NZ Politics Daily – 7 February 2024
Top “NZ Politics Daily” stories today
Below are some of the more interesting and insightful New Zealand politics items from the last two days.
1) There are two very different evaluations being made about Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s performance at Waitangi this year. Most of the media are criticising a bland speech by the PM, which focused on the economy, education, and the environment instead of the Act Party’s controversial Treaty Principles Bill. But some are arguing that Luxon managed to defuse the growing hostilities over race relations and Treaty politics. This is the suggestion in today’s Herald editorial: The theatre of Waitangi was wonderful – now the hard work begins for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon (paywalled)
The newspaper refers to the PM’s surprising call to organisers to allow protesters to come right up to the Waitangi Day speeches from the government politicians: “the Prime Minister’s call to allow everyone on to the main Treaty grounds was outstanding leadership and gave everyone who attended mana. The protesters would not dare play up or embarrass iwi leaders, Māoridom’s hierarchy, or their kaumatua. For years protesters were halted at the thin blue line of police, prevented from crossing the bridge to Waitangi, and excluded from having a voice at the government pōwhiri.”
So, overall, Luxon is credited with reducing tensions at what could have been an explosive event: “Prime Minister Christopher Luxon must be congratulated for defusing what could have been a potential Waitangi whipping by attending Rātana and also meeting with the iwi leaders before fronting up to lead the Government on to the top marae. Luxon has for the past fortnight talked to Māori, and though some might not like what he has to say, Māori at least respect the fact he fronts up and non-Maori appreciate that he dampened down a political powder keg.”
The newspaper also makes the interesting point that although Luxon must continue to build the Government’s relationship with Maori, he needs to branch out to those that are normally forgotten in the big debates about the Treaty: “Luxon and his ministers must work to develop and maintain relationships with Māori – not just iwi but with urban Māori, who number in the hundreds of thousands. Around 20 per cent of Māori are iwi-connected, while 80 per cent are still struggling to be connected to their whakapapa.”
2) For the best account of how Luxon’s boring Waitangi Day speech was politically clever, or cynical, in its attempt to dampen down racial tensions, see Herald columnist Simon Wilson’s report, Christopher Luxon’s outrageous Waitangi speech (paywalled)
Wilson explains that Luxon is trying to shift the debate back from race to his Government’s more substantial programme of reform: “his message could not have been clearer. We do not want to talk about the Treaty of Waitangi, and we do not want to talk about te reo. So we’re not going to. Christopher Luxon didn’t use those words. But he made himself plain by barely mentioning either of the flashpoint topics of the Waitangi commemorations. He would rather talk about growing the economy, because he believes that will benefit Māori. And he would rather talk about education and housing, because he believes making them better will benefit Māori too. So that’s what he did.”
According to Wilson, Luxon is regretting that the debate over the Act Party’s Treaty Principles Bill has escalated so much and would like to kill it all off, and is now making it clearer that National ultimately won’t allow the bill to survive. And his speech was an attempt to calm things down: “The hopeful way to look at the speech is that Luxon was signalling he will now shut down attempts by Act, NZ First and some of his own ministers to inflame the issues.”
3) Newsroom’s Jo Moir confirms in her Waitangi report that it was Luxon who encouraged the Waitangi Day event to include protesters in the proceedings. She says: “Possibly the most surprising element was the evolution of tikanga at the pōwhiri and changes made by the Waitangi organisers to allow the hikoi and protests to be heard and responded to by the politicians” – see: All voices welcomed by Luxon, but did he hear them?
Moir explains the changing protocols: “That progress was evident when the Māori wardens, who had stood as a human chain with their hands linked, parted to allow protesters to walk on to the paepae and make their upset and anger known through both haka and words. It wasn’t Ngāpuhi who said to let them through, it was a gesture from the Prime Minister that he was happy to receive the confrontation. Luxon’s words certainly rang hollow for many in Waitangi, but he did at least ensure everyone else had their say.”
4) National MP Dan Bidois, who chairs the Māori Affairs committee, has confirmed that Luxon deliberately chose not to speak about the debate over Act’s Treaty Principles Bill. Reporting on an interview with Bidois, Jo Moir says that “the Prime Minister deliberately tried to take the emotion out of his reply to Māori gathered at Waitangi, in direct contrast to the speeches from his coalition partners” – see: PM got ‘off the dance floor out of the noise’
According to Bidois, National is frustrated that the country’s focus is now on constitutional debates, and instead wants to move to the practicalities of improving Māori lives: “We want to talk about, how do we advance Māori in education, the Māori economy, and how do we get better outcomes in Māori health and in our justice system?”
