Geoff Parker: Why Hipkins’ Treaty Romanticism Divides New Zealand

Chris Hipkins’ Waitangi Day sermon in the New Zealand Herald is a carefully constructed exercise in political reassurance: warm words, borrowed Māori concepts, and a curated sense of moral superiority. What it is not, however, is a serious account of how a modern liberal democracy actually holds together — or why New Zealand is becoming more fractured, not less.

Let’s start with the basics. The country is called New Zealand. It is a civic nation with a settled name. Prior to European contact there was no Māori concept of a single nation, and no name for the country as a whole. The name New Zealand dates back to 1643, when it was formally named Nieuw Zeelandt by the Dutch. It was later anglicised to New Zealand by the British, and has remained the country’s recognised name for nearly 380 years. “Aotearoa,” by contrast, is a modern substitute, absent from the Treaty of Waitangi itself.

Contrary to modern myth-making, the Treaty of Waitangi did not float through history as a “living document” for 135 years. For most of New Zealand’s existence it had served its purpose the moment it was signed: sovereignty was transferred to the Crown, Māori were granted the rights and protections of British subjects, and the country moved forward under a single system of law. The idea that the Treaty is an endlessly evolving constitutional instrument only emerged after 1975, driven NOT by necessity but by ideology.

Hipkins insists that Te Tiriti represents “partnership.” It does not — and cannot. It is constitutionally impossible for the Crown to be in a partnership with its own subjects. Article Three is unambiguous: Māori were granted the rights and privileges of British subjects, placing all citizens under the same political authority. Partnership language is a modern invention, retrofitted to justify ethnic power-sharing arrangements that were never agreed to and never put to voters.

This matters, because the ideology Hipkins promotes is not unifying — it is tribal. Tribalism is not merely cultural pride; it is a political worldview that divides people by ancestry, hierarchy, and inherited status. Tribalism often relies on defining an enemy. When no obvious external foe exists, one is frequently invented.

Today, that enemy is the ordinary New Zealander who believes in racial equality, ethical individualism, and one law for all. Those citizens are now routinely cast as reactionary, fearful, or morally suspect — simply for rejecting race-based governance. That is not unity. It is division by design.

Hipkins speaks glowingly of “shared values,” yet the framework he endorses fractures society into competing identities — even within Māori themselves. Tribal consciousness does not create solidarity; it creates rivalries, factions, and perpetual grievance. History is littered with examples of where that road leads.

His most revealing moment comes when he celebrates that his children can learn te reo Māori, sing waiata, and “better understand what makes our country unique,” adding that we’d be in a much better place if everyone did the same. That is not cultural inclusion — it is cultural imposition.

A far wiser approach was articulated by the late Dr Hage Geingob, former President of Namibia, who governed one of the most ethnically diverse countries on earth. His message was simple and stabilising:

Keep your culture, customs, and traditions in your home — but when you close the door behind you, realise you are a Namibian and follow the general Namibian culture.

That principle is not anti-culture. It is pro-nation.

Applied to New Zealand, the logic is obvious. Keep your culture, customs, and traditions in your own environment — at home, on the marae, in churches, cultural gatherings, and community life. But when you step into the public square, you are not Māori, Pākehā, Pasifika, or anything else. You are a New Zealander, equal under the law, subject to the same rules, and entitled to the same rights.

This is not optional idealism. It is a practical necessity. New Zealand now contains around 160 languages and cultural traditions in a country of just five million people. The only way a small nation survives that level of diversity is through a strong, neutral civic identity — not by elevating one culture into a political gatekeeper role.

New Zealanders do honour the Treaty — by respecting equal citizenship and the rule of law it established. What many increasingly reject is the demand to abandon liberal democracy in favour of race-based authority structures dressed up as “partnership” and “values.”

If Hipkins truly cared about unity, he would stop confusing cultural recognition with political power, and stop pretending that opposition to tribal governance is bigotry. Unity does not come from enforced reverence or ideological conformity. It comes from shared citizenship, shared law, and shared national loyalty — held by individuals, not groups

Until Labour understands that distinction, its talk of unity will continue to ring hollow — and New Zealand’s divisions will only deepen.

Geoff Parker is a long-standing advocate for truth, equal rights, and equality before the law.