against the bill with the concern that it would threaten the connection between the council and local iwi, and cited recent developments on George Street and the South Dunedin Future plan as examples of this relationship producing “tangible benefits” for all in the community. It would be inappropriate now that Māori are a minority in New Zealand, Radich said, to redefine or hold a referendum on a Treaty agreed upon when tangata whenua were the majority.

Far North deputy mayor Kelly Stratford’s voice quavered in her submission against the bill. She felt she hadn’t received a proper education on the Treaty in Aotearoa until she was a 22-year-old taking a university paper – more than two decades later, she feels New Zealanders are “still coming to grips with who we are”. “You’ve done a lot of damage,” she told the committee. “What are you going to do to come back from this?”

Pita Tipene (Ngāti Hine) submitted against the bill (which he described as “undesirable in the extreme”) twice, for Te Kahu o Taonui and Te Runanga o Ngāti Hine. He quoted rangatira and reluctant te Tiriti signee Te Ruki Kawiti, who at the conclusion of the Battle of Ruapekapeka told his people: “When the honour of the Treaty of Waitangi is being undermined, we must come together and stand strong.”

“The end game must be a culture created by tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti,” Tipene said. “Te reo Māori and English will be spoken interchangeably and with pride, and our tikanga will be observed – [we will be] the only place in the world where this is found.”

Activist and academic Heather Came submitted against the “disingenuous, arrogant and disrespectful” bill. She told the committee her scholarly work had identified some 54 Treaty principles devised by the Crown, the judiciary and other government departments, and said that in 2025, she hoped most could understand the Treaty without the need of principles. “To quote my colleague Vincent O’Malley: read some bloody history,” Came said, before ending her submission by tearing up a copy of the bill à la Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke.

AI researcher Felix Cheng, the first speaker after the lunch break, said he supported the bill as he saw it as “crucial for protecting equality”. He was concerned that equity seemed to be taking precedence over equality in the arguments of those against the bill, and suggested equity would risk “regression to the tribalism that we all struggle to overcome”. Equality was the better option, he argued, as it “does not presume to know who deserves more or less based on their ancestry”.

The National Council of Women’s Suzanne Manning and Aleisha Amohia (Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Hāua) told the committee challenges faced by wāhine Māori would be “exacerbated” under the bill, which promoted a “one-Pākehā-size-fits-all approach”. They argued that pre-colonisation, wāhine Māori had greater opportunities than in today’s modern society – this bill would only continue to disregard their mana. “To undermine the wāhine is to undermine the whānau, and social cohesion suffers,” Amohia said.

Also submitting against the bill, broadcaster Martyn Bradbury may have had the most colourful language of the day, labelling the discourse around the bill as bordering on a “cross-burning, banjo-clanging redneck jamboree”. Referring to the committee as “comrades”, Bradbury said New Zealanders “sure do” need to discuss the Treaty, its history and meaning, but this discussion had been carried about in bad faith. It isn’t just a dog whistle, he said – it’s a “racist canine trumpet”.

On a different note, individual submitter Hamish Morgan supported the bill, which he believed had the intention to ensure a “fair, clear and consistent” interpretation of the Treaty principles. He argued that the original text of the Treaty included no concept of a Treaty partnership, and that a referendum on the bill was necessary to ensure a “truly fair” justice system defined by set principles.

Ngāti Paoa Iwi Trust’s Herearoha Skipper submitted against the bill, spurred by concern over the Ngāti Paoa Claim Settlement Bill, which is still awaiting its third reading in parliament. She highlighted Clause 14.2 of the bill, which includes principles of the Treaty as defined by the courts and parliament. Should the Treaty principles bill be enacted, Ngāti Paoa would “be forced to seek to renegotiate” their settlement and would request financial compensation that is “many times greater than the mere sum we agreed to”. She said she expected many other iwi would do the same.

Former Greens leader Russel Norman, in his role as Greenpeace Aotearoa CEO, submitted against the bill with the argument that the Treaty not only held the Crown accountable to the interests and rights of iwi and hapū on environmental matters, but provided a framework for addressing our history of “violent colonisation”. “A nation which can’t face its own history is a nation that will never grow up,” Norman said.