Select Committee Treaty Principles Bill submissions hearings begin

The Treaty Principles Bill is an attempt to "oppress iwi Māori", according to a critic, while a supporter saw it an as attempt to ease New Zealanders' anxiety over the Treaty of Waitangi.

The sharply opposing views were expressed on the opening day of oral submissions at Parliament on Monday.

Opponents included Lady Tureiti Moxon who said the bill was designed to "subjugate, humiliate, assimilate, and oppress iwi Māori".

Other critics who expressed their views today included two former Treaty Negotiations Ministers and an iwi leader who said the bill has become an international embarrassment for the country.

Look back at some of today's submissions here:

Its architect, ACT leader David Seymour, defended it, tellling the select committee using race as a qualifer in society was the definition of racism, and should be expunged from our society.

He was backed by Curia Market Research manager David Farrar who said the status quo was leaving people uncertain over how interpretations of the Treaty impacted them.

Read more:

• Treaty Principles Bill: What you need to know
• Treaty referendum ruled out under Luxon's watch
• Watch: David Seymour delivers State of the Nation speech

Seymour 'immune to abuse'

Seymour said he has a "thick skin" and isn't concerned about the "name-calling and abuse" he might receive during oral submissions at Parliament this week.

He remains open to having his mind changed on some aspects of the legislation.

"No doubt there will be new ideas I haven't heard before, that's why I think it's a great day," he told reporters ahead of his submission to the justice select committee.

"What I'm interested to hear is can anyone actually tell people why New Zealand is better off divided into tangata whenua - land people - and tangata Tiriti - treaty people - and what societies have suceeded by dividing people by race and are better off for it?"

In his opening remarks Seymour told MPs he believed using race as a qualifer in society was the definition of racism, and should be expunged from our society.

"When you see people as a member of a group first and an individual second, you miss interesting things about them, you also open the door to dehumanising oppression."

Just this summer, he told MPs, a concert had ticket prices based on tangata whenua and tangata treaty, and some central and local government departments are also taking, what he calls, this divisive approach.

He remains optimistic that the bill will pass at some point in the future - all other political parties including ACT's coalition partners have already confirmed they will vote against the bill at its second reading.

"Sometimes it takes time for the idea of a free society to bed in, some resist that, but no doubt it's worth having the debate."

Lady Tureiti Moxon followed Seymour's submission, speaking as managing director of Te Kohao and chair of the National Urban Māori Authority.

She strongly rejected the bill, and said she did so alongside the 42,000 who marched to Parliament from across the country last year in opposition to the legislation.

"The Treaty is an agreement between iwi and the Crown to govern over our own - it is not one country one size fits all for everyone," she told MPs.

"Replacing the principles with notions of civil government, equality, and historic rights, is an attempt by this coalition to rewrite te Tiriti in favour of itself in order to retain power and control."

Lady Moxon said the bill is designed to "subjugate, humiliate, assimilate, and oppress iwi Māori".

"It's absurd to believe or think that at the time of the signing of the Treaty that approximately 200,000 Māori ceded our sovereignty to 2000 colonists from England."

Ngāti Toa Rangatira chief executive Helmut Modlik told MPs the bill makes a mockery of the Crown's apology and settlement with his iwi.

He said it misrepresents and undermines legitimate constitutional foundations.

"The Treaty Principles Bill before us today is in spirit and substance the antithesis of the mutual trust, and co-operation, and respect for te Tiriti o Waitangi so solemnly promised by the Crown, and also passed unanimously by this House to Ngāti Toa to restore its tarnished honour."

Modlik said the bill has become an international embarrassment for New Zealand.

Driving 'a wedge between Asian and Māori peoples'

Asians for Tino Rangatiratanga which is a national organisation of tauiwi (foreigner) from diverse backgrounds spoke about the "privilege" and "opportunity" to live in Aotearoa by virtue of Te Tiriti.

"We oppose this bill because it desecrates Te Tiriti, a sacred and generous agreement that allows immigration to these lands under the clear condition of protection and respect for tino rangatiratanga."

In reference to one of the proposed principles, they said the underlying agenda of the Bill "is far from equality", instead it was the "removal of barriers for corporate interests and extractive industries to further exploit Māori land".

The submitters also spoke of the "history of the Crown trying to put a wedge between Asian and Māori peoples".

"We see the continuation of these divisive strategies in the ways that multiculturalism is used to recruit Asians into a sinister anti-Māori agenda."

'Flawed'

Legal academic Carwyn Jones, of Ngāti Kahungunu, said the bill was "flawed in both process and substance."

It proposes to change the legal meaning and effect of a treaty without discussion with the other parties to that treaty.

Jones said the Minister was "fully aware the bill is a distortion of the Treaty" and that it will not achieve its stated purpose.

"It's shameful that Parliament and the legislative process has been used to try to give legitimacy to this made up version of what was agreed in Te Tiriti and to mislead the New Zealand public in this way."

Given the Bill seems certain not to pass, he said, the whole exercise was a "collosal waste of time and resources" - not just Ministers, MPs and officials, but also the hundreds of thousands of people who submitted on the Bill.

