Executive Summary
The 2026 election presents New Zealanders with a stark constitutional choice. For the first time in our history, voters must decide whether the country remains a Parliamentary democracy based on equal citizenship — or whether it will begin a transition towards a Treaty-based constitution that would replace democratic authority with tribal control.
The political parties are split into two clear blocs. National, ACT and New Zealand First support equal rights, Parliamentary sovereignty, and democratic accountability. They oppose co-governance, reject race-based public-service obligations, and want Treaty of Waitangi commitments confined to what Parliament has expressly enacted. Their policies would preserve a unified health system, a single justice system, elected local government, and democratic control over natural resources.
Labour, the Greens, the Maori Party, and the Opportunity Party support Treaty partnerships, co-governance, and constitutional transformation. They would progressively move the country toward Maori-led public services, stronger powers for the Waitangi Tribunal, expanded tikanga-based judicial authority, with some parties pushing hard for a new constitution based on the Treaty. Their policy direction aligns with Labour’s He Puapua agenda for tribal control by 2040 - and Matike Mai, a constitutional transformation model developed by Professor Margaret Mutu and the Iwi Chairs’ Forum, with dual government, shared sovereignty, Maori veto powers, and ultimately tribal control over government decision-making.
Most New Zealanders have never read these documents — and have no idea how far-reaching their proposals are. If New Zealand’s unwritten constitution were to be replaced with a new Treaty-based constitution, the unelected and unaccountable Judges of the Supreme Court would gain ultimate authority over our elected government, through the power to strike down as ‘unconstitutional’ any decision of Parliament they deemed insufficiently favourable to Maori. Judicial supremacy would displace parliamentary sovereignty, shifting the power to govern permanently away from voters.
This report summarises the party positions and exposes the constitutional danger posed by the radical left-wing bloc. The choice in 2026 is not simply political, it is constitutional — and it will determine whether New Zealand remains a Westminster democracy or whether it will eventually succumb to tribal rule...
To read the rest of the report - please visit the NZCPR website here:
https://www.nzcpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/NZCPR-Political-Party-Treaty-Policy-2026.pdf
3 comments:
NZCPR presents a clear summary. We do need ACT and NZF to keep National on track. National believe the Treaty is a partnership. This view will inevitably lead to further concessions. We have had enough concessions.
We now need to emulate other successful small countries. We have lost a huge amount of ground for such a previously " highly respected country".
There is a way forward, with tactical voting. It is already being adopted by the Left who will win the election unless the Right adopt the same tactic. All perfectly legal.
Greens and TPM voters support tribal rule, so do many Labour voters and of course TOP. But there are many Labour voters who are unaware of this issue, do not believe it (it is not covered thus by mainstream media and they do not read anything else and mistrust that as they have been told to do) or do not care as they are traditional voters for the Labour label and ''we've got to get rid of (expletive) tories''. For some it is just hip pocket; they have no time for anything else not do they care.
Thank you for the Party Policy document Dr Newman.
The problem is that sooner or later we will have a Leftist government. Our only hope is to reinstall a Right-wing government at this election to give us time to implement a permanent solution.
Here are a couple of points which may contribute to that solution:
First, make New Zealand constitutional legislation subject to referenda. It is undemocratic, for example, to legislate for a Treaty-based constitution without a mandate from ‘We the People’ to do so. Other countries use referenda this way.
Second, legislate to recognize ‘We the People’ as the source of sovereign power and have a referendum asking ‘We the People’ to vest our sovereignty in the Crown in Parliament. That would fill the present void created by making the Crown merely a legal fiction.
The ultimate problem is the ‘double bind’ of Left-Right politics, which is a heuristic of opposites that unnecessarily splits the vote of ‘We the People’. Referenda, however, avoid the double bind with a simple Yes or No question.
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