Both National and Labour are to blame for brewing Māori wards flashpoint - Audrey Young

OPINION:

This is a transcript of Audrey Young’s subscriber-only Premium Politics newsletter. To sign up, click on your profile at nzherald.co.nz and select ‘Newsletters’. For a step-by-step guide, click here.

Welcome to the Politics Briefing. The coalition Government’s plans to restore a veto by referendum on Māori wards in local government is a more potent flashpoint than David Seymour’s plans to rewrite the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and put them to a national referendum.

One won’t happen and one will. The Treaty principles move and national referendum does not have enough support and will wither and die. But local referendums on Māori wards will happen alongside next year’s local government elections and results will vary from place to place. Some councils will keep them and some will get rid of them. If they are vetoed, it won’t take effect until 2028.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi has called it “an ambush”. It was not an ambush. Labour’s decision straight after the 2020 election to abolish the local referendums was opposed by all current parties of Government - National, Act and New Zealand First. 

Labour did not campaign on the issue in 2020 because it believed it could dent its commanding lead. If it had campaigned on it, New Zealand First would have had a better chance of staying in Parliament. It was a policy of constitutional significance and Labour chose to ambush voters just a month after the 2020 election. It must take a share of the blame for divisions it sowed through a very poor process. 

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has not explicitly criticised the former Labour Government for the speed with which it undertook reforms that impacted on race relations. But speaking last month in a webinar organised by the Helen Clark Foundation, she implicitly took issue with her own party. She cited the valedictory speech of former National MP Todd Muller as the best thing she had heard for a while on race relations. 

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has implicitly taken issue with her own party over race relations. Photo / Paul Taylor

Speaking about the divergent views on the Treaty of Waitangi, Muller expounded on the importance of bipartisanship between Labour and National on some issues.

”We progress as a society when the centre holds, whilst slowly moving that centre to reflect the changing nature of our aspirations and beliefs. But if the centre collapses because the extremes are too unyielding, or either one of the main parties rapidly moves to embrace that extreme, we put the bonds that bind our society at great peril. But the political centre has to move as well.”

Muller’s speech rings true. The bonds that bind our society feel endangered. Ideally, perhaps, voters might see that Māori wards have not altered the one-person, one-vote principle and will endorse them as having provided a voice at local level which was previously lacking. But that’s probably too Pollyanna-ish. The reality is that many Māori feel assaulted by the policies of the coalition Government and they are building a sense of resistance and unity not seen since the Foreshore and Seabed controversy.

Already, the issue of Māori wards is being used as a rallying cry for the renewed kotahitanga movement. Following on from King Tūheitia’s hui, and the Rātana and Waitangi gatherings earlier this year, Ngāti Kahungunu is having a national hui on May 31. 

Quote unquote

“These bullet points wouldn’t even hold up in the corporate world: vague, immeasurable and untethered from reality and evidence as they are” - Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick on the Government’s quarterly action plan.

Micro quiz

Which European country decriminalised cannabis this week, allowing adults to possess 25 grams and grow up to three plants? (Answer below.)

Brickbat

Every New Zealand PM since David Lange (pictured with successor Geoffrey Palmer) has been interviewed by a National Library historian. Photo / Paul Escourt

Goes to the National Library for stopping its archival project of interviews with New Zealand Prime Ministers and other political figures. Time for some interference by Paul Goldsmith (although it comes under Brooke van Velden’s Internal Affairs).

Bouquet

Man on a mission: Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

Goes to the very active Foreign Minister Winston Peters. Barely back from India, Indonesia and Singapore, he jetted over to Poland and Belgium for a Nato meeting, plus Sweden, and now heads to Washington DC and New York where he will speak at the UN General Assembly.

Latest political news and views

Māori wards: The Government is restoring the ability to hold referendums on Māori wards, satisfying a condition National agreed to in its coalition deal with Act and NZ First.

Building regulations: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced changes to building supply rules that he says will make it “easier and cheaper” to build.

Govt recruitment: Core government departments were still hiring at a significant rate late last year, even as a new Government took the reins with a mandate to cut costs.

Action plan: The Prime Minister has released a new 36-point action plan, to be completed by the end of June.

Anti-racism plan: Iwi Chairs Forum representatives have pulled out of consultation on a national action plan against racism due to the Government’s “continued racist rhetoric”.

Foreign policy: The Government’s revival of references to the Anzus alliance is a prop for Aukus architecture, says former Prime Minister Helen Clark.

History curriculum: Most teachers and more than half of students are enjoying NZ’s new history curriculum, although schools have raised some concerns.

Opinion - action plans: On the surface, the coalition Government’s “action plans” are laughable - but there is some substance behind them, writes Thomas Coughlan.

Political Diaries: The National Library has ended a project that has seen every New Zealand Prime Minister since David Lange interviewed by an oral historian.

Teacher fast-track: Secondary school teachers will be put on the fast track to residency to address shortages in the education sector.

Policy power: Regulation minister David Seymour is looking at cutting the ministries for women, the disabled and Pacific peoples out of policy talks.

Quiz answer: Germany

Audrey Young is the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018.

For more political news and views, listen to On the Tiles, the Herald’s politics podcast.