Jones claimed the Bill would create "signigicant and costly uncertainty" about the application of the principles of the Treaty where there is currently "significant certainty."

He said the proposed principles are completely "detached from reality."

A private collector of Treaty of Waitangi documents, Spencer Scoular, submitted against the bill.

He presented a range of archival documents, posing there "may not have been an agreement" between the two signatories of the Treaty.

He referenced the Waitangi Tribunal's acknowledgment that Māori did not cede sovereignty.

"There's a clear difference between what each party expected out of it."

Bill misconceived, ex-Minister says

Two former Treaty Negotiations Ministers also spoke in opposition to the bill.

Submitting on behalf of the New Zealand Bar Association, Chris Finlayson said the bill was misconceived, and endeavoured to raise a number of principles that did not reflect the relationship of the Treaty between the Crown and tangata whenua.

He argued the Treaty stood apart from Parliamentary sovereignty, and there were "obvious limits" to what Parliament was capable of.

"Parliament can legislate to provide that the earth is flat, and so on. It doesn't make it flat. This is an issue where it is arguably beyond the competence of Parliament to start interfering with the Treaty, which was signed between the Crown and Māori in 1840," Finlayson said.

Another former minister, Andrew Little, said supporters and advocates for the bill had said it would rectify that there were not equal rights for all New Zealanders.

"Those comments imply or assume that rights are not presently equal, or are not equally enforced or upheld, and that the Treaty represents a source of inequality. That must be totally rejected," he said.

Little said correcting wrongs did not create inequality.

"To deny the ability to uphold the terms of the Treaty would itself be an act of inequality, and would make Treaty rights secondary or inferior to any other legal rights, and would therefore make Māori unequal before the law. To the extent this bill claims to address that, it is not addressing anything at all."

Little was reluctant to get into the politics of what had brought the legislation to the House, but rejected commentary that the debate was a waste of time.

"This is an important debate. What people say, and the collective understanding amongst the nation about the Treaty is I think going to be very important. This time will end up being an important touchstone in our nation-building journey."

Huge division in NZ not caused by bill - theFacts submission

Speaking in support of the bill, Curia Market Research manager David Farrar said the status quo was leaving people uncertain and anxious over how interpretations of the Treaty impacted them.

Farrar, who was submitting in a private capacity, said a Parliamentary definition of the principles would provide certainty to the public over how they were applied.

"Having Parliament come in and say 'we're defining or clarifying the Principles' is a good thing. Now, you can say 'let's leave it up to the courts.' But ultimately, these are political issues, they're not just judicial issues," he said.

Farrar suggested all political parties put forward principles they would like to see defined in legislation, to see if there was common ground.

"If we actually had the six Parliamentary parties come out with 'here's our interpretation of the Principles,' that would actually start the knowledge with both other MPs but also the wider public at understanding there are differences of views, and then being able to have those conversations about 'what does the historical record say, how does this reflect our values today?'"

A group called theFacts made a visual presentation outlining some polling conducted throughout the process.

Geoff Neal said "Māori/ treaty issues" were the fourth most important issue to New Zealanders, according to a Taxpayers Union/Curia poll.

Neal said that everyone agreed "we all want unity and prosperity for the whole country" and that the "huge" division in the country was not caused by the bill.

He argued that a lot of social division was caused by the Treaty.

"We also need politicians, media, academia to lead by example on terms like racism," he said.

Neal said a lot of polling used throughout the Treaty Principles Bill process had been politically biased.

"A lot of people who don't support the bill, it's got nothing to do with the wording, it's got to do with what they've been led to believe or how they feel about it," he said.

'Disinformation' claims

Rizwaana Latiff and Denis O'Reilly presented on behalf of Tangata Tiriti Aotearoa. Latiff said migrant communities were vulnerable to misinformation from people in power, "and that is exactly what is happening with this Bill."

She said the Bill distracted from the very real issues of "social and economic equality caused by colonisation, white supremacy, Islamaphobia, etc."

O'Reilly called on the committee to "kill this bill" but also to "dissipate the fog of disinformation that it has manifest."

He said Te Tiriti had been cynically cast as a device to privilege one set of New Zealanders, Māori. "The metrics across all dimensions of wellbeing in Aotearoa demonstrate what an absurd lie that this is."

The New Zealand Māori Council said it opposed the bill but welcomed the debate.

Sir Taihakurei Durie said the bill ignored 50 years of examination of cases that inform the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi by "well-qualified Māori and Pākehā of the Waitangi Tribunal."

He said the proposed principles did not reflect the purposes and intent of the Treaty. "There is an extraordinary ignorance in presuming otherwise."

Durie said if this Bill passed, he believed the New Zealand government would be the laughing stock of the Western world who understand how responsible states today seek to manage relationships with their indigenous peoples.

Electoral law expert barrister Graeme Edgeler said the bill created some legal ambiguities which would need to be addressed before it ever went to a referendum.

While the bill is not expected to pass its second reading, its original intention is to take the principles to a public referendum.

"We have no idea what the courts will actually do with this. This is very much a bill aimed at the courts, and telling them, when you're looking at those bits of law which have Treaty Principles sections, how should you apply them."

