Speaker 1: Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 2: Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome to
Speaker 2: the Daily OS. It's Wednesday, the twentieth of November.
Speaker 3: I'm Lucy, I'm Zara.
Speaker 2: You probably saw this video last week of a young
Speaker 2: woman leading a harker in New Zealand's Parliament. Yesterday, thousands
Speaker 2: of people gathered outside New Zealand's Parliament to protest the
Speaker 2: same thing as that young woman who's actually an MP.
Speaker 2: Her name's Hannah Raffitimip Clark.
Speaker 1: That's a bill that would change the legal interpretation of
Speaker 1: New Zealand's founding treaty. It's not just unpopular with thousands
Speaker 1: of people, minor parties and the opposition, it also doesn't
Speaker 1: have the support of Prime Minister Christopher Luxen.
Speaker 4: This is such a complex story and as you said,
Speaker 4: you know, I think it really gained international attention, especially
Speaker 4: here in Australia when we saw that hakka in New
Speaker 4: Zealand's Parliament. But it's a really important story and it's
Speaker 4: one with a lot of layers. So I guess, Lucy,
Speaker 4: where do we begin with it? How do we start
Speaker 4: to tell this story?
Speaker 2: We have to start in the year eighteen forty.
Speaker 3: Okay, going way back then.
Speaker 2: Going way back before we can kind of explain what
Speaker 2: the bill is trying to change, we have to explain
Speaker 2: what the status quo is. So going back to eighteen forty,
Speaker 2: English officials and over five hundred Mari leaders signed Tatti
Speaker 2: or Waitangi or the Treaty of Waitangi. Mari leaders signed
Speaker 2: a Mari version of the treaty and English representatives signed
Speaker 2: the English version. It was the English officials belief that
Speaker 2: the treaty meant that the Marii had agreed to seed
Speaker 2: sovereignty complete control over New Zealand to the British crown.
Speaker 2: Marti leaders were not told that this was what the
Speaker 2: English version of the treaty said. They were led to
Speaker 2: believe they had given the English the right to make laws,
Speaker 2: not to take over. This obviously led to decades of
Speaker 2: conflict as the two conflicting interpretations, or rather the two
Speaker 2: conflicting kind of versions of the treaty were carried out
Speaker 2: in day to day life. Also important to note that
Speaker 2: not every Marti leader in New Zealand signed the treaty
Speaker 2: at the time, but the English decided it still applied
Speaker 2: to them.
Speaker 4: Okay, So we're talking about a treaty that was signed
Speaker 4: in eighteen forty, and one central issue that emerged with
Speaker 4: it was interpretation, or as you said, perhaps even just
Speaker 4: understanding of what that treaty meant around certainly whether there
Speaker 4: was full sovereignty seated or whether it was about making laws.
Speaker 3: What else was in this treaty that now.
Speaker 4: Gets to the heart of why there are so many
Speaker 4: protests across New Zealand.
Speaker 2: I'll go off the English language version of the treaty
Speaker 2: because that is really, you know, what was used by
Speaker 2: the settler government. It has three agreements. The first agreement
Speaker 2: I've covered, and that's that in the English version, MARII
Speaker 2: ceded sovereignty of New Zealand to the British Crown. The second,
Speaker 2: and this one is really really important, is that if
Speaker 2: Mary wanted to sell any of their land, they only
Speaker 2: sold it to the English and in exchange they were
Speaker 2: meant to have quote the full, exclusive and undisturbed possession
Speaker 2: of their lands, forests and fisheries. So imagine that part
Speaker 2: is bolded and underlined so that it's very very important.
Speaker 2: And the third agreement was that Mary were to have
Speaker 2: quote all the rights and privileges of British subjects. All
Speaker 2: of these agreements have had really far reaching consequences.
Speaker 4: So the first agreement was around sovereignty, the second it
Speaker 4: was around the selling of land.
Speaker 2: And then the kind of exclusive and undisturbed possession of.
Speaker 4: That land, okay. And then the third was around the
Speaker 4: rights of the Maori people.
