Top 10 “NZ Politics Daily” stories today
Below are some of the more interesting and insightful New Zealand politics items from the weekend and this morning.
1) When it comes to the most controversial issue of the year – the Act Party’s proposed Treaty Principles Referendum – the Government’s Maori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced to RNZ yesterday that National would not support it. The National Party had previously only promised that it would support Act’s bill to the select committee stage, but not necessarily any further. Now, according to Potaka, it will be blocked from going any further to a referendum. Potaka said bluntly: “We will not be supporting a referendum”. He also said: “A treaty principles bill that looks for a referendum we think is unhelpful and divisive, and we have no commitment or intention to support it”. For the best analysis of this today, see Richard Harman’s Hobson’s choice; the Treaty or Act (paywalled)
Harman outlines Act’s orientation: “ACT is going on a limb over its view that the Treaty is of decreasing relevance to New Zealand society. ACT leader David Seymour will get some support for that view, for example, from the ethnologist Anne Salmond, who has argued that Lord Robin Cooke’s 1987 Appeal Court decision declaring the Treaty had defined a partnership was incorrect. But Seymour extended from that to question the overall role of the Treaty… Seymour said New Zealand society needed to stop “framing everything as being a binary racial relationship.”
Act’s Treaty principles bill will likely go to the Justice select committee, dominated by National, which Harman says could “effectively hijack the Bill, draft a set of Treaty principles and omit the referendum.” This is something that NZ First is likely to support too – as Harman reports “there is a view within New Zealand First that the Government needs to spell out the limits to the application of the Treaty.” The other option is that the select committee simply recommends that the bill doesn’t proceed, and that will be the end of it.
2) Media reporting on the proposal to establish what the Principles of the Treaty are has been severely inadequate according to journalist Graham Adams. He concisely explains the point of David Seymour’s proposal: “the actual point of a Treaty Principles Bill — which is for Parliament to finally get around to codifying the principles. That task has hitherto been left to the courts and Seymour thinks it is Parliament’s rightful role, and one that should not be usurped by ‘activist judges’” – see: Treaty referendum continues to alarm media
Adams also thinks the media’s negative reporting on the proposal is out of sync with the public, given that surveys show popular support for such a referendum: “After all, a Curia poll in October showed 45 per cent support for holding a referendum, while one published by Stuff in mid-September showed 48 per cent agreed: ‘There should be a referendum on Māori co-governance, to end the confusion and let every New Zealander have a say.’ Only 17 per cent opposed the suggestion and 34 per cent were neutral.”
3) The New Zealand public’s support for a “wholesale revision of the meaning of te Tiriti” is based, according to Chris Trotter, on the notion that the Treaty was “a simple treaty of cession”, and therefore the two sides are not equal partners with an equal say on governing the country. However, the increasingly popular idea of “partnership” amongst te iwi Māori is based on overturning that notion, and asserting instead that “Māori never ceded sovereignty” – see: By the time we got to Turangawaewae
4) National’s Tama Potaka is calling for more debate on these issues. But Treaty lawyer Dayle Takitimu told RNZ yesterday that these issues aren’t up for debate or negotiation, and called for education instead – see RNZ’s Dayle Takitimu: Clarification, not debate, needed on Treaty
The article reports Takitimu saying that there is no legal basis for a debate and the country is “not ready for a debate”. She says: “And we've seen that even by the voting in of this government, on the back of very racist election promises.”
5) There is a lack of debate or consultation on some name changes occurring in Auckland, according to economic historian Keith Rankin. He favours all sorts of name changes, especially bringing in more te reo Māori, but complains that much of it doesn’t make sense – such as the largely-unannounced change of name of the downtown train station from “Britomart” to “Waitematā” – see: On Communication Studies: Keeping the Public in the Loop
6) The Commerce Commission has started investigating the two big supermarket chains for alleged breaches of the Fair Trading Act, following on from Consumer NZ alleging that “supermarkets were engaging in misleading pricing, charging more than advertised and had misleading specials and promotional practices” – see Rebecca Stevenson’s BusinessDesk article, ComCom opens fair trading probe into Woolworths, Foodstuffs (paywalled)
This article explains that “Consumer NZ collected more than 600 consumer complaints about supermarkets as part of its campaign to “end dodgy specials” at the supermarket. The consumer group said its evidence included 50 examples of misleading pricing including 18 instances of people being charged more than the advertised price, 11 misleading multi-buys, and 21 specials that were not special. There were also 30 instances of other potentially misleading pricing and promotional practices, it said.”
