Prime Minister Christopher Luxon may have sidestepped the *Kiingitanga’s mass hui, and survived Rātana’s few hours of annual scrutiny, but he can’t escape the inevitable showdown with Māori at Waitangi, which threatens to boil over.
It’s clear Māori are uniting in opposition to this government – it was labelled a “three-headed taniwha” at Rātana – as talk, and concern, about ACT leader David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill and the apparent sidelining of te reo continues.
On one side, you have hotheads, activists, iwi leaders, self-appointed tribal leaders, the Kiingitanga, and ordinary concerned Māori – some of whom haven’t joined protests before; on the other, it’s Winston Peters, an increasingly outspoken Shane Jones, a defensive David Seymour and a reluctant, if not bewildered, race relations novice in Christopher Luxon bringing up the rear.
Talk about a powder keg ready to blow, but the problem is, blow over what exactly?
On Tuesday, National said it won’t support Seymour’s intention to redefine Treaty principles. That sounds like case closed. Whatever watering down of the Treaty of Waitangi Seymour wanted will now not get past the Select Committee stage.
Luxon, in trying to explain his government’s intentions, retreated and backed away from any looming confrontation because why buy a messy fight so early into his reign as PM? Why look for division when most of us despise division based on race and stoked by politicians? Shame on Seymour and Peters. I bet angry Luxon guy will deal to them for this. Just don’t blink in case you miss it.
In walking things back, it’s become clear how uneasy National is about “fighting” with Māori – and their supporters. Right now, a few government departments will and have changed their names, but that’s it. That’s barely worth a debate, let alone risking all-out social division - a race war – over.
Indeed, National has spent decades signing up to and following the status quo on race relations. While in government, it has forged relationships with Māori, agreed with the Treaty principles and settled scores of grievances worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
However, National does have split personality at times, usually due to poor poll ratings, and it has succumbed to playing to the race card before. In opposition, Bill English, in a desperate attempt to increase his poor showing, embraced the one law for all catchcry.
And English’s replacement, Don Brash, who later headed ACT then started the Hobson’s Pledge group, had his Orewa Speech moment. In fact, it’s 20 years to the day since that speech at the Orewa Rotary Club on January 27, 2004. It led to the party’s clever — according to the marketeers, at least — but divisive “Iwi-Kiwi” campaign of 2005.
On each occasion National may have been big on the marketing and opposition hype, but once in government it backed that rhetoric up by doing … absolutely nothing. John Key actually reached out to the Māori Party, as it was then, and invited them into government as a future insurance policy. But Te Pāti Māori is now a much more radical outfit and is light years away from doing business with Luxon’s National-led government.
So, National’s backdown over the Treaty Principles Bill was expected, but maybe not so soon. It means we now have to ask what are we left with? Division, scrapping and potential race-based rifts, which threaten to fester and break out into something more serious especially if Seymour stumbles on, hoping to get so much public support that National is forced to change its mind.
It means, we face an anxious and nervous time, especially waiting to see what will unfold at Waitangi but, all in all, it’s not a fight worth having.
Aside from the social upheaval, Treaty principles were codified because of a ground-breaking 1987 court case that defined them and made the Treaty, in essence, a living and modern document. They were defined by the courts as:
• Kawanatanga and tino rangatiratanga – the right of the Crown to govern and the right of Māori to continue to exercise self-determination
• On-going partnership with obligations to act reasonably and in good faith
• Duty to remedy past breaches
• Active protection.
Now that National has come clean on its lack of commitment to ACT’s bill, Seymour may well feel aggrieved but where’s he going to go and what’s he going to do? Indeed, what’s the point of Seymour and ACT continuing on this tack?
Frankly, it’s best placed on a “policy bonfire” because why waste any more of Parliament’s time? Indeed, the irony of ACT, the party of fiscal responsibility, now wasting time and taxpayers’ money should be lost on no one.
I still expect Māori to heed the call of King Tūheitia and arrive en masse at Waitangi in the days leading up to February 6. They’ll want to see Luxon to ensure he’s left in no doubt about how they feel.
In turn, Luxon will tell Māori he intends to deliver for them. Just what he means by this meaningless statement is anyone’s guess; just what he’s delivering, no one is sure. Not even Luxon knows.
Once this meaningless sideshow settles down and people realise nothing is changing, will someone please take charge of what really needs to be done in this country?
*The Kiingitanga movement uses double vowels, in place of macronised vowels.
On Friday, it was announced that David Seymour will become the associate justice minister with responsibility for the Treaty Principles Bill.