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 4: And so we've said that this was signed, you know,
Speaker 4: decades and decades and decades ago. How is the treaty
Speaker 4: affecting modern day New Zealand life? Just bringing it now
Speaker 4: back into the present.
Speaker 2: Following decades of both violent and peaceful conflicts between Marii
Speaker 2: ewi that's the word that means communities and the British Crown.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy five, the New Zealand government set up
Speaker 2: the White Tangi Tribunal to investigate allegations that the Treaty
Speaker 2: wasn't being upheld. The tribunal has considered allegations about the
Speaker 2: government's actions going all the way back to when the
Speaker 2: treaty itself was signed in eighteen forty to the present,
Speaker 2: including allegations of stealing land and polluting waterways. In a
Speaker 2: landmark decision in twenty fourteen, the Tribunal found that one
Speaker 2: EWI did not seed sovereignty when they signed the treaty.
Speaker 2: The most important thing about the Tribunal to think about
Speaker 2: today is that one of its responsibilities was to interpret
Speaker 2: what the treaty agreements actually meant. This is something called
Speaker 2: the principles of the Treaty. These principles have been established
Speaker 2: over years of tribunal cases and expert opinion, and they
Speaker 2: are now referred to, but not necessarily defined, in New
Speaker 2: Zealand laws. I think a good way to think about
Speaker 2: this for an Australian listening to this is that so
Speaker 2: Australians don't have a legal right to freedom of speech
Speaker 2: in our constitution, but across multiple High Court cases, judges
Speaker 2: have found that the Constitution implies a right to political
Speaker 2: expression because we live in a democracy. This basically means
Speaker 2: you can't be stopped from saying something if a politician
Speaker 2: doesn't want you to say it, and this has governed
Speaker 2: a lot of legal cases. But it's not an official
Speaker 2: law or in our constitution that we have a quote
Speaker 2: freedom of speech like they do in the US. Now
Speaker 2: back to why we're talking about this story today. One
Speaker 2: New Zealand party wants to put a version of these
Speaker 2: principles that have been established over decades into law.
Speaker 4: Okay, And why does someone want to do or why
Speaker 4: does a party want to be doing that, what's the
Speaker 4: justification for doing that?
Speaker 2: So the party in question is called Act, led by
Speaker 2: David Seymour, and it says the Treaty principles have been
Speaker 2: quote gradually built up over time, which they say means
Speaker 2: the New Zealand public has never been democratically consulted on them.
Speaker 2: They say, quote the Treaty principles are often mentioned in legislation,
Speaker 2: but they have never actually been defined in law. And
Speaker 2: for something that can govern land decisions and decisions made
Speaker 2: about a group of people in New Zealand, they're saying,
Speaker 2: this is something that needs to be legally defined, okay.
Speaker 2: A bill introduced by Act would legally define what the
Speaker 2: Treaty principles are and what the treaty means. This includes
Speaker 2: establishing a new legal definition of that thing that I
Speaker 2: mentioned that was important earlier, the quote Undisturbed Possession Land
Speaker 2: and Property Agreement. Act's proposal is that this agreement should
Speaker 2: apply to every New Zealand citizen, not just Mardy people,
Speaker 2: unless there has been a legal agreement otherwise, such as
Speaker 2: a White Tangy tribunal decision protecting a piece of land.
Speaker 2: And they say that doing this would ensure quote, all
Speaker 2: New Zealanders are equal under the law, with the same
Speaker 2: rights and duties. If it passes, the bill would ultimately
Speaker 2: lead to a referendum on what act has proposed. New
Speaker 2: Zealanders would be asked if they accept the bill's interpretation
Speaker 2: of these principles to enshrine them into law, but that's
Speaker 2: very unlikely to happen.