The Government is lending weight to the Commerce Commission’s investigation, with Commerce Minister Andrew Bayly told BusinessDesk that “he wants the commission to be brave and take on well-resourced large players such as the supermarket duopoly and fully use the tools in its regulatory arsenal including prosecutions.” He’s quoted saying: “I've been very encouraging to the Commerce Commission to use its full powers, and they have a litigation fund and I've said to [Commerce Commission chair John Small], I want to make sure that it's fully used.”
7) The Government looks set to continue Jacinda Ardern’s role as special envoy with the Christchurch Call. Stuff’s Aaron Dahmen reports today that the role created for the former PM by Chris Hipkins, is likely to be ongoing, with Ardern meeting Christopher Luxon about it before Christmas. Although Ardern isn’t being paid, funding is provided for her role at “between $450,000 and $500,000 per year” – see: Chris Luxon meets Jacinda Ardern over special envoy job
8) Cabinet meets today for the first time this year, and Derek Cheng goes through the major challenges facing the coalition in 2024 – see: Key political battleground issues for 2024, as Cabinet meeting looms (paywalled)
Here’s Cheng’s list of the major issues for the Government to navigate: Treaty of Waitangi/Crown-Māori relations; Cost of living, tax cuts, inflation; Education; Law and order/Health; The issues behind the falling axes; How the three-party Government gets along.
9) Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan says today that the new Government is starting off the year under negative news: “We've got Ratana on Wednesday, Waitangi Day in a couple of weeks, that's a run of stories about how grumpy the coalition Government is making some Māori… Basically, they want to be able to set the tone and have it be a positive one, rather than have it set for them on day one with a negative tone” – see: A tough start to the year for the new Government
She says that things are going to be tough this year for the new administration: “David Seymour is planning to introduce that Treaty Principles bill by May this year, that's gonna get hairy. The media are quite hostile to the new Government, and apparently so is the Wellington Public Service, judging by yet another leak of a justice paper about the Treaty Principles bill.”
10) Looking at the increasingly turbulent geopolitical world, law lecturer Alexander Gillespie proposes that New Zealand has a defence policy that runs a middle ground somewhere between the hawks and doves – more military spending and more defence alliances with the West, but not too slavishly following the dictates of the United States – see: From the Middle East to the South China Sea: NZ’s new government inherits a defence dilemma
Dr Bryce Edwards
Political Analyst in Residence, Democracy Project, School of Government, Victoria University of Wellington
NZ Politics Daily - 23 January 2024
TREATY PRINCIPLES BILL, HUI FOR NATIONAL UNITY, RĀTANA
Richard Harman (Politik): Hobson’s choice; the Treaty or ACT (paywalled)
Graham Adams (The Platform): Treaty referendum continues to alarm media
RNZ: Treaty Principles bill ‘unhelpful and divisive’ - Tama Potaka
RNZ: Nicola Willis: Govt 'committed to relationship that Treaty of Waitangi promises'
RNZ: Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership a 'misinterpretation', David Seymour believes
RNZ: Dayle Takitimu: Clarification, not debate, needed on Treaty
Katie Harris (Herald): The Front Page: Treaty Principles Bill: Margaret Mutu says bill ‘completely opposite’ to what Te Tiriti guarantees
Peter Cresswell: Fisking the Treaty Principles debate
Chris Trotter (Interest): Saturday's Hui was an impressive demonstration of the power of te iwi Māori
Rob Campbell (Herald): Ngati Pākeha need to listen to tangata whenua on Māori issues
Eva Corlett (Guardian): Thousands of Māori gather to tell New Zealand’s government: you cannot marginalise us
Tameem Shaltoni (Whakaata Māori): Opinion: A Palestinian at Tūrangawaewae
Alakihihifo Vailala (Whakaata Māori): Former minister calling for more action from Pacific community
1News: Why Rātana is an important date on the political calendar
Merewai Durutalo (Whakaata Māori): Second important Māori event of the year attracts thousands of mōrehu to Rātana
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