5) Journalists expecting that Luxon would provide something more enlightening on Treaty issues, or at least some fireworks, were highly disappointed. This is best characterised by the Spinoff’s editor Madeleine Chapman, who said Luxon “delivered a speech that well and truly killed the energy of the day”, but she admits that “maybe that was his intention all along” – see: Christopher Luxon’s Waitangi speech was so boring it became insulting
6) With the Waitangi being in Ngāpuhi territory, Stuff’s Glenn McConnell points out that the new Government has a special relationship with the iwi – as the coalition has “six Ngāpuhi ministers”. And one of these, Shane Jones, says he’s going to be a mediator between the government and iwi: “I'm going to take a big role in helping to navigate the Treaty Principles”. Similarly, McConnell points to Māori Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka as another important mediator in negotiations and tensions – see: What about the Treaty? No resolution at Waitangi, but mediators emerge
7) The Government’s day at Waitangi wasn’t all boring or highly restrained – the involvement of Winston Peters and David Seymour saw to that. And for the best account of their combative speeches and crowd reactions see Tova O'Brien’s Government shows how it will work after its greatest test so far at Waitangi
8) Labour politicians were also rather combative at Waitangi this year, with MPs such as Peeni Henare escalating their words of war against the National-led Government, saying: “This fight [against the new government] will not be fought just in Parliament. I lift my gun, and I let the shots do the talking.” Henare got some heat on this for this, but rightwing commentator Matthew Hooton has come to his defence, saying what Henare said was only akin to the metaphorical flourishings of David Seymour’s quip about the need for Guy Fawkes to deal with growing bureaucracy in government agencies – see: In defence of David Seymour and Peeni Henare (paywalled)
Hooton says that it was the tribal left that was offended by Seymour but not by Henare, and likewise the tribal right is offended by Henare, but not by Seymour’s remarks: “the political right has gone all woke and pearl-clutching, including Seymour, while the left says it’s all fine, just being a rhetorical flourish. Could we just have a bit of balance and consistently across the factions please, just for once? There is nothing wrong with either comment, in the context in which it was made. In fact, how refreshing it is to see some passionate rhetorical flourishes instead of the bland bureaucratic bullshit like ‘enhancing outcomes’ that has come to dominate so much of our discourse. Military metaphor is hardly a new thing.”
9) Māori commentator Haimona Gray has given a scathing review of both Henare’s performance at Waitangi, as well as his general political career so far. Gray argues that we are currently seeing an opportunistic reinvention of Henare as a radical that belies the politician’s mediocre history: “for a decade Henare has only been trusted with minor Cabinet roles, lacking the talent and vision to lead from the front. His reputation around Parliament is that he would be the last person to let his figurative gun do the talking. ‘A space filler,’ was a description of him given to me by a senior Labour Party staffer. ‘Lucky to be there,’ was another. He is non-threatening, uninspiring, exactly what you would expect of someone who earned his place in politics through whakapapa, not hard mahi. A smiley young dad from a privileged background, destined from birth to be the next Henare to hold the old Northern Māori seat. Henare’s greatest asset as a political candidate, beyond his famous whakapapa, is that he's generally a more moderate voice in Labour’s Māori caucus” – see: The Henares, Waitangi and the sheep dressed as wolves (paywalled)
Gray argues that Henare is only now taking up a more radical pose because, after losing his electorate seat last year to Te Pati Māori, his career is threatened: “Instead of bowing out semi-gracefully, it appears Henare has taken to the old adage ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ and is reinventing himself. He’s been reborn, as a Hone Harawira/John Tamihere ‘shoot from the hip’ reactionary. This new firebrand persona contrasts dramatically with Henare’s actual life and experiences”.
Similarly, he also argues that the current debates on race relations are somewhat inauthentic: “Journalists and pundits have been uncritically running this narrative that we are a nation facing a dangerous or revolutionary threat since the election - describing the relationship the new coalition Government seeks to have with Māori as tense and somehow already broken… Telling these narratives where we Māori are facing, in this government, an existential threat that requires an almost revolutionary response, only benefits the people who are promoting it.”
Gray paints a more prosaic picture of what has occurred: “The removal of the previous Government's policies, by a government elected on a campaign of promising to do just that, is not a shocking or violent experience. We are not facing a hollowing out of our institutions or erosion of our safety, just a different guy named Chris being in charge. What we have is a coalition government that united just enough of the nation behind its policies to create a government, and some people who benefitted from the largesse of the last government throwing their rather flash toys and using the language of the violently oppressed.”
