A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
Opinion
Parliament reopened yesterday with calls to honour te Tiriti reverberating from a short but effective “National Māori Action Day”, led by Te Pāti Māori and iwi to challenge the new Government over its policies on the Treaty, co-governance and a host of other policies affecting Māori.
It was a taste
of what will be ongoing protests. One question will be whether this mostly involves Te Pāti Māori activating its supporters, which was how new Prime Minister Christopher Luxon framed yesterday’s protests, or becomes a much wider movement against “anti-Māori sentiment” and back-pedalling on progress of the past 40 years. The latter seems likely, with many in Māoridom along with Labour and the Green Party raising the same concerns, if not in quite the same language as Te Pāti Māori.
Another key question hangs over where the Act Party’s Treaty Principles Bill leads. It wants Parliament to define the principles then put this to a referendum — which is highly unlikely to happen, as no other party in Parliament thinks that’s a good idea. What the parliamentary process will open the door to is a lot of discussion about Māori sovereignty — which is certainly not what Act intends.
It was impressive that Te Pāti Māori was able to coordinate protests around the North Island yesterday at short notice and with minimal fuss. Party secretary Lance Norman said the protest plans came from iwi leaders and Māori service providers meeting soon after the formation of the new Government, and yesterday’s action was planned on Sunday evening.
People gathered at about 7am in numerous cities and at high traffic locations, mostly in convoys of vehicles. There was traffic disruption but the protests were peaceful and it was all over by 8.30am. About 1000 protestors gathered on Parliament grounds, led on by Te Pāti Māori’s Rawiri Waititi who briefly addressed the crowd before handing over to co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.
