The truth about the upcoming Treaty Principles Bill - Barry Soper

Act leader David Seymour, National leader Christopher Luxon, and NZ First leader Winston Peters may all end up taking different approaches to the Treaty Principles Bill. Photo / Mark Mitchell

THREE KEY FACTS

• The Waitangi Tribunal has released a scathing report on the Treaty Principles Bill.
• Christopher Luxon says National will not support the bill past first reading.
• Winston Peters has cast some doubt on PM’s position on the bill.

Barry Soper is Newstalk ZB’s senior political correspondent

OPINION

If you go into politics you live in a goldfish bowl, everything you do and say comes under scrutiny as the Green Party knows more than most of late with a number of them going belly up, and rightly so.

It’s the big fish that do their best to stay away from the glaring eyes, but try as they might to smudge the glass, they can’t avoid the glare.

And that’s the case with the debate over the much-maligned Treaty Principles Bill, which doesn’t actually exist at the moment, something that seems to have been ignored by the Waitangi Tribunal, which launched a scathing criticism of it last week.

The Prime Minister was moved to rightly say that the tribunal was getting ahead of itself. But then given his and the National Party’s opposition to “the bill”, saying they won’t support it past its first reading, surely that’s a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

They haven’t seen it and yet they are allowing it to be sent to a parliamentary select committee for a lengthy hearing of public submissions, and that is a wanton waste of taxpayers’ money given that without their support it’s destined to fail.

New Zealand First is also opposing the bill, although the wily old fox Winston Peters seemed to be a little equivocal in the debating chamber yesterday when he was standing in for Christopher Luxon.

“I think one is entitled to believe, despite all the previous statements, if there was prevailing, compelling evidence to change one’s mind – as a famous economist once said – when the facts change, I change my mind,” he said.

He doesn’t think that’ll be the case with Act’s bill, but concluded that sometimes “we do have a faint hope that others might have it right”.

Peters has long been a critic of Māori being treated any differently from anyone else.

In fact, in a speech to supporters in Nelson in the lead-up to the election last year, he claimed Māori weren’t the indigenous people of this country.

He said they came from the Cook Islands and Rarotonga and if we go back 5000 years, their DNA came from China.

“Every tribe will have in its ancestry where it came from, and it’s not New Zealand,” he said. “Why are we lying to each other? We should be believing in truths and not myths.”

The truth about the upcoming Treaty Principles Bill is that never in a thousand years would Peters ever have thought he’d have to share power with David Seymour, let alone agree with anything he said.

Next year he will have to face the ignominy of having to move aside to let Seymour take over his Deputy Prime Minister’s role.

Seymour’s a shrewd operator and his Treaty bill won’t be as offensive as many are making it out to be. It will reinforce that a democratically elected government has the right to govern and that all New Zealanders have equal rights, although Māori have special rights, such as customary title over marine and coastal areas, although not exclusivity.

Act’s polling shows its stance has the support of 60% of the country and the one thing it’s got, without the bill being introduced to Parliament until November, is widespread debate, which is what Seymour has argued for from the start.

And if support grows, where does that leave the majority in the coalition Government who may be going against the will of the people?

Perhaps Peters’ economist is right, when the facts change, so do minds.