Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Wednesday, the twentieth of November.
I'm Lucy, I'm Zara.
You probably saw this video last week of a young woman leading a harker in New Zealand's Parliament. Yesterday, thousands of people gathered outside New Zealand's Parliament to protest the same thing as that young woman who's actually an MP. Her name's Hannah Raffitimip Clark.
That's a bill that would change the legal interpretation of New Zealand's founding treaty. It's not just unpopular with thousands of people, minor parties and the opposition, it also doesn't have the support of Prime Minister Christopher Luxen.
This is such a complex story and as you said, you know, I think it really gained international attention, especially here in Australia when we saw that hakka in New Zealand's Parliament. But it's a really important story and it's one with a lot of layers. So I guess, Lucy, where do we begin with it? How do we start to tell this story?
We have to start in the year eighteen forty.
Okay, going way back then.
Going way back before we can kind of explain what the bill is trying to change, we have to explain what the status quo is. So going back to eighteen forty, English officials and over five hundred Mari leaders signed Tatti or Waitangi or the Treaty of Waitangi. Mari leaders signed a Mari version of the treaty and English representatives signed
the English version. It was the English officials belief that the treaty meant that the Marii had agreed to seed sovereignty complete control over New Zealand to the British crown. Marti leaders were not told that this was what the English version of the treaty said. They were led to believe they had given the English the right to make laws,
not to take over. This obviously led to decades of conflict as the two conflicting interpretations, or rather the two conflicting kind of versions of the treaty were carried out in day to day life. Also important to note that not every Marti leader in New Zealand signed the treaty at the time, but the English decided it still applied to them.
Okay, So we're talking about a treaty that was signed in eighteen forty, and one central issue that emerged with it was interpretation, or as you said, perhaps even just understanding of what that treaty meant around certainly whether there was full sovereignty seated or whether it was about making laws.
What else was in this treaty that now.
Gets to the heart of why there are so many protests across New Zealand.
I'll go off the English language version of the treaty because that is really, you know, what was used by the settler government. It has three agreements. The first agreement I've covered, and that's that in the English version, MARII
ceded sovereignty of New Zealand to the British Crown. The second, and this one is really really important, is that if Mary wanted to sell any of their land, they only sold it to the English and in exchange they were meant to have quote the full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands, forests and fisheries. So imagine that part is bolded and underlined so that it's very very important. And the third agreement was that Mary were to have
quote all the rights and privileges of British subjects. All of these agreements have had really far reaching consequences.
So the first agreement was around sovereignty, the second it was around the selling of land.
And then the kind of exclusive and undisturbed possession of.
That land, okay. And then the third was around the rights of the Maori people.
Is that correct?
Yes?
Okay?
And so we've said that this was signed, you know, decades and decades and decades ago. How is the treaty affecting modern day New Zealand life? Just bringing it now back into the present.
Following decades of both violent and peaceful conflicts between Marii ewi that's the word that means communities and the British Crown. In nineteen seventy five, the New Zealand government set up the White Tangi Tribunal to investigate allegations that the Treaty wasn't being upheld. The tribunal has considered allegations about the government's actions going all the way back to when the treaty itself was signed in eighteen forty to the present,
including allegations of stealing land and polluting waterways. In a landmark decision in twenty fourteen, the Tribunal found that one EWI did not seed sovereignty when they signed the treaty. The most important thing about the Tribunal to think about today is that one of its responsibilities was to interpret what the treaty agreements actually meant. This is something called
the principles of the Treaty. These principles have been established over years of tribunal cases and expert opinion, and they are now referred to, but not necessarily defined, in New Zealand laws. I think a good way to think about this for an Australian listening to this is that so Australians don't have a legal right to freedom of speech in our constitution, but across multiple High Court cases, judges have found that the Constitution implies a right to political
expression because we live in a democracy. This basically means you can't be stopped from saying something if a politician doesn't want you to say it, and this has governed a lot of legal cases. But it's not an official law or in our constitution that we have a quote freedom of speech like they do in the US. Now back to why we're talking about this story today. One New Zealand party wants to put a version of these principles that have been established over decades into law.
Okay, And why does someone want to do or why does a party want to be doing that, what's the justification for doing that?
So the party in question is called Act, led by David Seymour, and it says the Treaty principles have been quote gradually built up over time, which they say means the New Zealand public has never been democratically consulted on them. They say, quote the Treaty principles are often mentioned in legislation,
but they have never actually been defined in law. And for something that can govern land decisions and decisions made about a group of people in New Zealand, they're saying, this is something that needs to be legally defined, okay. A bill introduced by Act would legally define what the Treaty principles are and what the treaty means. This includes establishing a new legal definition of that thing that I mentioned that was important earlier, the quote Undisturbed Possession Land
and Property Agreement. Act's proposal is that this agreement should apply to every New Zealand citizen, not just Mardy people, unless there has been a legal agreement otherwise, such as a White Tangy tribunal decision protecting a piece of land. And they say that doing this would ensure quote, all New Zealanders are equal under the law, with the same rights and duties. If it passes, the bill would ultimately
lead to a referendum on what act has proposed. New Zealanders would be asked if they accept the bill's interpretation of these principles to enshrine them into law, but that's very unlikely to happen.
