The Unusual Death Of The Treaty Principles Bill

Saturday, 12 April 2025, 3:22 pm
Article: RNZ

The demise of the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill was a very rare beast in Parliament - a government bill that was voted down in the House.

Many non-government bills are "negatived", members' bills for example, often at the first reading debate.

Such failures surprise few and have little political import.

Occasionally government bills are abandoned, either by being formally "discharged" or by being banished to the bottom of Parliament's Order Paper, never to be seen again.

Retreats like these can be both embarrassing and the target of opposition jibes.

But a government bill being allowed to fail? No one I have asked can remember a government bill that lost a vote, let-alone was pummelled.

Data from this and the previous five parliaments shows that from hundreds of bills, no other government bill has been voted down in the House.

Voting outcomes are not a surprise, and governments have options.

They can choose which bills to debate, and when. A vote that will be lost does not need to happen.

Losing any vote is embarrassing.

This is not a confidence or supply vote, where defeat would end a government, but it makes this the first government in easy memory that has consciously chosen defeat.

It is possible to see that choice as the reasonable outcome of compromise and negotiation.

It could also be the result of a combination of poor negotiation and political naivety.

Both analyses will have their supporters. Both were suggested during the brutal debate.

Below captures some key moments from a speaker from each party.

David Seymour, ACT Party, the Bill's sponsor:

"Some will say that a Government can change these policies case-by-case. And, indeed, I'm proud to be part of a Government that is doing that.

"The problem is, though, that another Government can just as easily bring them back if the bad ideas behind these policies are not confronted.

"And that's why we see professional bodies, universities, the public service, and schools nurturing the divisive idea that the Treaty is a partnership, hoping it will grow again at some future time.

"Finally, some critics say that the debate is divisive. Well, I say it has revealed the division.

"I say it's revealed a sizeable minority of New Zealanders who oppose equal rights, liberal democracy, and treating each person with the same basic dignity.

"Members of the House and public of New Zealand, a free society takes hard work and uneasy conversations.

"I'm proud that my party has had the bravery, the clarity, and the patriotism to raise uneasy topics, and I challenge other parties to find those qualities in themselves and support this bill.

"We will continue to fight on for the truth that all Kiwis are equal. Āke, ake, ake."

Chris Hipkins, Labour, Leader of the Opposition:

"This is a grubby little bill, born of a grubby little deal. It has had a colossal impact on the fabric of our nation, and this bill will forever be a stain on our country.

"What I do take pride in is the way New Zealanders have come together over the last six months to say, loud and clear, 'This is not us; this is not Aotearoa New Zealand'.

"Today, National and New Zealand First join the opposition to this bill, but they can claim no victory, no virtue, and no principle; they get no credit for finally starting to fight the fire they helped to ignite.

"Today, their votes will fall on the right side of the ledger, but they will forever be on the wrong side of history when it comes to this bill.

"Not one National MP should walk out of this debating chamber today with their head held high, because, when it comes to this debate, they led nothing, they stopped nothing, and they stood for nothing.

"This is a bill based on a mythology - a mythology that is far too easily turned into outright lies: the myth of Māori special privilege.

"Life expectancy seven years lower than for other New Zealanders is not special privilege. Being twice as likely to die from cancer as others is not special privilege.

"A higher rate of childhood hospitalisation, 40 percent of Māori living in the highest areas of deprivation compared to just 10 percent of Europeans. These are not signs of privilege.

"But too often these statistics are twisted to suggest that Māori are wanting the Crown to save them.

"I've been up and down the country in recent years speaking to Māori all over New Zealand, and that could not be further from the truth.

"How ignorant, how blind, and how wrong those statements are. Māori have been very clear: what they're asking for is partnership, for the Crown to walk alongside them and to embrace by-Māori, for-Māori solutions.

"Māori want to do the mahi themselves, and they want the Crown to stop acting as an impediment to that. I say it's time we listened and it's time we acted on that."

Marama Davidson, Green Party Co-Leader:

"In fact, there was a particular moment in the select committee submissions where we even had an ACT MP attempt to drive a migrant away from centring Te Tiriti, where the Muslim community leader Anjum Rahman was asked if she was comfortable - by that ACT MP - with new migrants potentially being left with different rights to Māori.

"She said, 'I reject your framing. I reject your question. This is a way to try and sow division between communities and we see you', is what she said.