He said there currently is a sense of how the principles should be applied, but it's not clear how that would change due to the bill.

Edgeler told the committee if the bill was about greater protection of property rights or equal protection, they could be put into other laws instead so the context in which it is used is better understood by the courts.

"Equality before the law, equal protection, the other principles that we describe here - I would have said, if they're important, they are important all the time. Not just the twenty or thirty bits of law that have a treaty principles section."

One young submitter said the Bill wants young Māori to put their status as New Zealanders ahead of their Māori identity.

Te Kanawa Wilson who is 16 - speaking in te reo - asked that it be struck down.

The Treaty protected Māori rights to self-determination and to practise their culture freely, he said.

"Taku āwangawanga nui ki tēnei pire i pīrangitia ana kia tū ai au hei New Zealander tēnā i tētahi uri o ngā iwi me ngā hapū."

"My biggest concern about this Bill is that it wants me to be a New Zealander above my identity as a descendant of iwi and hapū."

Wilson pointed to the Whanganui River being recognised as a legal person as a good example of the benefits of partnership between the Crown and Māori.

Hobson's Pledge

Lobby group Hobson's Pledge said it agreed with the first and third principles of the bill, but not the second.

Trustee and civil litigator Thomas Newman told the committee that sovereignty was derived from the people who are governed, and those people had elected Parliament through free and fair elections.

"Laws must be made by the sovereign entity. Sovereignty must be unified, and laws applied equally to every person within a jurisdiction, otherwise they are not laws. The fact is, this Parliament is the sole sovereign of these lands. There is no other serious contender for sovereignty in New Zealand," he said.

On the third principle, Newman said equality was essential for a just and harmonious society.

"Free and equal people, in a democratic society, are allowed to be different, to value different things, and to lead different lives. Understanding this should deal with much of the fear that people have about what the passage of this bill would mean," he said.

However, Hobson's Pledge said the second principle in the bill was "critically flawed" and could come into conflict with the other two principles.

"That's effectively saying New Zealand will treat people equally, but not really. That is not equality," said trustee Eliot Ikilei.

He said specific mention of iwi and hapū be removed from the bill, returning the wording to its original draft form.

Ahead of its submission, Hobson's Pledge emailed supporters alleging it had not been given a slot to speak on the bill, and had been forbidden from swapping its slot with another group, Democracy Action.

Ikilei raised it again at the start of the submission, saying Democracy Action had given up its slot so Hobson's Pledge could speak.

Committee chair James Meager told Ikilei this was not the case.

"Hobson's Pledge was invited in the first emails that went out to make a submission, and unfortunately they weren't able to respond by the deadline, and so those slots were filled up by those who did respond in time," he said.

In a follow-up statement to RNZ, however, Meager clarified "Hobson's Pledge did respond before the deadline, but by then all of the available slots had been allocated.

"I apologise for the misunderstanding of the misunderstanding. I thank Hobson's Pledge for providing their submission and I look forward to hearing from many more submissions over the coming weeks," he said.

'Not practical' to hear all oral submissions requested

The committee is set to listen to 80 hours of submissions in total after the Bill received an unprecedented number of written submissions.

The Justice Committee chair said the Treaty Principles Bill select committee process is "unusual, but still business as usual."

Meager also acknowledged it was "just not practical" to be able to listen to everyone who wanted to make an oral submission, despite receiving thousands of requests.

Seymour was the first to make an oral submission in addition to the time allocated to submitters. It was rare for a minister to submit on their own Bill, but Standing Orders allowed for ministers to take part in the select committee process.

Recent practice, according to the Department for the Prime Minister and Cabinet, had been for a minister to be available to a select committee to "explain the considerations underlying a government bill and to otherwise facilitate the select committee's consideration of the bill."

A spokesperson for the ACT party said the minister was invited by the committee to make an oral submission.

RNZ understands there were at least 15,000 requests by submitters to make an oral submission, with the total number still being processed.

Meager said he didn't know the latest figures when it came to the number of people who wanted to submit orally, but "if they are ballpark accurate - if you did the maths on those hours", he said it would be something like "54 days of straight, 24 hour worth of hearings".

"Now that's just not practical and not feasible."

Meager said the committee had worked to ensure there was a broad range of views heard in the first sessions.

Every political party representative on the committee was able to put forward submitters they knew had made submissions, or whose submissions had been processed.

"They are a range of individuals and organisations from different backgrounds, a focus on youth, a focus on academics, a focus on individual submitters who don't come from those backgrounds and who have made their views heard."

He acknowledged not everyone would be able to have their say, but all written submissions were "read by someone at some point - by an official or a staffer - and all those views are taken into account".

In every Parliament and with every Bill considered, Meager explained, there was a "balance" between allowing every single person to have their say and letting Parliament "do its job".

"Which is to consider information and evidence which is relevant to the proceedings, and to use that to work into what they do with the Bill at the end of it.

"Traditionally, the select committee is intended to assist legislators to scrutinise the legislation and to shape legislation."

He acknowledged the process had "kind of evolved" into an opportunity for advocacy campaigns and submission campaigns.

Additional reporting by Giles Dexter and Pokere Paewai.