Treaty Principles Bill to now include specific mention of hapū and iwi

Act Party leader David Seymour says the Treaty Principles Bill is only slightly different to what the ACT Party campaigned on. Photo: RNZ/Samuel Rillstone

Cabinet has agreed on the outline of the Treaty Principles Bill that will be introduced to Parliament, with a change to include specific acknowledgement of the rights of hapū and iwi.

The proposed principles from the ACT Party initially only specified that all New Zealanders had chieftainship over their land and property.

The Bill is part of the coalition agreement between ACT and National, which promised to introduce a Bill based on existing ACT policy and support it to a select committee as soon as practicable.

ACT campaigned on it, promising a public vote on scrapping the principles established through the courts - such as partnership - and codifying in law a new interpretation focused on equality and property rights

ACT leader David Seymour - who is in charge of the bill - said the agreed Bill was similar to what was in the coalition agreement, with some additional acknowledgement of the rights of hapū and iwi.

Seymour believes those rights were already covered by upholding the rights of all New Zealanders, but he thinks the "specific recognition" would go some way to "mollify some of the more extreme concerns about this initiative".

"We believe that the principles should reflect the Articles of the Treaty and, or, more specifically, Te Tiriti, and we proposed a slight change from what we initially campaigned on.

"So we're actually going to acknowledge hapū and iwi. I would say that their rights were acknowledged as the rights of all New Zealanders were acknowledged."

But he said if people wanted a specific acknowledgement, "we're open to putting one in."

Seymour said the point had always been that all people should have the right to flourish in their own way, and tino rangatiratanga was "one way of expressing that that I kind of like".

"So the goal hasn't changed. It's that each and every New Zealander can flourish in their own way.

"Far from removing any rights for Māori, the objective has always been to ensure that all people can flourish.

"And by making those rights owned by everybody, I think it actually strengthens the rights of Māori and everybody. And if explicit reference to Māori helps further allay people's concerns, I'm very willing to do it."

Seymour acknowledged the change had not been a suggestion from the coalition, "it's come from listening to people in the Māori world and beyond over the last six months or so".

"It has come from other people. I think it's important to always be listening, but it hasn't come from other people within government."

"We're all committed to working together as a government," Seymour added.

As for any other changes, Seymour said it was only the broad policy outline that had been decided, and the legal drafting by the Parliamentary Council Office remained.

"And as we know with this whole subject, the devil's in the detail."

Seymour expected the Bill to be debated in Parliament in November, with the select committee will reporting back in May.

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