Everything you missed from day 10 of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard eight hours of submissions.
Read our recaps of the previous hearings here.
Submitting against the bill, anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond criticised the focus on race in debate around the Treaty, rather than relationship – the latter is the true meaning of the Treaty, she said, while the former is “a colonial construct with no signs of validity, and a horrible history associated with slavery, genocide and other atrocities”. She compared the proposed bill’s interpretation of the Treaty to a “lunatic” non-French speaking person trying to translate a constitutional document of France.
“The arrogance of this [bill] is breathtaking,” Salmond said. “It should be put in the dustbin of history where it belongs.”
Lawyer and activist Annette Sykes (Ngāti Pikiao, Ngā Tamatoa) quoted rapper Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ in her submission against the bill, urging the select committee to reject those promoting “an ideology of supremacy over an ideology of kindness”. Sykes likened the Treaty to the magna carta – a document “deeply embedded in [her] legal soul” – and argued that nobody would have the “arrogance” to try to rewrite it. She implored the committee to consider what was being done “to the soul of the country”.
Jordan Winiata-Haines, representing the Māori wardens of Aotearoa, submitted against the bill and told the committee they did “not consent” to having their rights rewritten. He said the role of Māori wardens was to keep tangata whenua on positive pathways away from cycles of abuse and incarceration – he worried the proposed bill would deem the work of Māori wardens to be unnecessary.
Consultant Carmen Parahi, who spearheaded Stuff’s Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono apology, told the committee she was there to submit against the bill so her mokopuna would know “we turned up and tried”. She addressed Justice Committee chair James Meager as a tamariki of Ngāi Tahu, and through tears she told the committee a story of her 17-year-old daughter asking her, “Does the government hate us?” She spoke of the shame her koro Kate Parahi, who ran for the Eastern Māori seat for National, would feel at his party supporting this bill.
Parahi ended her submission with a letter written by her teenage daughters. “They [the government] make me feel ashamed to be Māori,” her tamariki wrote. “Why aren’t we good enough to be equal? Why aren’t we good enough as Māori?”
Former Dunedin city councillor Jinty MacTavish, submitting against, told the committee that like Dame Jenny Shipley, she found the bill “unconscionable” at a time when “our country is facing so many real challenges”. Former Dunedin mayor Aaron Hawkins followed, also with a submission against. He generalised the calibre of the bill’s supporters as “Ruth Richardson and Barry from down the pub” (the former was in Room 3 when he said this, and merely sniffed).
An animated Richardson, former National MP and minister of finance, was the first to speak after the lunch break, with her submission supporting the bill. She said that in her time in parliament, economic health was the nation’s most pressing issue, but now “there’s a new rival on the block – it’s the culture, stupid”.
Richardson said it was now necessary for parliament to “address and correct Treaty overreach” that had become “wayward and wrong” – though some of these overreaches had already been corrected, such as the now defunct Māori Health Authority. She told the committee the bill’s opponents had allowed the courts to define the Treaty over the “supreme legislative power” of parliament – this bill would restore parliament to its “rightful place”.
Chief executive for Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki Trust Jada MacFie said it was “disappointing to be here”. The iwi received a Crown apology in 2018, but the bill “demonstrates that perhaps the words on the apology hold very little value to the Crown right now”. She described the relationship between her iwi and the Crown as an abusive relationship where one party repeatedly causes harm.
Josh Jamieson raised some points of public law, arguing the bill would create legal problems where it conflicted with other pieces of legislation such as the Māori Television Service Act. “This is no doubt going to create significant strain on the courts if many cases could be overturned or precedent could be overturned.” He said the bill shouldn’t go any further while the constitutional issues were unaddressed. Meager made a rare allowance for Jamieson to go slightly over his allotted time. “You’ve raised a few issues that haven’t been raised previously so I wanted to allow you to air those out,” Meager said.
Craig Thornhill of the New Zealand History Teachers Association said the bill had “no basis in research or contemporary academic understandings of te Tiriti”. He said he encouraged his students to research sources and look at what academics have written, and “the writers of this bill seem to have done none of those things”.
Leslie Hoskins and Tamahau Rowe (Whanganui, Taranaki Whānui, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngā Wairiki, Ngāti Apa) represented the Teaching Council of New Zealand and cited several examples of successful programmes where teachers had worked with iwi to develop more inclusive education. “By embracing diversity and staying true to the articles of te Tiriti, we uphold the mana of teaching,” Rowe said.
Dr Veronica Tawhai of Te Ata Kura educators, a nationwide group of Treaty educators, said the bill was not promoting a genuine conversation about te Tiriti. “In all my years of teaching and research in this area, nowhere have I come across guidance that says the approach to promoting a conversation is to say ‘right, this is definitively what this controversial issue means, comment if you wish’. That’s not inviting a conversation, it’s an assertion that leaves only room for protest.”
Jenni-May Burton, who supported the bill, defined tino rangatiratanga as free will and individual liberty and claimed it was a “ubiquitous concept” that applied to all people, not just Māori. “Everyone, inherent by being human, holds the privilege.” She asked parliament to either pass the bill under urgency or remove te Tiriti from the New Zealand constitution.
Nesca Heitapu Bowlin of the Ngaa Uri aa Maahanga Trust said the lack of consultation ahead of the select committee process had eroded the relationship between the Crown and Ngaati Maahanga. “We want a seat at the table, we want a conversation. We’ve got great ideas – you might not like them, but we’ve got great ideas,” she said.
Rhieve Grey spoke representing Ngā Toki Whakarururanga, which he described as a voice for te Tiriti in the international trade space. “While the crowd actively promotes New Zealand’s cultural and inclusive values on a global stage… Its actions at home tell a starkly different story,” he said. Act MP Simon Court asked Grey whether the chiefs who signed te Tiriti would have supported classical liberal values, especially since many were engaged in international trade themselves. “It wouldn’t have been at the cost of their taonga, language or identity. Māori engaged in trade but it never trumped what was most dear and important to them,” Grey replied.
