“Real live people are rallying together to stop David Seymour’s bill,” says lawyer Tania Waikato from Toitū Te Tiriti. (Photo supplied)

One of the lawyers for the Toitū Te Tiriti movement, Tania Waikato, seems to be everywhere on kaupapa Māori social media at the moment.

Waikato is pumping out videos and explainers to fire up followers to take action on legislation that targets Māori rights and responsibilities.

Renee Karena, a fellow lawyer, is one of those who’s taken note. Here, she gets to know Tania a bit better, and finds out what’s driving her mahi.

Kia ora, Tania. You’ve become known as a lawyer who helped people make submissions against the Treaty principles bill through videos you posted on social media. You’re now doing the same for submissions against the Regulatory Standards Bill. Before we have a kōrero on those topics, can you tell us about yourself — where you grew up and how you came to study law?

I’m Ngāti Awa, Tūhoe, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Hine and Whakatōhea. I grew up in Te Teko (Texas), a small rural town in the Bay of Plenty. It was a great place to grow up. I was a super geek at school, but studying law wasn’t my first choice. I applied to do a communications degree in journalism at AUT. Funny story about that. A girl from high school told me I’d never get in because it’s too hard and too competitive. But the best way to get me to do something is to tell me I can’t do it — so I applied and got in at the end of my sixth form year.

But in the end, I didn’t take the spot and stayed on to do my final year at high school. I’d had a change of mind and decided to go to law school. I applied to the Auckland University Law School and got in, and received two scholarships.

I applied under the general admission quota, even though I knew it was competitive, because I knew I could do it, and I didn’t want to take a spot away from someone else who needed the Māori quota pathway. I was the first person in my whānau to go to university so I know how hard those barriers are to overcome.

I’ve worked as a lawyer for many years, both here and in Australia, specialising in litigation, resources management and other areas. I recently graduated with my Master of Laws, and I’m also a rongoā practitioner.

You clearly view the Regulatory Standards Bill as dangerous. Why?

The Regulatory Standards Bill is by far the most dangerous bill in our lifetimes because it is underpinned by racist and fascist ideology. This bill will concentrate a disproportionate amount of power in the hands of one minister — currently David Seymour — and give his new pet Regulatory Standards Board constitutionally significant powers to begin unravelling the foundations of this country, one law at a time. All of this is to solve a “policy problem” that his own new Ministry for Regulation did not agree required a legislative solution.

So we have a situation where the minister has ignored the advice of his own ministry who said this law is not needed or warranted, ignored the findings and recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal who said the Crown has breached Te Tiriti by not consulting on this constitutional piece of legislation, and is pushing forward anyway while also shortening both the submissions process and the select committee process.

Do I think that’s dangerous? Absolutely.

The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi bill was a carefully timed dress rehearsal for, and distraction from, this bill. It’s no coincidence that they commenced the submissions process for the Treaty principles bill and the online-only public “consultation” for the Regulatory Standards Bill on the exact same day, November 19, 2024. And then let the “consultation” run through the summer holidays when they hoped we would all be too busy.

It’s also well-documented that the ACT Party has unsuccessfully tried to pass the Regulatory Standards Bill three times and failed. Logic and common sense tells us this bill has been rejected in the past for good reasons. Treasury blocked the most recent attempt in 2021 because it knew the proposal could bankrupt the country by allowing powerful foreign corporations to sue the government.

But the most dangerous part of this bill is that it takes the ACT Party’s ideology and enshrines it into our constitutional framework by making all other laws comply with their principles. They’re slapping a dog collar on parliament and then handing the leash over to foreign corporate interests, which includes the Atlas Network, which has documented ties to David Seymour.

If the bill passes, Seymour will set up the Regulatory Standards Board, appoint all the members himself, and task them with reviewing our laws for compliance with ACT Party ideology.

The fact that a party that only received a mere 8 percent of the country’s vote at the last election is now essentially rewriting our constitution without any consultation or consent from the people is quite extraordinary — and, in my opinion, alarming.

Lawyer Renee Karena, who is in kōrero with Tania Waikato. (Photo supplied)

Do people still have time to submit on the bill?

Yes, we have until June 23 at 1pm to submit against the bill. The portal’s crashed several times already and may do so again on the last day, so the sooner you make your submission, the better.

There is a lot of content on my social media pages and many other pages, including Toitū Te Tiriti, Tina Ngata, Jordan Rivers, Te Paati Māori, Greenpeace and many more that explain the bill in more detail, and how to make a submission in under two minutes.

Indigenous rights expert Tina Ngata and I recently ran a training workshop for volunteers who wanted to help raise awareness of the bill in their areas, and we now have more than 2,500 people in the group on Facebook.

So when I heard David Seymour trying to say that it was merely bots who made the 20,000 submissions in opposition to this bill during the initial public consultation phase, I laughed.

