A delay in reappointing a top civil servant may indicate a growing nervousness within the National Party about the potential consequences of David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill.
Dave Samuels is waiting for reappointment as the Chief Executive of Te Puni Kokiri, but POLITIK understands that what should have been a routine sign-off has been delayed, in part, because of questions raised by Maori Development Minister Tama Potaka.
Potaka apparently believes the Government will face a large-scale backlash from Maori over Seymour’s Bill and that what is required at TPK is a high-profile public figure as CEO who can front on marae for the Government.
The example of iwi Transition Authority CEO Wira Gardiner defending the Bolger Government’s fiscal envelope, which proposed a cap on treaty settlements, is being cited as what might be required at TPK.
Gardiner fronted 13 highly antagonistic hui, putting the Government’s case for the envelope.
Though the Prime Minister has said National will not support Seymour’s Bill beyond the first reading, the optics will be harmful to the Government.
The Bill will go to a Select Committee, which will surely attract a procession of extremists from either side of the Treaty debate.
There is already speculation that mainstream Maori submissions to the Committee could be accompanied by very large hikoi such, as seen with Labour Foreshore and Seabed legislation in 2004.
Compounding this possibility will be the appointment of the new Kingitanga monarch, Kuini Nga wai hono i te Po Paki.
Aged 27 and educated at a Te Reo immersion Kura in Huntly and then the University of Waikato, where she got an MA In Tikanga Maori, the new Queen will be someone the so-called Kohanga Reo generation of young Maori will be able to quickly identify with.
In an interview with TVNZ’s “Re News,” while she was visiting Britain in 2022, she made it clear she felt the scars of colonialism.
“My heart was heavy when I arrived here because I saw how vast and abundant the land is here,” she said in Te Reo.
The translation continued: “So why did they have to come to Aotearoa to steal our land, to murder our ancestors and grandchildren, to confiscate our resources, and for what reason?”
She said all the stories and historical accounts continued to leave her feeling hurt inside.
“To be honest, my greatest desire is for all Maori land to be returned to Maori.”
That argument directly raises another question that the Government must grapple with: whether Maori ceded sovereignty to the Crown when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi.
Pressed on this three weeks ago in Parliament by Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick, the Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, said sovereignty had been ceded.
“We have a Treaty of Waitangi as the founding document of New Zealand. In there is protection for both Crown and Māori interests,” he said.
“The position is very clear; Māori ceded sovereignty to the Crown.”
Swarbrick: Does his Government’s Treaty principles bill consider the Waitangi Tribunal’s finding from 10 years ago that “The Rangatira who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in February 1840 did not cede [their] sovereignty to Britain,” or does he continue or intend to continue to sideline the Waitangi Tribunal?
Luxon: We haven’t seen a Treaty principles bill yet.
Luxon’s position is not one supported by a growing number of scholars.
The legal historian Ned Fletcher, in his 500-plus-page study, “The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi,” argues that the sovereign power (Britain) obtained full authority over Europeans, and British justice was to regulate inter-racial conflict, both criminal and civil.
“Sovereignty’ in the English text is to be understood according to the principal purpose of establishing Government over British subjects for the protection of Maori.
“The effect of the Treaty in English was to set up an arrangement similar to a federation, in which the sovereign power did not supplant tribal government.”
As is often the case in history, there is ambiguity and imprecision as to what sovereignty the Crown has and what sovereignty the chiefs have.
The landmark 2014 Waitangi Tribunal hearing on sovereignty acknowledged that and concluded that although sovereignty had not been ceded, “questions of relative authority would inevitably have to be negotiated over time on a case-by-case basis—as, of course, was typical for rangatira-to-rangatira relationships.”
Seymour’s Bill would deny that.
His proposed “Article One” would read: “The New Zealand Government has the right to govern all New Zealanders”, which he has then explained as the answer to the question as to whether Maori ceded sovereignty.
Thus, the Select Committee hearings on his Bill are likely to open up the whole question of sovereignty, which is a potential flash point in the Crown-Maori relationship.
There is another dimension to the Treaty debate: the role of the Church.
Missionaries translated the original document into Te Reo and persuaded the Chiefs to sign.
But the missionary, William Colenso and the Catholic Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier, who sat alongside Captain William Hobson at the Treaty signing at Waitangi, are both on record as saying they believed that the Maori who signed the Treaty did not understand what they were signing.
This morning, 400 Church leaders from the mainstream Protestant and Catholic Churches in New Zealand issued a statement affirming the Church’s ongoing, “special, and historic relationship with Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which many Christians view as a sacred covenant.”
They argue that the Treaty Principles Bill “may destabilise and harm Aotearoa New Zealand.”
“We note with deep concern the harmful impacts the Bill may cause to Aotearoa New Zealand’s social cohesion.”
The letter calls on all MPs to oppose the Bill.
“We call on all Members of Parliament to do everything in their power to not take this Bill to Select Committee and to work towards the ongoing restoration of the Tiriti relationship,” their letter says.
The idea, among Christians, that the Treaty is a sacred covenant has been put forward recently in a series of meetings around the country by the theologian and historian Dr Alistair Reece,
Reese argues that we are at a decisive moment as a nation, “a crisis moment that calls for a wise response.”
“This is a season that is unfortunately characterised more by mana trampling than mana enhancement.
“It is time to honour the Treaty and unequivocally restore its mana.
“It is time to restore the mana of the Crown.
“It is also time to restore the mana of te iwi Maori and each of the signatories and witnesses to this sacred covenant, including those of the Church.
“It is not too late. We can return to the Treaty as a “sacred compact made in these waters [that] may be faithfully and honourably kept for all time to come”.
Reese was invited by National’s Maungakiekie MP, Greg Flemming, to come and present his views to a Select Committee.
However, POLITIK understands that may not now happen. This is another indication of the same nervousness within the Government about the whole debate that is evident in the delay in appointing a new CEO for TPK.
