WELLINGTON, Sept 11 (Askume) – New Zealand said on Wednesday it would draft a bill aimed at reinterpreting the country’s founding agreement, while two of the three ruling parties said they did not expect the bill to become law.
In 1840, hundreds of Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the British Crown, which set out a set of mutually agreed principles on governance. Interpretation of these principles guides law and policy today, and the treaty underpins Māori’s claim to sovereignty.
Deputy Justice Minister David Seymour said cabinet had agreed on a draft Treaty Principles Bill that would redefine how the principles are viewed and would be introduced to parliament at the end of the year.
“The purpose of the Treaty Principles Bill is to enable Parliament to define treaty principles, provide certainty and clarity, and facilitate a national conversation about the place of these principles in our constitutional arrangements,” he said in a statement.
Seymour said the bill would include the principle that the New Zealand Government has full power to govern and legislate; it would recognise the rights of Aboriginal people and ensure equality before the law.
The legislation is the policy of Seymour’s New Zealand Action Party , which won 8.6% of the party vote at the 2023 election.
Coalition partners National and New Zealand First have both agreed to support the bill through one of the three readings of the coalition agreement. However, both parties have said they will not support the bill becoming law and opposition parties are also opposed to the bill, meaning there is little chance the bill will become law.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said at a press conference on Monday that his party’s position is that it will not support the bill after its first reading.
The law is controversial because many Maori and their supporters believe it infringes on the rights of the country’s indigenous people, who make up about 20 percent of the country’s 5.3 million people.
Māori culture and identity have been revived in recent decades, helped by policies aimed at correcting some of the wrongs of early colonial governments, but Māori remain socially and economically backward.
ACT and other groups have spoken out against “co-governance” or the sharing of certain management rights between the state and First Nations, arguing that policies designed specifically for the advancement of Māori could disadvantage non-indigenous citizens.
The coalition that came to power last year has begun dismantling the policies of the previous government , particularly those that promoted the official use of Māori and improved the quality of life and rights of indigenous people.