We'll be back in a moment, but first a quick word from our sponsor. Okay, so let me just get my head around this quickly. So this treaty was signed, you know, over one hundred years ago, and over time and throughout New Zealand's history, these principles have emerged. And now today in twenty twenty four, there is a party in Parliament and who is part of the government who's saying, we actually never got the chance to vote on those things that are these principles, and we believe that needs
to happen. And you're saying this legislation has been introduced and that if it passes, it would lead to a referendum but where you just left off, is it that's unlikely to happen right?
Why is that?
That is because of the current makeup of New Zealand's parliament. So like Australia, New Zealand's parliament made up of a lot of different parties. Unlike Australia, no one party has formed a government by itself since early nineteen ninety six, so within my lifetime, you know, as a comparison, the Labor Party has formed government in the House of Representatives
just by itself. Another difference is that Australia's government flips back and forth between the very established coalition of the Liberal and National Parties and the Labor Party governing alone. New Zealand's coalitions can be a variation of different combinations. Different parties work together at different elections. Right now, the government is a coalition of three broadly right wing parties, National which Prime Minister Christopher Luxen belongs to the aforementioned
Act and New zealand First. Previous PM Jacinda A Dern, formed government in twenty twenty with a coalition of Labor, the Green Party and New Zealand First also a few days ago. But back to today's coalition, At the last election in October twenty twenty three, National, led by Christopher Luxen, won the most seats, didn't win enough to form government by itself, had to negotiate with smaller parties Act and New First through a long process of negotiation that led to coalition agreements.
Okay.
So, I mean the idea of forming government through a coalition isn't foreign to us, but certainly we don't have it to the same degree here. But one of the things that happens when you have multiple parties become the government is that there have to be concessions, right, Everyone wants different things. So what sorts of agreements did National, who said is the Prime Minister's party, what sort of agreements did they make during these negotiations to get those other two parties on board.
Part of Acts agreement with National was to allow them to put forward the Treaty Principle's Bill.
Which is okay, the bill we're talking about today.
Yeah, And part of that meant that National would support the bill's first phase, but no further than that, just the first phase.
Okay, And so when does that support technically stop? Because you said at the very beginning of this podcast that Christopher Luxen, the Prime doesn't support this bill.
Yes, it basically has meant that they have supported the first vote in Parliament. They've allowed the bill to pass the first round of voting, which in New Zealand means it goes to a committee discussion. It has not meant public support for the bill, which is why Christopher Luxon has spoken out about it publicly. But in actual Parliament they voted for it one time and not again now
that it's been sent to a committee, national support has ended. Okay, here's what Christopher Luxon said earlier this month.
My view a very simplistic interpretation of the Treaty of WHITEITANGI that has served us, I think incredibly well. And to simplify it down in the way through a piece of legislation like this, I think is a disservice to the treaty. We do not like this bill. We will not be supporting it. We see no need for it because we think it is divisive.
So even though it doesn't have the support of the sitting Prime Minister, this bill has made quite a splash. There has been quite a strong reaction to it, not just inside Parliament but also outside of Parliament. Can you talk me through what some of the reactions to the bill have been.
So a minor party to party Maori has been the most outspoken against the bill. One of their arguments is that legally reinterpreting the treaty to mean everyone is equal
is not in its spirit. The spirit of the treaties that it grants Marii particular rights, and that changing it is not a way of achieving equality because Marii Ewe face greater and more entrenched disadvantage, according to Tapati Mari than other New Zealand communities, and that this disadvantage needs to be addressed by government action, including law making everyone equal under the law. Their argument is that this would
undo progress towards erasing this disadvantage. Another one of their arguments is probably best ex prest by party co leader Rowi riwait Titi in the parliamentary debate.
To Tito, white tangy is superior to any person in any law if it created in this house this parliament, means nothing in all Tardo without the tz or white Tangi. The only people who can make changes in an agreement are the parties who signed it. The King of England, Man ayoahapu all tello. Now tell me David Simour, what's one of those? Are you?
And here's the stance from the Labor opposition from MP Willie Jackson.
David Seymour wants to turn over fifty years of our understanding of treaty principles and partnership. The principles are clear, mister speaker.
They're clear.
They're about partnership, they're about equity, they're about active protection and they're about redrease. Simple Why is this offendous minister so much?
And so I think the first time, as I said a bit earlier, that a lot of people internationally would have seen this story was when the hukka was performed in Parliament as part of a form of protest against this bill. What has the reaction been from kiwis across the country?
Ahead of the bill's introduction to Parliament, thousands of people participated in a hikoy or a march from the far northern tip of the North Island of New Zealand to the capital, Wellington, which is in the south of the North Island. Two hundred and thirty thousand people have signed a petition calling for the bill to be thrown out because it quote represents a direct assault on Marti Wright's culture and identity.
Okay, so there is some pretty firm opposition there to this bill, but you did mention that it won't progress or it would be very unlikely for it to progress given the composition of the Parliament and who's said therefore and who's said they're agains.
So what happens now? What do we expect to see happen?
The bill is going through through a committee. Submissions are now open to the public. I'm sure it will receive lots of submissions. After that, it's back for another vote where we know it doesn't have the support of the majority and it will likely fail. That's not due to happen for another six months or so, so we'll have to loop you back in then.
Brilliant.
Well, thank you, Lucy for explaining quite a complex topic and indeed making me understand and hopefully making our audience understand. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Daily Ods. We'll back later today with some headlines, but until then, have a great day.
My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Dunda bungelung calcottin woman from Gadigol country.
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