Indigenous Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand are currently facing multiple attacks on their rights and wellbeing by the ruling conservative coalition government, led by Christopher Luxon of the National party.
After failing to win an absolute majority in last year’s October election, National formed a coalition with the libertarian ACT and right-wing New Zealand First parties. These fringe, minority parties demanded a high price from National to form the coalition, which it was willing to pay to gain power. But it’s Aotearoa’s citizens, in particular Māori , who are paying the highest price.
During the negotiations, ACT and NZ First were able to secure National’s commitment to some of their most controversial policies. They are now being imposed with no democratic mandate, given how few people voted for either party.
te Tiriti o Waitangi
The ACT party received just 9% of the vote, yet leader David Seymour was able to push through its divisive Treaty Principles Bill, which seeks to “redefine” the principles of Aotearoa’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi/te Tiriti o Waitangi.
The Treaty/te Tiriti agreement was made between Māori and the colonising British Crown in 1840. It was written and signed in both te reo Māori and English. However, there were crucial differences in the translations between the two, leading to ongoing disputes regarding its interpretation.
The English version states that Māori ceded full “sovereignty” to the colonisers, whereas the Māori version recognised the Crown’s right of “governance” over Aotearoa, while also acknowledging Maori ownership of their land, forests, fisheries and other property.
ACT’s bill aims to apply an interpretation that would fundamentally change the Treaty’s/te Tiriti’s foundational partnership between Maori and the Crown, in favour of establishing the Crown’s sovereignty over Maori once and for all.
The bill has been met with strong opposition in Aotearoa, particularly from Maori leaders.
The Waitangi Tribunal recently released a scathing report, stating that “by engaging with this policy the Crown is sanctioning a process that will take away indigenous rights”. It also warns the bill “will foster division and damage social cohesion, with significant prejudicial impacts on Maori”.
The bill is due to be put before parliament in November, although it is not expected to progress beyond the first reading, after Luxon stated recently that National would not support it.
The Waitangi Tribunal said in its report that the bill “has already harmed the Maori-Crown relationship … whether the Bill proceeds beyond select committee or not, and this prejudicial impact will only continue to grow the longer the policy continues to exist.”
Language rights, health
The second coalition partner, New Zealand First — which received just 6% of the vote — arguably negotiated even more detrimental policies, as part of its own agreement with National.
The party is headed by Deputy Prime Minister and foreign minister Winston Peters. Peters and Seymour are sharing Deputy PM duties — with Peters taking the first half of the term. Despite being of Māori descent, he has spent much of his long political career working to undermine Māori rights.
The government has adopted NZ First's policy of legislating English as an official language of Aotearoa, as well as ensuring all government departments have their primary name in English (except for those dealing with Maori people).
During his election campaign Peters said, nonsensically, that this policy is “not an attack on the Māori language — it’s an attack on the elite virtue-signallers who have hijacked language for their own socialist means”.
Until this policy was implemented, many of Aotearoa’s government agencies primarily used their Māori names. One example is Waka Kotahi, which reverted back to its English name of New Zealand Transport Agency shortly after the government came to power.
NZ First’s coalition agreement also requires all government entities to communicate primarily in English. Te Reo Maori is an official language of Aotearoa, and yet National agreed to implement this racist policy, which is designed to remove the integration of the indigenous language in day-to-day life.
Another NZ First policy, the dismantling of the Maori Health Authority, has already been implemented, with urgency and little consultation. The agency was set up by the Labour government in 2022, with the aim of closing the gap in health outcomes between Maori and non-Maori. Its functions have now been absorbed by the Ministry of Health, despite clear evidence showing the need for its creation in the first place.
The coalition has also repealed some of Labour’s pioneering anti-smoking legislation dubbed Smokefree 2025. This included creating a “smokefree generation” by implementing a world first smoking ban on selling tobacco to anyone born after January 2009, as well as removing cigarettes from 90% of existing retailers and lowering the nicotine levels in them to non-addictive levels.
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths in Aotearoa, and smoking rates among Maori are almost double the general population at around 20%. Maori politicians, health experts and academics had fought hard for these reforms for years. Now, their people will be disproportionately impacted by these regressive policies.
National has admitted the smoking changes were made, largely, to fund tax cuts that formed part of its own party’s election campaign promises.
Modelling had shown these laws would save the country’s healthcare system NZD1.3 billion over the next 20 years.
The coalition government are just 10 months into its three-year term, but already its divisive, short-sighted policies are on track to set the country back years, and leave a damaging legacy on Aotearoa’s Indigenous people.
Fightback
In the face of this turbulent period Māori and non-Māori have been galvanised to fight back for their rights.
There have been two nationwide protests since December, under the call to action “Toitu te Tiriti” or “Honour the Treaty”. On May 30, the day the government released its first budget, thousands hit the streets across the country to demonstrate “a unified Aotearoa response to the government’s assault on tangata whenua [people of the land] and Te Tiriti o Waitangi”.
The influential Māori King Tuheitia, who passed away on August 30, had been a staunch advocate for his people’s rights since the new government came to power.
In his final public address on August 21, he said: “We’ve come a long way as a country, and we can go even further — let’s not give up now! Te Tiriti o Waitangi is between Maori and the Crown ... The Treaty provides a foundation for us all to work together. Let’s not change it; that would harm us.”