Every party except Act is expected to vote down the controversial Treaty Principles Bill this afternoon on a occasion one senior minister has described as “cremation day.”
Opinion by Thomas Coughlan
Thomas Coughlan, Political Editor at the New Zealand Herald, loves applying a political lens to people's stories and explaining the way things like transport and finance touch our lives.
The first-reading debate will be remembered for decades for the haka that turned young Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-RāwhitiMaipi-Clarke into an international celebrity. Few will remember the second reading – in fact, by the time the vote was finally called after two hours of debate, most of the public gallery had emptied (it cleared out fast after Maipi-Clarke’s speech).
The bill wasn’t just metaphorically buried. Labour MP Willie Jackson revealed in his speech that Te Pāti Māori had brought a copy of the bill to the tangi of Hinewhare Harawira (daughter of the late Titewhai Harawira and the sister of former MP Hone Harawira), who recently passed away. She will be interred with that copy of the bill.
“She was one of the biggest fighters against this bill ... Te Pāti Māori showed up [at the tangi] and they gave a copy of the bill to put in the ground with Hinewhare tomorrow,” Jackson said.
He said the bill would go into the ground when Harawira is laid to rest tomorrow – spending cold eternity with a member of a Harawira dynasty is quite the fate for such an infamous bill.
Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke in Parliament during the first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill. Photo / RNZ
Jackson’s speech was one of his best. Many would agree with him that the Treaty Principles debate highlighted “the best of our democracy and the worst of our democracy” – although they might disagree over which bits were best, and which were worst.
His protest, getting kicked out of the House for calling Act Leader David Seymour a “liar”, is a worthwhile protest to make, if Jackson truly does believe that Seymour is not telling the truth about the Treaty, as he really does. Sometimes it’s worth breaking the rules if you believe the point you’re breaking them for is an important one.
Green MPs Marama Davidson and Tamatha Paul also delivered strong speeches, as did Maipi-Clarke – although Maipi-Clarke’s effort was overshadowed by her first-reading speech.
From Labour, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel and Duncan Webb spoke well – as did leader Chris Hipkins, who turned his fire away from Seymour and towards the coalition, noting the racist remarks of a NZ First candidate at the last election and the fact the only reason the Treaty Principles Bill had made it as far as it did was because of a “dirty deal” done by the coalition partners to form the Government.
“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,” Hipkins fumed.
But the strongest part of Hipkins’ speech was the fact of his making it. On Monday, Hipkins (like the rest of the country) learned the bill would be called up during a Thursday afternoon, a day when most party leaders leave Parliament to spend time elsewhere in the country. Hipkins rearranged his schedule to be in Parliament in person to speak on the bill and vote it down.
Parliament’s rules prohibit making reference to absent MPs – it’s a long-standing rule and respects the practical and logistical impossibility of having every MP present for every minute of Parliament.
In fact, Jackson and Davidson tried repeatedly to make reference to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s absence from today’s debate and each time was blocked by Speaker Gerry Brownlee.
Jackson needn’t have bothered. Luxon’s absence was obvious. Nearly every Opposition MP showed up to the debate, but looked across the chamber only to find themselves facing a row of green leather – almost National’s entire front bench was absent, leaving just Paul Goldsmith (and later, briefly, Erica Stanford) to weather the onslaught.
NZ First’s Winston Peters and Shane Jones were absent too (Casey Costello spoke) – Peters had the best excuse, leaving for an urgent diplomatic mission (Luxon arranged a slew of diplomatic calls too, phoning round Asia-Pacific leaders in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs).
National’s speakers, Goldsmith, James Meager and Carl Bates all did well – loyal soldiers sent on a fool’s errand. They made a decent case for National’s history on the Treaty and centrist instincts, but failed to absolve themselves of what may be looked back on as the coalition’s original sin – agreeing to the bill in the first place.
No one was listening though. Hipkins was right, the MPs were there to “fight the fire they helped to ignite” and no one could hear them over the sound of the flames.
Seymour too, spoke well, making a strong case for his vision of a classically liberal society. Seymour is a singular talent. For years he was a one-man party and a one-man Opposition, and he used all the skills he learned during that era in this debate.
Almost stronger than the speech was Seymour mounting a one-person opposition to the bill’s critics, posting to X (formerly Twitter) that almost none of the bill’s critics were speaking on what was in the bill itself. Their speeches focused more on what the bill had caused, the status of Māori in modern Aotearoa-New Zealand, and what the Treaty means.
Seymour wanted answers to whether other parties were happy with the courts filling in the detail on the Treaty principles, rather than Parliament. He didn’t get any.
That might be because there are no easy answers to give. Leaving such foundational questions about the principles to the courts could be seen as an abdication of Parliament’s responsibility to clearly legislate, as Seymour argues.
But is it right for a majoritarian legislature to stick its nose deep into the business of a minority population? No, clearly not, if you follow the logic of Jackson. Parliament, by legislating in the interest of the majority, might not stick up for the rights of the minority.
He’s keeping schtum on what is coming next: this could be resurrecting this bill or another one to campaign on at the next election, or proposing a more explicit equality provision to the Bill of Rights Act.
This bill is dead – the Treaty principles debate, however, has a lot of life in it.
Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.
