More than 42,000 New Zealanders rallied outside Parliament on Tuesday to demonstrate their opposition to the Treaty Principles Bill and other policies perceived as being anti-Māori.
That makes it the largest protest at Parliament in New Zealand history and one of the biggest anywhere in the country ever.
Onlookers gathered on balconies and at windows to watch a river of red Tino Rangatiratanga flags completely flood the forecourt, steps, and surrounding streets.
It was a big protest all over a bill that won’t even pass its second reading.
Act Party Leader David Seymour introduced his Treaty Principles Bill last Thursday and it was voted through to a select committee process by reluctant National and NZ First MPs.
The Justice Select Committee opened for submissions on Tuesday and hopes to finish its hearings by the end of February, after which the Bill be voted down at its second reading.
However, the record-breaking protest turnout wasn’t just because of the Treaty Principles Bill.
Shane Jones, an NZ First MP and senior minister, said there was an anxiety among Māori that their identity was “being imperiled” by the coalition Government and some of its allies.
“We've got to work very hard to assure them that, [firstly] identity is not only a personal responsibility, but also we're not doing anything to invalidate Māori identity,” he said.
Anti-Māori accusations
While he’s right that a majority of Parliament want to see Māori thrive, the Coalition formed around a long list of policies which were targeted at things they care about.
Abolishing the devolved health authority, forcing councils to hold votes on Māori wards, and requiring public services to use less Te Reo are just three examples, but the list goes on.
Māori are growing as a proportion of the population and the financial reparations from Treaty settlements have been bolstering their economic and political power.
Some suspect NZ’s white majority feels threatened by the increasing status of Māori and has elected the Coalition government partly in the hopes it will slow that progress.
This would be an unfair assessment of most voters and politicians, but there is a cohort of voters who believed a “Māori elite” was being handed the keys to the country — and wanted a new government to pull the handbrake.
You could see elements of this in the heated debate over co-governance in Three Waters and among the Groundswell protests, which were supposed to be about rural issues.
So, the protests have rallied against the Treaty Principles Bill but are really about protecting the progress made over the past 50-or-so years from a perceived backlash.
Organizers of the protest said the hīkoi, which had traveled from the Far North over the past nine days, would “continue” and various speakers asked the crowd to register for future updates.
Trap, set, & match
But here’s the thing, it may not be about the Bill for Seymour either. His campaign is starting to look more like a trap set for National which threatens to break apart its big tent coalition.
The party was created in 1936 as an amalgamation between the conservative and liberal parties of the time, and it still has two factions of centrist and right-wing MPs and voters.
Centrists are aghast at National’s tolerance of the Treaty Principles Bill, while those on the right are furious it won’t be voted into law.
Paul Goldsmith was put under pressure in a Newstalk ZB interview on Monday night, admitting there was a “wide variety” of responses to his explanation of the party’s position.
This is what political scientists call a ‘wedge issue’ and it has the potential to shift conservative voters into the Act Party, leaving National to be a smaller, centrist party.
For what it is worth, MP James Meager did not agree. He said it wasn’t the first time National had taken a position that not everyone in the party agreed with.
“The benefit of being a broadchurch party is that you can have views right across the spectrum, whether that’s liberal, conservative, urban, [rural], town. So, no: I think we’re fine”.
51 Comments
Not to mention a petition that got over 200000 signatures in 24 hours.
As with the auckland fast track protest, the crowd included a good number of white middle class people. This should worry National more.
Then there's Peter's claiming the protest was a waste of time, because the bill won't pass. But this govt of efficiency, cutting waste and regulation, will have a select committee considering it for 6 months?
"...the crowd included a good number of white middle class people."
150000 protested in 1981 against apartheid in South Africa.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/1981-springbok-tour
The irony is not lost
There was electoral resistance to the Greens in 2020 that contributed to Labour’s landslide outright majority. But in 2023 there was outright suspicion of the prospect of a Labour/Greens/ TPM coalition which stemmed from the turmoil ongoing within Labour with the potential that a resultant government would arise with a dominant Maori caucus in Labour combining with the similar elements in the Greens and TPM. The electorate emphatically rejected the prospect and given continued uproar and disruptions in parliament in the last year, that attitude by the electorate will not alter in 2026, likely it will harden. It seems that TPM and elements within the Greens and Labour realising that their vote in the house is inconsequential are now intent on tearing down the house.
Aye, that provided a rather stark warning didn’t it. A calculated and devious attempt that undermined the established protocols of parliament and gave a middle finger to democracy itself, and PM Ardern herself. The primary instigator, thankfully was not returned in the 2023 election. You would conclude, not without reason, there’s plenty more of that coming to the boil in the cauldron.
Do you not see the irony? If it is racist, somehow whenever a big company hires (all big companies and even parliament) they give brownie points just for being Maori. I would need to work harder to achieve the same as them. Isn't that being racist? That is why people leave, because other countries offer an even playing field.
If they have so many advantages, how come they are more represented in the lower economic % in all areas. The facts are they are disadvantaged as much as you would be if Japan won the war and brought 40 million Japanese here and you were the minority speaking Japanese and trying to compete in their culture.
I think the most interesting yet unremarked upon turn of events in the whole thing is that Willie Jackson very suddenly cares about the basic principles of democracy, which didn't seem to matter so much when he was a Minister in the previous government and happy to suggest they should be flexible to suit his own political agenda.
Goose, meet gander.
Why are so many New Zealanders getting so angst over the Treaty? Have we not got bigger fish to fry. A few current other issues come to mind. Access to health care. High food costs. Poor infrastructure. Housing issues. The list goes on. World wide we have politicians like Seymour causing huge problems and distractions. The common denominator. Many are short like him.
they are all issues which politically motivated people use a race based argument to push, but in reality affect everyone of middle income or less.