Speaker 4: We'll be back in a moment, but first a quick
Speaker 4: word from our sponsor. Okay, so let me just get
Speaker 4: my head around this quickly. So this treaty was signed,
Speaker 4: you know, over one hundred years ago, and over time
Speaker 4: and throughout New Zealand's history, these principles have emerged. And
Speaker 4: now today in twenty twenty four, there is a party
Speaker 4: in Parliament and who is part of the government who's saying,
Speaker 4: we actually never got the chance to vote on those
Speaker 4: things that are these principles, and we believe that needs
Speaker 4: to happen. And you're saying this legislation has been introduced
Speaker 4: and that if it passes, it would lead to a
Speaker 4: referendum but where you just left off, is it that's
Speaker 4: unlikely to happen right?
Speaker 3: Why is that?
Speaker 2: That is because of the current makeup of New Zealand's parliament.
Speaker 2: So like Australia, New Zealand's parliament made up of a
Speaker 2: lot of different parties. Unlike Australia, no one party has
Speaker 2: formed a government by itself since early nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 2: so within my lifetime, you know, as a comparison, the
Speaker 2: Labor Party has formed government in the House of Representatives
Speaker 2: just by itself. Another difference is that Australia's government flips
Speaker 2: back and forth between the very established coalition of the
Speaker 2: Liberal and National Parties and the Labor Party governing alone.
Speaker 2: New Zealand's coalitions can be a variation of different combinations.
Speaker 2: Different parties work together at different elections. Right now, the
Speaker 2: government is a coalition of three broadly right wing parties,
Speaker 2: National which Prime Minister Christopher Luxen belongs to the aforementioned
Speaker 2: Act and New zealand First. Previous PM Jacinda A Dern,
Speaker 2: formed government in twenty twenty with a coalition of Labor,
Speaker 2: the Green Party and New Zealand First also a few
Speaker 2: days ago. But back to today's coalition, At the last
Speaker 2: election in October twenty twenty three, National, led by Christopher Luxen,
Speaker 2: won the most seats, didn't win enough to form government
Speaker 2: by itself, had to negotiate with smaller parties Act and
Speaker 2: New First through a long process of negotiation that led
Speaker 2: to coalition agreements.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So, I mean the idea of forming government through a
Speaker 4: coalition isn't foreign to us, but certainly we don't have
Speaker 4: it to the same degree here. But one of the
Speaker 4: things that happens when you have multiple parties become the
Speaker 4: government is that there have to be concessions, right, Everyone
Speaker 4: wants different things. So what sorts of agreements did National,
Speaker 4: who said is the Prime Minister's party, what sort of
Speaker 4: agreements did they make during these negotiations to get those
Speaker 4: other two parties on board.
Speaker 2: Part of Acts agreement with National was to allow them
Speaker 2: to put forward the Treaty Principle's Bill.
Speaker 3: Which is okay, the bill we're talking about today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And part of that meant that National would support
Speaker 2: the bill's first phase, but no further than that, just
Speaker 2: the first phase.
Speaker 4: Okay, And so when does that support technically stop? Because
Speaker 4: you said at the very beginning of this podcast that
Speaker 4: Christopher Luxen, the Prime doesn't support this bill.
Speaker 2: Yes, it basically has meant that they have supported the
Speaker 2: first vote in Parliament. They've allowed the bill to pass
Speaker 2: the first round of voting, which in New Zealand means
Speaker 2: it goes to a committee discussion. It has not meant
Speaker 2: public support for the bill, which is why Christopher Luxon
Speaker 2: has spoken out about it publicly. But in actual Parliament
Speaker 2: they voted for it one time and not again now
Speaker 2: that it's been sent to a committee, national support has ended. Okay,
Speaker 2: here's what Christopher Luxon said earlier this month.
Speaker 5: My view a very simplistic interpretation of the Treaty of
Speaker 5: WHITEITANGI that has served us, I think incredibly well. And
Speaker 5: to simplify it down in the way through a piece
Speaker 5: of legislation like this, I think is a disservice to
Speaker 5: the treaty. We do not like this bill. We will
Speaker 5: not be supporting it. We see no need for it
Speaker 5: because we think it is divisive.
Speaker 4: So even though it doesn't have the support of the
Speaker 4: sitting Prime Minister, this bill has made quite a splash.
