David Seymour criticises UN official over indigenous rights letter

Regulations Minister David Seymour attacked the author of the letter, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has told a United Nations official their views on the Government’s indigenous rights agenda are wrong and “an affront to New Zealand’s sovereignty”.

Last month, the Government received a letter from Geneva-based Albert K. Barume, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, a sort of watchdog for indigenous rights.

The letter addressed to New Zealand’s representative to the UN in Geneva for distribution to Foreign Minister Winston Peters and the wider Government concerns “allegations” Barume had received about the erosion of indigenous rights in New Zealand under the coalition.

Barume said he was “particularly concerned” with the Regulatory Standards Bill, which he said “excludes Māori traditions [tikanga] and fails to uphold the principles of partnership, active protection, and self-protection guaranteed under the Treaty of Waitangi”.

“I am preoccupied that the bill threatens Māori-specific laws that address structural inequalities in matters relating to, for example, land, language and environmental stewardship, and because it seems to impose a monocultural legal standard, marginalising Māori as legal subjects without respecting their own governance frameworks”.

Seymour hit back, writing in his capacity as the Minister for Regulation, saying he found the letter “presumptive, condescending, and wholly misplaced”.

“As an indigenous New Zealander myself, I am deeply aggrieved by your audacity in presuming to speak on my behalf and that of my fellow Māori regarding legislation that aims solely at ensuring clarity, consistency, and accountability in regulatory processes.”

Seymour said Barume’s characterisation of the Regulatory Standards Bill’s approach to tikanga was “not only incorrect but offensive” because the bill “neither undermines nor overrides” current Treaty settlements or ”statutory protections afforded to Māori".

Seymour said Barume’s allegation the bill threatened Māori-specific laws was either “a profound misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of the bill’s intent and scope”.

This is the second letter a Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Rights has sent the coalition, with Barume’s predecessor writing a less critically worded letter to the Government last year.

Seymour appears to have had enough, signing off his letter saying that the “Special Rapporteur’s insistence on interfering in matters of domestic law is an affront to New Zealand’s sovereignty”.

“We neither require nor welcome external lectures on our governance, particularly from bodies whose understanding of our nuanced historical, cultural, and constitutional context is so clearly deficient,” he said.

Other matters also rankled Barume, including the NZ First and National coalition agreement commitment to confirm the Government “does not recognise the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as having any binding legal effect on New Zealand”.

Previous governments – including the Key Government, which signed up to UNDRIP – have said the declaration was not binding on New Zealand, but that has not stopped work to try to implement it here, including He Puapua, the controversial report commissioned by the last Labour Government, which envisaged things like a separate Māori parliament.

Barume wrote to express his “concern” at this part of the coalition agreement.