"She said, 'When you go to ethnic minority communities and try and promote division between our community and theirs, we hear you when you say, Oh, your community suffers racism too, and [they get] special treatment'.

"And she said in her submission, Māori did not get special treatment. They [did not get] privileges. They are getting the rights that were promised to them, and the help that should have been upheld in a very minuscule way.

"I am so pleased that the people came and spoke. We are proud to stand here today to oppose the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill. Toitū Te Tiriti."

Paul Goldsmith, National Party, Minister of Justice:

"The outcome of the vote today has been known since the Treaty principles bill was introduced.

"National has consistently said we'll not support it into law, fundamentally because we regard the bill, which seeks to impose a particular interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi by simple majority and referendum, as a crude way to handle a very sensitive topic.

"National believes in equal citizenship and equal opportunity for all New Zealanders, and we hold that there are better ways to defend those principles than through this bill.

"Some of the submissions were truly remarkable. It's equally true that the bill has provided a convenient vehicle for political campaigns, on all sides.

"And that is politics. We'll hear all sorts of hyperbole today, as we already have from the Leader of the Opposition, about how terrible it is for National to allow this bill to even be introduced.

"That is just froth and spray. Coalitions require compromises. National opposed the bill and would have preferred it not to have gone forward.

"ACT wanted to have the bill passed into law. None of us got what we wanted. That is life under MMP. Our country is not so fragile that we can't withstand a debate about the role of the Treaty.

"The guiding principal is that, in our efforts to honour Treaty of Waitangi commitments, Treaty settlements, and to acknowledge tangata whenua, we should never lose sight of the basic expectations of people living in a modern, democratic society, such as equal voting rights, equality before the law, and, broadly speaking, an equal say in matters affecting their lives and in the world around them.

"There can be a tension between those two things, between honouring commitments to Māori flowing from the Treaty and the basic expectations of equality in a modern democracy.

"This is a tension that we can't just gloss over and ignore. Our proposition is that as a nation, we should be serious in our commitment to the first, but, in doing so, should be careful never to lose sight of, or drift too far from, the second.

"People, ultimately, have choices: where to live and where to invest. For our country to continue to succeed, those basic expectations of equality before the law must remain."

Casey Costello, New Zealand First

"I want to reflect on what it is we are here to debate. Despite the absence of any judge or academic being able to clearly define the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, the ACT Party believed it could.

"Despite what has been suggested in the purpose of the bill, legislation would have taken us back into the courts, which is the last thing this country needs. To put this issue before the courts is exactly what we needed to avoid.

"We have heard that in the forming of a coalition Government, there are compromises.

"There have been compromises, and New Zealand First knows that, because we have been part of those coalition agreements on many occasions.

"We know that we can agree to disagree on many aspects. Even if we agree, which we don't, and even if it were to pass - and it won't - a subsequent Parliament could change the definitions and so the cycle would continue.

"The unintended consequence of this legislation - something that does not need legislation."

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke

"The real issue is not this bill, nor is it doing a haka or practising our indigenous customs in Parliament.

"The real problem is that this institution - this House - has only ever recognised one partner, one culture, and one language from one Treaty.

"When will the rules of this House acknowledge the laws of this land: tikanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi?

"That is the real question of privilege here. At our darkest hour, we could have chosen to fight this, but we chose to survive this.

"This bill hasn't been stopped; this bill has been absolutely annihilated.

"So where to next? These past two years have been completely about survival. This next chapter needs to be about steps to thriving, and our road map to our next destination has never been so clear.

"For us to thrive, our job over the next few months will be to create bills, policies, and legislation to remove significant barriers that disallow Māori from accessing their basic rights - not privileges.

"Aotearoa hou isn't a fantasy. It's a place where there is unity, and the road map has no roadworks on it and it doesn't stop us from accessing our basic rights, like proper healthcare without a two-week wait.

"It's not having to decide whether to learn our language with student debt.

"This is tino rangatiratanga - control over our daily decisions that we make. Brick by brick, we will move from surviving to thriving.

"Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora! Ka mate te pire! Ka ora te iwi Māori! We had two choices: to live or to die. We chose to live. Ka ora tonu tātou āke ake ake!"

You can read the full debate in Hansard here.

You can watch the full debate on Parliament TV [here https://videos.parliament.nz/on-demand?id=6351160e-008a-4c9b-b75d-08dd787b78ae&keyword=treaty%20bill].

* RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk. Enjoy our articles or podcast at RNZ.

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