No, David, it was us. Real live people who know what you’re doing and who are rallying together to stop you. We might not have your billionaire backers but we have one thing you will never have on our side. Whanaungatanga.

People Over Profits march with people holding up Toitū Te Tiriti sign, People over Profits sign. (Photo: Teirangi Klever.)

You’ve suggested that the Regulatory Standards Bill could cause problems in the coalition. Could you tell us about why you think that?

I’ll start by saying that this has been on the minds of others as well. The former leader of the Green Party, Russell Norman, recently wrote an article reminding us that less than a decade ago, New Zealand First introduced the Fighting Foreign Corporate Control Bill. It aimed to stop the exact situation that the Regulatory Standards Bill will create — which is giving far too much power to multinational companies.

Winston Peters has publicly expressed concerns over the bill. On the day immediately following the Waitangi Tribunal hearing on the bill, Peters told Newsroom that his party is seeking substantial changes to the bill. However, he hasn’t said what those changes are.

Then most recently, Shane Jones has gone further and said that they’ll wait to see the outcome of public submissions before deciding. He’s wary of how far-reaching the bill could be — he likened it to “an octopus with eight legs” that could prod into unknown areas.

So the stage is set for a potential political meltdown. But it will depend on the strength and number of submissions in opposition. That’s why we’re telling people that making a submission is so critical. If there is enough opposition to this bill — and I am talking in the hundreds of thousands — it might convince New Zealand First to withdraw their support for the bill.

At the moment, there are clear signs that New Zealand First don’t fully support the bill. But how that plays out very much depends on what happens between now and June 23 when the submissions period closes.

It’s this sort of kōrero that’s seen your social media follower base explode. How has that been for you?

I started off reluctantly making one video on TikTok to help people learn about the Treaty principles bill. I wanted to help others make a submission, because so many people were worried and asking me about how to go about it. In the beginning, I thought that maybe a few people might watch and if just one of them made a submission, that would be a good outcome. Well, 15,000 people watched that video, and many of them had more questions. So I made more videos to answer them. And it kinda just snowballed from there.

I made a public Instagram page in November last year and then a public Facebook page a couple of months ago. Across all platforms, I now have more than 30,000 “followers”, which is such an odd word — and last month alone, my content had combined views of 4.9 million.

Before this, I only had private social media, so it’s been a bit of a baptism by fire. I learned quite quickly that social media is the fastest way to spread content. I have a son and his age group sees everything on social media whether we like it or not, and that’s how they access news and current affairs. He’s done a lot to educate me, as Gen Alpha have a reo all of their own.

I didn’t even know how to make a proper video when I started. But I love watching the first episode now because it’s so raw and clunky. But it’s authentic. And I think people can feel that.

The fear that people are feeling right now from the decisions of this government is real. Whether that’s women fighting for pay equity, funding cuts to Māori health and disability organisations, or the escalation of racist attacks from politicians, many people are scared and upset.

I get so many messages from people telling me how scared they are by what this government is doing. But they also say that watching me speak up and fight against it gives them hope. I think thats why my tīpuna gave me such a big waha. So that I could use it.

As for the internet trolls, they’re there too, but that’s life on social media. I just delete and block. I’ve got too much mahi to do to waste time replying to them. My time is for my people.

You mention that your tīpuna guide you with the mahi you do. Are they guiding you in this mahi on the Regulatory Standards Bill too?

Absolutely. This mahi is tīpuna-led and mokopuna-focused. I’m doing this because a few months ago, my son asked me why the government hates Māori. I don’t want my son to grow up feeling like he is hated by the government, or that being Māori is a scary thing.

The tīpuna have been very clear with me that this bill is unacceptable and that we must do everything in our power to stop it.

There was a time when I never would have publicly discussed such things as I have deliberately kept my legal mahi and my mahi as a rongoā practitioner very separate. But that time has passed.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve learned to walk in both those worlds, and to integrate all of the tāonga my tīpuna have given me so that I could be of service to our tamariki and mokopuna. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned on this extremely difficult but extremely rewarding haerenga, it’s to not ignore the tīpuna. When they call you to action, you answer.

Ka nui te mihi. Thank you for talking to us and for dedicating time and effort to these kaupapa. To finish up, here’s a big question! What’s your vision for Aotearoa?   

My vision for Aotearoa is a place where everyone can feel safe, everyone has enough to eat, and everyone has a roof over their head.

Sounds simple, but the thing that stands in the way of that is greed. People at the top who want too much, so that the people at the bottom have too little.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can teach the world how there is more than enough for everyone, if we just stop pursuing repugnant levels of wealth, and focus on what matters — looking after each other.

Tania outside parliament during the protests against the Treaty principles bill. (Photo: Haututū Creatives)

Renee Karena (Ngāpuhi, Hauraki, Ngāti Maniapoto) has worked as a barrister for 15 years, specialising in criminal defence. She is currently writing her grandmother’s biography.  

E-Tangata, 2025