10) For another interesting and thoughtful perspective on Act’s Treaty Principles Bill and the debate about the evolving interpretation of the Treaty, see Tim Watkin’s Let's Put Down Our Chisels And Let Te Tiriti O Waitangi Evolve
Watkin draws some interesting parallels with debates in the US about that country’s constitution, and especially the right to bear arms: “The United States has fallen into this certainty trap, casting its constitution not as an effort to make rules for a government in a certain place and time, but as something sacred and non-negotiable. Something inviolate and holy.”
11) Former Act Party leader Richard Prebble explains today why he doesn’t support his party’s Treaty Principles Bill, mostly because it’s a “diversion” from bigger issues and that it could have all sorts of unintended legal consequences – see: The problems with David Seymour’s Treaty principles bill (paywalled)
Prebble advocates achieving Seymour’s objectives by strengthening the Bill of Rights: “One solution is not to try to define the Treaty principles but to strengthen the Bill of Rights making it clear that there is only one class of citizen. Our Bill of Rights is weak and should be strengthened. Weak as it is the Bill of Rights has already delivered a significant defeat to co-government. My local council embraced co-governance and enacted Māori wards before realising it was likely to reduce the number of Māori councillors. It has. The Rotorua Council’s solution was to promote a local bill to make a vote in a Māori ward worth more. The attorney-general ruled the bill was contrary to the Bill of Rights that says we have ‘equal suffrage’.”
12) We are having a much bigger debate now on treaty and race relations, but a recent public survey shows that people don’t know who to trust for information about this crucial area. The Human Rights Commission got Horizon Research to ask about 1000 people to select from a list the various institutions that they trusted to “to provide accurate information about the Treaty/Te Tiriti” - but no one source was picked by a majority of respondents. What is particularly interesting is that only 6% said the media was a trusted source of such information, which was only slightly more than that of “social media”, but more than political parties – see: The Facts: No organisation trusted by 50% of Kiwis on Treaty information
Dr Bryce Edwards
Political Analyst in Residence, Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington
NZ Politics Daily – 7 February 2024
WAITANGI
Madeleine Chapman (Spinoff): Christopher Luxon’s Waitangi speech was so boring it became insulting
Felix Desmarais (1News): Govt felt the power of Māori at Waitangi
Simon Wilson (Herald): Christopher Luxon’s outrageous Waitangi speech (paywalled)
Amelia Wade (Newshub): Waitangi: Christopher Luxon asked if he copied and pasted speech from last year, dodges Newshub questions
Newshub: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says similarities in his Waitangi speech 'very deliberate', will do it again next year
Herald: PM Christopher Luxon doubles down after criticism for copying Waitangi speeches year-on-year
Herald: How similar are Christopher Luxon’s 2023 v 2024 Waitangi speeches? Sections copied word for word
Jo Moir (Newsroom): All voices welcomed by Luxon, but did he hear them?
Glenn McConnell (Stuff): What about the Treaty? No resolution at Waitangi, but mediators emerge
Tova O’Brien (Stuff): Government shows how it will work after its greatest test so far at Waitangi
Haimona Gray (Newstalk ZB): The Henares, Waitangi and the sheep dressed as wolves (paywalled)
RNZ: Treaty referendum among issues raised with government at Waitangi
Jo Moir (Newsroom): PM got ‘off the dance floor out of the noise’
1News: Minister on Crown-Māori relations: 'A bit like my marriage'
Michael Cugley (Whakaata Māori): Māori development minister says government is for Māori
Jenna Lynch and Melania Watson (Newshub): Ups, downs and best bits of Government's visit to Te Whare Rūnanga
Herald Editorial: The theatre of Waitangi was wonderful - now the hard work begins for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
Simon Wilson (Herald): This is us (paywalled)
John Campbell (1News): I've been to Waitangi countless times - this time was different
Grant Duncan: Luxon's Waitangi Speech: Would a robot do better?
