If ACT leader David Seymour intended the Treaty Principles Bill to drive a wedge into National’s support base, he may well already be succeeding.
By midnight on Thursday after the Maori Party haka in Parliament, National MPs were being deluged with emails and messages from their members calling them out for failing to support Seymour’s Bill.
That is exactly what Seymour hoped would happen.
“They may discover that the public sentiment towards the bill was more positive than they anticipated,” Seymour told POLITIK last week.
At the same time as the anti-Bill messages are pouring into MPs, the anti-Bill Hikoi is attracting literally thousands of supporters as it makes its way to be at Parliament on Tuesday.
Last night, it was in Otaki.
Meanwhile, Hobson’s Pledge founder Don Brash claimed some credit last night for the pressure on the National MPs.
“We sent out an email late in the week saying email Luxon and email your local MP, “he told POLITIK.
Hobson’s Pledge was sparked into action last week by the Prime Minister’s argument that Seymour’s Bill was “too simplistic”.
Its spokesperson Elliot Ikilei said the organization was thinking about setting up a tool so that everybody could send letters to Luxon directly “so that everybody can let him know how we feel about how he is treating this bill and New Zealanders.”
Brash said the prime Minister’s comments had puzzled people.
“I think the Prime Minister’s comments on Monday at the post-Cabinet press conference where he basically dismissed the thing as having nothing of any merit in it at all, has puzzled people because the actual clauses, as they’re worded, seem pretty innocuous,” he said.
“That’s the puzzlement.
“I think it’s when you look at the words as drafted, you say, well, who could possibly disagree with that sort of reaction?
“And I’m getting that kind of reaction from people that I know, most of whom will be either National or Act.”
Brash said that he thought the mood on the centre-right was “pretty supportive” of the Bill.
In a Friday social media post, he said, “Get ready for the first phase of our response to the Treaty Principles Bill, which will come next week. This phase is about putting pressure on the Prime Minister to respect New Zealanders and listen to our submissions.”
Already some conservative commentators have picked up on Brash’s campaign.
In a column on the Herald website, the Newstalk ZB host, Heather duPlessis-Allen, said it “turns out some people have been asking why National is nuking the thing. (the Bill)”
And there are complex party politics at play here.
The Maori Party clearly aims to become the dominant party for Maori voters.
It now has a centrepiece for its campaign, with the Haka of Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke having had over millions of views on various platforms around the world.
She can be expected to get a hero’s reception when the Hikoi arrives at Parliament on Tuesday.
However, all this leaves Labour caught on the sidelines. They can no longer take their traditional Maori vote for granted but nor can they afford to wholeheartedly embrace some of the Maori Party claims such as Rawiri Waititi’s argument that ultimately the debate must be about Maori sovereignty.
“Our role as Te Pāti Māori is not to be a part of this system but to create our own,” he told Parliament on Thursday.
“What is the pathway forward for us, e te iwi? Tino rangatiratanga and self-governance is the ultimate goal.”
Meanwhile, ACT knows that National cannot afford to alienate its centrist voters by supporting Seymour’s Bill, so the way is open for National defectors to go to ACT.
Former National Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley, told RNZ on Saturday that ACT was “inviting civil war” with its attempt to define the principles of the Treaty.
“I would raise my voice. I’m proud that the National Party has said they will not be supporting this because you cannot speak out of both sides of your mouth,” she said.
“And I think any voice that’s raised, and there are many people – Pākehā and Māori who are not necessarily on this hīkoi – who believe that a relationship is something you keep working at. You don’t just throw it in the bin and then try and rewrite it as it suits you.”
Margaret Murray-Benge is a well-known, long-time National Party member who has spoken out at party regional and national conferences about what she believes are excesses brought about by people invoking the Treaty.
“Within the people, I work within the community, they are angry, and Christopher Luxon is not stupid, and I think if enough people react, he will find a way to change his opinion,” she told POLITIK yesterday.
“Things have gone too far in all sorts of areas, and the bullying and hikois do nothing to hide the predicament this country is in.
“If our politicians bow to such behaviour, we will all vote ACT.”
There remains the question of what will be dome about the Haka in the Chamber last Thursday.
The Government is caught on this.
Earlier this year, the Privileges Committee found that Green MP Julie-Anne Genter had breached privilege when she crossed the floor of the Chamber and stood over National MP Mat Doocey when the House was debating Transport estimates.
But Maipi-Clarke and Maori MPs Deborah Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi did exactly the same thing with ACT Leader David Seymour on Thursday.
The Speaker, Gerry Brownlee, told POLITIK last night he couldn’t check his inbox remotely, so he was unaware of any letters from MPs alleging a breach of privilege by the Haka.
The non-accessible inbox may allow Brownlee to play for time as he tries to find a way through the situation, which does not make the Maori Party MPs even bigger martyrs than they already will seem to many of their supporters.
It is hard to think of a time when Parliament was as divided as it was last week.
The decision to have Seymour’s Bill before a Select Committee for up to six months risks division inside and outside Parliament hardening.
In some ways it could become reminiscent of the 1981 Springbok tour but that only lasted eight weeks and then the Springboks left the country.
Perhaps, if National’s support base starts to wobble, the Government might decide that six months at the Select Committee will be too long.