Speaker 4: There has been quite a strong reaction to it, not
Speaker 4: just inside Parliament but also outside of Parliament. Can you
Speaker 4: talk me through what some of the reactions to the
Speaker 4: bill have been.
Speaker 2: So a minor party to party Maori has been the
Speaker 2: most outspoken against the bill. One of their arguments is
Speaker 2: that legally reinterpreting the treaty to mean everyone is equal
Speaker 2: is not in its spirit. The spirit of the treaties
Speaker 2: that it grants Marii particular rights, and that changing it
Speaker 2: is not a way of achieving equality because Marii Ewe
Speaker 2: face greater and more entrenched disadvantage, according to Tapati Mari
Speaker 2: than other New Zealand communities, and that this disadvantage needs
Speaker 2: to be addressed by government action, including law making everyone
Speaker 2: equal under the law. Their argument is that this would
Speaker 2: undo progress towards erasing this disadvantage. Another one of their
Speaker 2: arguments is probably best ex prest by party co leader
Speaker 2: Rowi riwait Titi in the parliamentary debate.
Speaker 6: To Tito, white tangy is superior to any person in
Speaker 6: any law if it created in this house this parliament,
Speaker 6: means nothing in all Tardo without the tz or white Tangi.
Speaker 6: The only people who can make changes in an agreement
Speaker 6: are the parties who signed it. The King of England,
Speaker 6: Man ayoahapu all tello. Now tell me David Simour, what's
Speaker 6: one of those? Are you?
Speaker 2: And here's the stance from the Labor opposition from MP
Speaker 2: Willie Jackson.
Speaker 7: David Seymour wants to turn over fifty years of our
Speaker 7: understanding of treaty principles and partnership. The principles are clear,
Speaker 7: mister speaker.
Speaker 6: They're clear.
Speaker 7: They're about partnership, they're about equity, they're about active protection
Speaker 7: and they're about redrease. Simple Why is this offendous minister
Speaker 7: so much?
Speaker 4: And so I think the first time, as I said
Speaker 4: a bit earlier, that a lot of people internationally would
Speaker 4: have seen this story was when the hukka was performed
Speaker 4: in Parliament as part of a form of protest against
Speaker 4: this bill. What has the reaction been from kiwis across
Speaker 4: the country?
Speaker 2: Ahead of the bill's introduction to Parliament, thousands of people
Speaker 2: participated in a hikoy or a march from the far
Speaker 2: northern tip of the North Island of New Zealand to
Speaker 2: the capital, Wellington, which is in the south of the
Speaker 2: North Island. Two hundred and thirty thousand people have signed
Speaker 2: a petition calling for the bill to be thrown out
Speaker 2: because it quote represents a direct assault on Marti Wright's
Speaker 2: culture and identity.
Speaker 4: Okay, so there is some pretty firm opposition there to
Speaker 4: this bill, but you did mention that it won't progress
Speaker 4: or it would be very unlikely for it to progress
Speaker 4: given the composition of the Parliament and who's said therefore
Speaker 4: and who's said they're agains.
Speaker 3: So what happens now? What do we expect to see happen?
Speaker 2: The bill is going through through a committee. Submissions are
Speaker 2: now open to the public. I'm sure it will receive
Speaker 2: lots of submissions. After that, it's back for another vote
Speaker 2: where we know it doesn't have the support of the
Speaker 2: majority and it will likely fail. That's not due to
Speaker 2: happen for another six months or so, so we'll have
Speaker 2: to loop you back in then.
Speaker 3: Brilliant.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, Lucy for explaining quite a complex topic
Speaker 4: and indeed making me understand and hopefully making our audience understand.
Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us for another episode of the
Speaker 4: Daily Ods. We'll back later today with some headlines, but
Speaker 4: until then, have a great day.
Speaker 2: My name is Lily Madden and I'm a proud Dunda
Speaker 2: bungelung calcottin woman from Gadigol country.
Speaker 7: The Daily os acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on
Speaker 7: the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to
Speaker 7: all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations.
Speaker 2: We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
Speaker 2: both past and present.