Dan Brunskill (Interest): Luxon steers clear of talking about the Treaty at Waitangi welcome
Eva Corlett (Guardian): Amid jeers and boos, strained Māori relations with government dominate national holiday
Pokere Paewai (RNZ): Thousands stand in unity to challenge government on Treaty principles
RNZ: Government denies it's 'delegitimising' Māori, blames previous government
Karina Cooper and Denise Piper (Northern Advocate): Waitangi Day: Kiwis encouraged to better understand the Treaty
RNZ: All the speeches and action from the Treaty Grounds on 5 February
RNZ: Watch government leaders speak at the Treaty Grounds
1News: Full video: Luxon, Seymour speak after Waitangi welcome
Melania Watson (Newshub): Prime Minister Christopher Luxon addresses crowd at Waitangi
1News: Watch: Crowd chant 'e noho' during fiery Winston Peters speech
Newshub: Winston Peters hits back at crowd after being booed through speech
1News: Full video: Government welcomed to Waitangi Treaty Grounds
RNZ: In pictures: Events at Waitangi on Monday 5 February 2024
Ripu Bhatia (Stuff): In pictures: Stunning photos capture lead up to historic Waitangi Day
Karanama Ruru (Stuff): Ngā Tamatoa return to Waitangi, older and wiser
Michael Cugley (Whakaata Māori): Tame Iti welcomed back to Waitangi
Mike McRoberts (Newshub): Māori activist Tāme Iti calls on rangatahi to have a say in Waitangi protest
1News: Waitangi: Hundreds arrive on Tāme Iti-led hīkoi
Pokere Paewai (RNZ): Tame Iti brings Haki Ātea to Waitangi
RNZ: 'Sustain this resistance': Waitangi activists urge momentum and unity
1News: NZ commemorates Waitangi Day amid treaty unease
Michael Cugley (Whakaata Māori): Waitangi theme developing - speakers want Treaty bill stopped before its first reading
Pokere Paewai and Shannon Haunui-Thompson, (RNZ): Waitangi Day 2024: Thousands of visitors, one clear message
Mike McRoberts (Newshub): Thousands take part in hīkoi against coalition Government's policies affecting Māori
Adam Dudding (Post): Of stolen trout and other strange tales from Waitangi (paywalled)
Adam Dudding (Post): At Waitangi, the shortest messages can be the most powerful (paywalled)
Eleisha Foon (RNZ): To honour the Treaty: Māori and Pacific people unite 'like the in-laws' to redefine New Zealand's multicultural future
Lydia Lewis (RNZ): 'Stand together to protect what we have': What Waitangi Day means for a Samoan Māori woman
James Nokise (Post): It can be messy and uncomfortable, but it’s a day that helps define us (paywalled)
Tim Hurdle (Post): A day to give thanks for our disagreements (paywalled)
RNZ: In pictures: Waitangi Day and dawn service, 2024
Newshub: Waitangi in pictures: Key moments captured at Treaty Grounds
1News: A look at how Waitangi Day was marked around the motu
Rachel Thomas (Post): Mayor promises to uphold te Tiriti as huge crowd gathers for Waitangi event (paywalled)
Post: In photos: How Wellington celebrated Waitangi Day
Post: How Waitangi Day evolved in the capital
ODT: Waitangi Day: Big turnout at Dunedin protest
TREATY OF WAITANGI, TREATY PRINCIPLES BILL
Danyl McLauchlan (Listener): Article of faith: Whose treaty is it anyway?
Tova O’Brien (Stuff): Kill the bill - Māori implore PM to stop Treaty Principles Bill in its tracks
Geoff Neal (The Facts): No org’ trusted by 50% of Kiwis on Treaty information (media & politicians <10%)
1News: Q+A: Lawyer: Principles already 'waters down actual text' of Treaty
1News: Waitangi: David Seymour explains stance on Treaty Principles Bill
1News: Q+A: Watch: The Principles - A Q+A Waitangi Day special
Tim Watkin (Pundit): Let's Put Down Our Chisels And Let Te Tiriti O Waitangi Evolve
Gordon Campbell: On tomorrow, and the spirit of Moana Jackson
Richard Harman (Politik): Now for the big Maori sovereignty debate (paywalled)
Richard Prebble (Herald): The problems with David Seymour’s Treaty principles bill (paywalled)
Muriel Newman (Newstalk ZB): Derailing the Treaty gravy train (paywalled)
Peter Cresswell (Newsroom): Waitangi: Ned’s ‘puzzling’ Treaty
Tim Selwyn (Daily Blog): Waitangi speeches, Treaty principles and where is Britain when you need her?
Andrew Little (Newsroom): No place for mischief over Treaty
Herald: The Front Page: Dame Claudia Orange on the evolutionary nature of Te Tiriti and her hopes for Waitangi
Mike Grimshaw (Plain Sight): Making sense of the Treaty: The new civil religion of Aotearoa New Zealand?
Philip Temple (ODT): Just what did the parties believe?
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