LONDON, Sep 02 (IPS) – A New Zealand bill that would roll back the rights of indigenous peoples is unlikely to pass, but it is emblematic of a growing climate of hostility from ruling politicians. A recent survey shows that almost half of New Zealanders believe racial tensions have increased under the right-wing government in power since December 2023.
The Treaty Principles Bill reinterprets the principles of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. New Zealand’s founding text, this agreement between the British government and indigenous Māori chiefs established British governorship over the islands in return for recognition of Māori ownership of land and other property.
The treaty was controversial from the start, with the English and Māori versions differing on key clauses concerning sovereignty. Māori lost much of their land and suffered the same marginalisation as indigenous peoples elsewhere where Europeans settled. As a result, Māori face higher levels of poverty, unemployment and crime, and lower standards of education and health than the rest of the population.
From the 1950s onwards, Māori began to organise and assert their treaty rights. This led to the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, which defined a set of principles derived from the treaty and established the Waitangi Tribunal to determine breaches of the principles and recommend remedies.
In recent years, right-wing politicians criticized the tribunal, which claims it is overstepping its mandate – most recently because it a hearing was held which concluded that the bill is contrary to the principles of the Treaty.
Change of direction
The bill was the result of a coalition agreement forged after the 2023 general election. The centre-right National Party came first, entering government with two parties to its right: the free-market, libertarian Act Party and the nationalist, populist NZ First Party. Act demanded the bill as a condition of joining the coalition.
The election was unusually toxic by New Zealand standards. Candidates were subjected to racist abuse and physical violenceA group of Māori leaders complained about unusually high levels of racism. Both Act and NZ First focused on Māori rights and promised to roll back Labour’s progressive policies, including experiments in ‘co-management‘: joint decision-making between government and Māori representatives. Act and NZ First characterized arrangements such as granting racial privileges to the Māori people, which violate universal human rights.
New Zealand leader Winston Peters, who has long opposed what he describes as special treatment for the Maori people despite being a Maori himself, vowed to delete Māori-language names of government buildings and the withdrawal of New Zealand support for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesHe has compared co-governance to apartheid and Nazi race theory. He is now Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand.
New Zealand, although far from Europe and North America, has shown that it is not immune to the same dangers. right wing populist politics who want to blame a visible minority for all of a country’s problems. In the Northern Hemisphere, migrants and religious minorities are the main targets; in New Zealand, it’s indigenous people.
Bonfire of Policy
If the Bill were to pass, it would eliminate any interpretation of the Treaty as a partnership between the state and the Māori people. It would impose a strict understanding that all New Zealanders have the same rights and responsibilities, which would hamper measures to extend Māori rights. And without special attention, the economic, social and political exclusion of the Māori people will only get worse.
The problems go beyond the law. In February, the government abolished the Māori Health Authority, which was established in 2022 to address health inequalities. In July, a government directive ordered Pharmac, the agency that funds medicines, to stop taking treaty principles into account when making funding decisions. This is part of a broader attack on treaty principles, which the government promised to be removed from most legislation.
Government departments have been ordered to prioritise their English-language names and to communicate primarily in English unless they specifically target Māori. The government has pledged to review the school curriculum – revised last year to place a greater emphasis on Māori – and university affirmative action programmes. It has halted work on He Puapua, its strategy to implement the UN declaration.
The government has cut funding for most Māori initiatives. In total more than a dozen changes are planned, including in the areas of environmental management, health and housing.
What’s bad for Māori is also bad for the climate. The intimate role that the environment plays in Māori culture often places them at the forefront of the fight against climate change. This year, a Māori activist won a ruling allowing him to take seven companies to court over their greenhouse gas emissions, based in part on their impact on places of traditional, cultural and spiritual significance to the Māori people.
But the new government has reduce financing for many projects aimed at meeting New Zealand’s obligations under the Paris Agreement. It plans to double mineral exports and introduce legislation to accelerate major development projects without the need for environmental protection measures. The bill contains no provisions on treaty principles. Māori people will be disproportionately affected by a weakening of environmental standards.
In numbers
This all seems like a huge setback for Māori rights, which can only fuel and normalise racism – but campaigners are not taking it lying down. The threat to rights has mobilised and united Māori campaigners.
Civil society groups are go to court to stop the changes. And people are protesting en masse. In December, when parliament met for the first time since the election, thousands collected outside to condemn anti-Māori policies. During the swearing-in ceremony, Te Pāti Māori politicians broke with convention by dedicating their oaths to the Treaty of Waitangi and future generations.
That same month, twelve people were arrested after a protest in which they violated an exhibition about the treaty at the national museum. Protesters accused the exhibition of lying about the English version of the treaty.
On February 6, Waitangi Day, more than a thousand people gathered marched to the place where the treaty was being signed, and called for the bill to be defeated. During the official ceremony, people booed Peters and Act leader Peter Seymour when they spoke.
Recently, Māori had the chance to voice their displeasure at a ceremony in August commemorating the coronation of the Māori King. Although all the major party leaders normally attend, Seymour was not invited and a Māori leader told Prime Minister Christopher Luxon that the government had “turned its back on Māori”. The Māori King also called a rare national meeting in January, and the turnout – 10,000 people – showed once again how worrying the situation was.
Wasted potential
At the same time, the Māori population is growing rapidly – recently passed the million mark – and is youthful. Compared to previous generations, people are more likely to embrace their Māori identity, culture and language. Māori people are showing resilience and activism has never been stronger. But this growing momentum has hit a political roadblock that threatens to stifle its potential – all for the convenience of short-term political gain.
New Zealand’s positive international reputation is at stake – but it doesn’t have to be. The government needs to start acting as a responsible partner under the Treaty of Waitangi. It needs to abide by the treaty principles as they have been developed and refined over time, and stop scapegoating Māori.
Andrew Firmin is editor-in-chief, co-director and writer of CIVICUS CIVICUS lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service