Emails reveal Marlon Williams, Paul Goldsmith Treaty principles exchange

Marlon Williams urged Paul Goldsmith to investigate Act’s Treaty Principles Bill in December 2023. Photo / Getty Images

By Kate Todd of RNZ

Acclaimed singer-songwriter Marlon Williams urged Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith to conscientiously investigate if Act’s Treaty Principles Bill was really a healthy and productive step for the country.

His email in December 2023, now revealed to RNZ through the Official Information Act, was answered nearly two years later in October 2025, after Williams brought it up in a Silver Scroll acceptance speech.

While collecting his top song award for Aua Atu Rā at the prestigious awards, Williams said Goldsmith had done “a lot of incredible work for Māori – a while ago, a while ago”, drawing laughter from the audience.

It was one of several comments that night directed at Goldsmith, who is also Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage.

Williams told Goldsmith he had emailed him but did not expect a reply.

That email, dated December 2023, detailed his concerns about the now-defeated bill and its political context.

“I understand that the regrettable state of political comity in this country (and abroad) has lead [sic] to this unorthodox and disparately focused coalition,” he wrote.

“Moreover, I understand that there is a huge constituent of conservative New Zealanders who have a very real fear of some of the rhetoric of the ‘far left’ (and vice versa) and that it is foolish and in a sense undemocratic to ignore this.”

Williams, who is of Māori (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāi Tai) and Pākehā descent, told Goldsmith he was not entirely opposed to needs-based structuring of certain public policies, as long as they conformed with Treaty principles.

However, a referendum might not provide the democratic solution some assumed, Williams said.

“We both know a referendum is not the clean ‘democracy in action’ play that it is purported to be. To quote the 1986 Royal Commission on the Electoral System: ‘In general, initiatives and referendums are blunt and crude devices [that] would blur the lines of accountability and responsibility of governments.’

“I appeal to you as a respectable historian and treaty expert, who knows more than I do of its historical and current import, who knows well the name James Prendergast, to conscientiously investigate whether Act’s Bill on Treaty Principles is really a healthy and productive step for this country.”

Goldsmith’s reply, sent on the night of the awards, apologised for not responding.

“Have searched my email and found your letter, which was sadly lost in the multitude I received at the time,” he said.

He congratulated Williams on the award, but noted, “music, of course, is not owned by any one end of the political spectrum, even though it seemed that way tonight”.

“I’d be very happy to meet up and talk through some of the things you raised, any time,” he wrote.

The Treaty Principles Bill was defeated at its second reading in April.

Act leader David Seymour has vowed to reignite the debate in 2026, saying the bill “planted the seeds of a movement of equal rights for this country that won’t go away any time soon”.