Access to health care is a major that I am somewhat familiar with. Accessibility is an international standard and is often defined by wealth. Maori are a large cohort in the numbers impacted, but it is defined more by wealth. Population dispersion is also a factor that makes it difficult to make happen when wealth is a factor. People living remotely often do not have the wealth to easily access healthcare which is based in towns and cities. No easy solution for under funded DHBs.
I think you might find the poor pakeha (which I'm guessing you ain't) are just as in need (and more numerous) than poor Maori.
All peoples need some help here, however I think you would be pretty p##d off if you were poor and got continually bumped down the health queue, taking a second seat based on race alone.
Middle class non Maori are mostly not affected, so find it easy to take the moral high ground.
While there are many cynical and self-serving perspectives on this, personally I find that all of the commentary and thinking appears far too shallow. Multiple 'Why' questions need to be asked to get to true causes of the angst felt by not just Maori, but many others in NZ.
I have argued before that the true root cause lies in the consequences of socio-economic policies put in place by decades of governments. There is an overarching attitude apparent at the higher levels of NZ, especially in government that the majority of people in NZ cannot be trust and don't deserve decent wages and living standards. Poor understanding of consequences of economic policies has a big impact. Rogernomics, NZ's version of the 'Free Market' economic policies are a good example, which demonstrates even politicians lack an understanding of the role of government in running the country. Holding back wage growth denies people decent living standards, and the power to make choices which ultimately and inevitably also leads to more political activism. The type of activism we witnessed yesterday is not the sort I refer to here. yesterday was more the expression of frustration from being denied, and is defined in the Les Miserables song "Can you hear the people sing...." Yesterday that song was being played very loudly in NZ, but I fear that Brian Easton is correct in that the politicians are not just not listening, but much worse, they are really not thinking and asking WHY.
Agree. NZ has fundamental issues which result in European children leaving to work overseas and Maori kids staying here adding to the social issues.
Unfortunately the race issues gather more clicks and we won’t therefore protest as one people for a better country.
Very Trump moment from Seymour on News last night, when he claimed twice as many turned out to protest over Dunedin hospital. Very Alternate Facts.
We'll end up with ACT and Greens as the major parties, if not in name policy.
ACT definitely wants Nationals conservative base. Declining Demographics will make ACT more extreme.
NZ needs to take care.
Easy to understand. He would have to be the most vilified character in NZ at the moment, rightly or wrongly, and no matter how robust he might consider himself to be, that cannot be easy, and he has an opportunity to publicly minimise the angst against him.
Like all things in politics this too shall pass, but whether NZ has the maturity and the people sufficient respect in each other to openly discuss this subject fairly is yet to be seen. So far I doubt it.
Personally I’m neutral on the bill - but there are some societal dynamics playing out here, that we have seen with Brexit and the rise of Trump.
Whilst one side is taking to the streets to protest, there is silence from the rest of the country. Well public silence, in the privacy of my backyard and dining room, I’m hearing the other side of the debate).
Brexit and Trumpism came as a surprise because the silent majority voted in a way that surprised- mainly because it was the only way for their voices to be heard.
We might not enjoy the debate that comes - but Seymour is right if we don’t want a divided country the debate is important - otherwise it leaves things to fester with those who feel silenced and we might not as a society like the future outcomes.
Agreed. I suspect that if a referendum were held tomorrow the 'yes' side (supporting the Bill) would win handily.
Yes it was a big protest (nice to see that protesting on parliament's lawn is all good now!) and a 200k petition is a decent number - and it's interesting to see all the same friends/family who were really vocal about Palestine on social media, and then about the US elections, now they've got a new thing to post about until it's all forgotten - but as you allude to this is a 'silent majority' issue ... or at least would be if it were allowed to go to a vote.
Realistically, who's going to do a counter protest, or a counter petition or whatever - you'd just paint a target on your back, particularly if you work in a job where adherence to the Treaty is effectively a requirement (e.g. most public service jobs). You'll just bite your tongue and hold out for an opportunity to vote, as we saw with Trump and as we saw with Brexit.
That isn't a reflection of my personal position - I'm fairly neutral on it as well ... my only bottom line is I do think for the future stability of NZ we have to have an articulated and discussed-in-advance perspective on what society looks like in the context of the Treaty (as opposed to the perceived status quo which is academics, lawyers, politicians etc always torturing it to justify various changes). But I'm not sure if the Bill as it stands really achieves that.
At the end of the day, even having a government come along and say 'honouring the Treaty means there is no end to this process' but being up front about it would be an improvement on the status quo.
Those campaigning want to be exempt from the general laws but do not have a proposal as to how that could work or how we can operate civilly as to distinct populace.
Without any proposal to review, I would guess Māori want what the blacks in South Africa. To take the land back with zero payment. If they had the numbers Maori would have started already.
In reality they don’t have the numbers for a democratic society and they know it, that’s why they don’t want the bill to get a traction.
Maori complain about how bad the current system is but I think they will look back and wonder if putting such radicals in Parliment led to a worse outcome.
I think if TMP and the greens were'nt so backward looking and actually came up with sensible solutions of how the country can actually move forward as One and compete and prosper in the modern world (in which we must compete to be able to pay for any sort of infrastructure, welfare, healthcare etc) then they may get more buy in from mainstream NZers'. Trying to drive forward by looking in the rear vision mirrors does not go down well with hard working kiwis. If they want to drive NZ even further down the rankings and we end up as a real 3rd world country then they better be prepared for the consequences, no welfare, limited healthcare, no subsidies etc etc..there are plenty of examples of these countries around the world, and no NZ is not at that level YET.
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