Tribunal names Crown’s trickery and deceit
“When the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill was resoundingly defeated at its second reading in parliament, it seemed like Te Tiriti was safe. It was not.” — Jack Potaka.
Read More
Tag: Treaty principles bill
The government’s latest attack on Te Tiriti
“Once again, as has been the case throughout this parliamentary term, the government is ignoring the recommendations of experts, in favour of further trampling on Te Tiriti o Waitangi.” — Luke Fitzmaurice-Brown.
Read More
The slow demolition of our democracy
“We have a government willing to reshape constitutional understandings without genuine consultation, careful process, or respect for long-standing norms.” — Mark Feary.
Read More
‘Are our voices too loud for this House?’
“There are discrepancies in how the privileges committee works, and there is no single explanation. But racism is undoubtedly a factor, and Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke was right to ask: “Are our voices too loud for this House?” — Professor Dominic O’Sullivan.
Read More
Parliament privileges one culture (and it’s not Māori)
“Westminster culture doesn’t care about intent or the dignity of people — it cares about its rules. And they are rules that privilege one culture.” — Catherine Delahunty, former Green MP.
Read More
Moving forward with Matike Mai
“Participating in the Matike Mai hui was a profound experience. People wanted to have those conversations. And they were ready and waiting for the opportunity to discuss the issues.” — Carwyn Jones.
Read More
Why the Treaty principles bill had to go down
“We defeated a well-funded, bad-faith attempt to turn our country against our founding agreement.” — Kassie Hartendorp.
Read More
A shallow, unconscionable political stunt
“It is obvious that the drafters of the bill were not only appallingly ignorant, deliberately or otherwise, of Aotearoa New Zealand history, but also British history.” — Vincent O’Malley.
Read More
Mariameno Kapa-Kingi: Being our strongest Māori selves
“I was drawn to fight for our voice, our thinking, our aspiration, and our issues. I don’t mean that I always want to live in that fighting space, but, unfortunately, that is too often where we are needed.” — Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, MP for Te Tai Tokerau.
Read More
Befriending our wild disagreements
“It’s easy, in these violent days of oligarchs and kleptocrats, algorithms and shadow lobbyists, to think that tending to ourselves and each other with radical love is somehow too soft.” — Sarah Hopkinson.
Read More
Stop doing the enemy’s work for them
“Pākehā, we are not here to fight you. But we are here to fight the system that benefits you while breaking us. We are here to fight the structures that let our babies fill the prisons while yours fill the boardrooms.” — Heemi Mahauariki.
Read More
We’re the experts in our own stories
“It had been a long, moving and sometimes confusing day of storytelling, re-telling, and listening. For me, it reinforced the importance of iwi as experts in our own narratives.” — Aroha Gilling.
Read More
We’re not here to negotiate our own marginalisation
“The Treaty bill is not just about legal wording — it’s about economic power. If Te Tiriti is successfully reframed as symbolic rather than contractual, the Crown will have removed one of the last barriers standing in the way of total economic control.” — Joshua Koko.
Read More
There is unfinished business
“Waitangi should be a place where political leaders are made to justify their decisions from the past year, to take stock of how they’re upholding their side of the Treaty partnership.” — Jamie Tahana.
Read More
Eru Kapa-Kingi: It’s the system that’s radical, not me
“The radical thing is the system that currently exists — a system that completely cuts across the truth that our tūpuna never ceded sovereignty. To me, that’s the radical thing.” — Eru Kapa-Kingi.
Read More
The ‘dangerous’ bill flying under the radar
“Individually or together, these two bills would entrench libertarian preferences in New Zealand’s constitutional framework. They would also obstruct the consideration of Te Tiriti in future lawmaking.” — Melanie Nelson.
Read More
The year we stood up
“A slate of policies that have lazily played on this country’s insecurities and set a fire beneath the nation’s founding document have been met with a resistance not seen for generations.” — Jamie Tahana.
Read More
‘Let Waitangi reconcile us’
“And where was the church, the third party at the Treaty table, as this abusive relationship unfolded? Largely silent, and by its silence complicit. The church became the ally of the coloniser rather than the defender of the colonised.” — Kennedy Warne, reviewing ‘He Tatau Pounamu’.
Read More
Hobson’s actual pledges
The lobby group Hobson’s Pledge “has turned Hobson’s incidental remark to chiefs into a weighty pronouncement that justifies the suppression of Māori rights and identity.” — Susan Healy, Tim McCreanor, Ray Nairn.
Read More
The Crown can’t decide on its own
“Outside of its impact on Māori and race relations in Aotearoa, a significant long-term consequence of this bill will be the removal of one of the most important protections the New Zealand public have to the unwanted and harmful privatisation of state assets.” — John Murrie.
Read More
In history, context is everything
“Apirana Ngata’s views on the Treaty in 1922 are historically important. They speak to the dominant attitudes of Pākehā, and undoubtedly some Māori too. But his was not the only voice speaking for Māori.” — Historian Matthew Cunningham.
Read More
Carwyn Jones: It’s critical to submit on the principles bill
“It is important that there is strong and visible opposition to the bill so that it is clear to politicians that there is no political advantage in progressing it.” — Carwyn Jones.
Read More
If they knew our history, they wouldn’t be talking about parliament’s ‘dignity’
Parliament’s “dignity” rests on “a structure introduced less than 200 years ago, where members are required to swear allegiance to a foreign monarch who has no power but plenty of wealth derived from colonisation and slavery.” — Suzanne Menzies-Culling.
Read More
Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti: Is this what peace feels like?
“This wasn’t a protest. It was an affirmation of Te Tiriti.” — Meriana Johnsen on the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti.
Read More
Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti: Flags of hope
“It was like a glimpse of the country as we want it to be: diverse and respectful and Māori-led.” — Catherine Delahunty on the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti.
Read More
The week it all erupted
“The Treaty Principles Bill may be a lame duck without National and New Zealand First’s continued support, but te iwi Māori have already stirred in a way not seen in at least 20 years.” — Jamie Tahana.
Read More
Hana’s haka shows up the House
“Parliament, when haka-provoked, exposed some of the tell-tale signs of its own foundational cultural system.” — Brian Tweed and Pania Te Maro.
Read More
‘They dishonour all our ancestors’
“Grandma is too ill to make the hīkoi this year, but all her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be there in force.” — Herewini Ammunson, on the Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti (march for Te Tiriti).
Read More
