Mike Butler: State racism, dysfunction exposed

ACT leader David Seymour has done New Zealand a huge favour through his Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill – he has exposed the racial divide that has been created by successive governments.

The debate and referendum that Seymour courageously pushed for should have taken place decades ago, before former Justice Minister Geoffrey Palmer launched the treaty settlement never-ending story that has apparently not settled anything.

Patch protection, seen during hysterical outcry, by the Maori Party, the Waitangi Tribunal, Labour MP Willie Jackson (who won’t resile from calling Seymour a liar), self-promoting academics like Dame Anne Salmond, activist lawyers like Christopher Finlayson, plus aggression by “rangatahi” radicalised through the separate Maori school system, has given three million voters sufficient evidence to back:

• Removal of the Maori seats and roll,

• Dismantling of the Waitangi Tribunal,

• Disestablishment of the Whanau Ora welfare trough,

• The abolition of separate Maori schools that radicalise children.

• The requirement of professional standards in the legal and academic professions that separate law from activism.

Thursday, April 10, 2025, the day the bill was voted down at the end of its second reading, was a day of shame for Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and for the 112 MPs who voted against the bill.

But it was a day of glory for the 11 ACT MPs who held the line in the face of persistent racist abuse by their peers in Parliament.

What are the treaty principles that some say don’t exist?

The first recorded utterance of the phrase “treaty principles” was by Maori Affairs Minister Matiu Rata in his introduction to the Treaty of Waitangi Bill in 1974.

Parliament never defined what those principles were. Various lists of such principles have appeared with the first legal attempt being in the judgement titled New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney General 1987.

Today, numerous “treaty principles” lists exist, created by numerous entities each with a self-serving purpose.

One would think time had come for Parliament to tidy up some unfinished business and the tidy-minded ACT leader David Seymour took on the task.

No doubt he expected opposition, but the furore that resulted gave the appearance that the end of existence as we know it was planned and extreme action was necessary to prevent that happening.

So what have we learned? We learned that:

• Luxon will cave into bullying by tribal radicals. He unashamedly said that he would spike the bill at the second reading, which he did.

• NZ First Party leader Winston Peters would refuse to back the bill, cementing his reputation for campaigning for the one-law-for-all vote for numerous elections while achieving little on the issue when he gets into Parliament.

• Maori Party MPs appear unable to engage with the debate and policy making required of MPs, instead using song and dance, happy to receive the pay while unwilling to follow the rules.

• Justice committee chair James Meager thought it was OK to report that of the 307,000 submissions, around 8 percent supported the bill, while 90 percent opposed it, without saying that the 55,000 submissions (17 percent of the total) collated by Hobson’s Pledge and ACT were treated as two submissions. The fact that the official submission template which did not require proof of identity opened the way for multiple fraudulent submissions.

• Vehement hostility by the 112 MPs who voted against the bill show they impose their views without regard to the people they represent and remain out of step with public opinion.

• The media amplifies hostility with biased and naïve reporting in newspapers, and on radio and television.

Was the extent of the protest against the bill comparable to the anti-tour protests in 1981? Perhaps. I was out of the country at the time so did not witness it directly.

Ironically, the 1981 protest was against racism, in the form of apartheid, while this year’s protest was for racism, in the form of government requirements for all citizens to tick a race box to receive healthcare, education, housing, and money.

Seymour sees us at a critical point where we must decide whether New Zealand progresses as unified nation with equal citizenship and confirmed property rights, or whether we decline as a quaint “ethno-nationalist” state with dual administrations, one for Maori and one for everyone else.

Contrary to what Luxon, Peters, the Maori Party, and Meager, appear to think, a referendum is the only way for the to achieve a clear mandate for any contentious policy, such as special rights for Maoris.

Despite widespread claims that New Zealanders oppose the Treaty Principles Bill, detailed analysis from theFacts.nz , published yesterday, suggests the opposite: robust polling consistently shows that more than two to one Kiwis support the legislation, despite 90 percent of public submissions opposing it, and most media have failed to explain the gap.

The fevered attempt to kill the bill suggests opponents are terrified of a referendum because they know they would lose, probably with a hefty majority against them.

Now that round one of a treaty principles bill is at an end, Seymour is preparing for round two, which looks likely to be part of next year’s campaign for the general election.

I suggest that he drops the second clause in Mark 1 of the bill, which refers to treaty settlements, and return to his earlier version, which said:

Article 1: kawanatanga katoa o o ratou whenua The New Zealand Government has the right to govern all New Zealanders.

Article 2: ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani te tino rangatiratanga o o ratou whenua o ratou kainga me o ratou taonga katoa The New Zealand Government will honour all New Zealanders in the chieftainship of their land and all their property

Article 3: a ratou nga tikanga katoa rite tahi All New Zealanders are equal under the law with the same rights and duties.

As for the six additional reforms I mentioned above:

• Maori seats should go because the reason to have them disappeared in 1893, when all adults, both men and women, gained the right to vote.

• The Waitangi Tribunal should go because it ceased to function as the impartial body around 35 years ago, when it started to uphold invalid land claims by Maori.

• Whanau Ora welfare should end because it started out as a sop to the Maori Party, because it never could provide a sound reason for the around $180-million funding it receives each year, and has predictably morphed into a trough that enables providers that include Willie Jackson’s Manukau Maori Urban Authority and John Tamihere’s Waipareira Trust to fund political activism.

• The separate Maori school system should go because it appears to function like a network of Maori madrassas preaching race hate. Maori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi is one such product.

• Professional standards at universities and in the legal system, that require academics and lawyers to separate their professional work from their sincerely held racist beliefs, should go without saying. Such standards have long gone. It's time to bring them back.

To be clear, Seymour didn’t create the race divide. He exposed something that had been created long ago, through short-sighted and inept policy making by successive governments. Now is the time for a courageous government to fix it.