More than 40,000 people marched on New Zealand’s capital this week in anger over a proposed revision of a treaty underpinning Maori rights, a conservative backlash against former prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s liberal policies.
The protests – which included the famous “hookah” dance – showed deep divisions in New Zealand, where the political pendulum has swung away from the progressive policies championed by Ardern.
Since taking office last year, Christopher Lackson’s centre-right government has reversed many of the previous government’s historic initiatives, fueled by a shift against the “Jacksonmania” fervor that swept Labor into 2020. The party had won a historic victory, but it faded away. Epidemic stress and rising cost of living.
“Liberal democracies around the world are under pressure. This is our version of it,” Ngāti Toa clan leader Helmut Modlik told the Financial Times.
Luxon, a former Unilever executive and chief executive of Air New Zealand, has pushed for the repeal of a “burp tax” on cattle farmers, a ban on oil and gas exploration and the world’s toughest smoking ban to reduce methane emissions. One of the sanctions is monitoring.
His government has also backtracked on Ardern-era measures on the Maori population.
Oliver Hartwich, executive director of the New Zealand Initiative think tank, said Ardern policies including the creation of a Maori health body, proposals to hand control of water infrastructure to tribal groups and renaming government departments to Maori names. Abandoned – Many New Zealanders were alienated.
“It provoked a reaction but the pendulum has swung the other way,” he said, adding that the debate about Maori rights was “a hell of a mess”.
The protests this week followed the introduction of a bill on the Treaty of Waitangi, a document that academics call “New Zealand’s Magna Carta”. The British government and Maori chiefs signed a treaty in 1840 that included rights for the country’s First Nations people and laid out guidelines for governance.
Under the proposed bill, backed by the libertarian ACT Party, which is part of Lacson’s coalition government, treaty rights would extend to all citizens, rather than just members of the Maori community. The bill will also allow Parliament to define principles that have so far been interpreted through court decisions and then enshrine them in law.
The introduction of the bill was partly a result of Lacson’s difficulty in putting together a coalition. His party agreed to table the bill to gain support from the ACT Party, which campaigned on the issue, to form government.
Lacson has promised that his National Party, along with other major parties, will oppose the bill despite supporting it. “You don’t with the stroke of a pen, with 184 years of debate, negate a bill that I think is very simple,” he told reporters last week.
ACT Party leader David Seymour, himself of Maori descent, has denied accusations of undermining social cohesion by pushing for treaty renewal, insisting in a statement to the Financial Times that in recent decades he had merely wanted to challenge the interpretation of
Seymour said the deal “has led to race-based preferences in health care, increased counseling requirements for development and even racial quotas within public institutions.” “New Zealanders were never consulted on this change.”
“ACT believes the agreement promises what it says: All methods are the same – Equal rights and duties for all New Zealanders.
Waikato University law professor Alexander Gillespie said Seymour was exploiting a public perception that the Maori population had unfair advantages. He said that social media has exacerbated this “bias”.
Opponents of the bill say Maori people are still struggling. The Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board, a tribal governing body, said this month that Indigenous unemployment rates have consistently been double that of the general population over the past three decades. According to Health New Zealand’s 2023 annual report, life expectancy for Māori men is eight years less than the New Zealand average, with a difference of seven years for Māori women.
Even if the bill fails, as expected, some believe it could trigger a national referendum, which itself could deepen political divisions. Seymour supports a referendum and believes the public vote will support his view. “That’s why other parties are so keen to shut down this debate – they know they’re on the wrong side of public opinion,” he said.
The debate also echoes Australia’s failed “The Voice” referendum last year, which sought to include the recognition of indigenous communities in the country’s constitution. “Documents we consider sacred are not as secure as we think,” said Gillespie of the “threats” debate.
Gillespie called on Lacson to restore the political and social consensus that had presided over New Zealand in recent decades.
Modlak was taken aback by the enthusiastic response to the protest march, known as A.K. to walk. He noted that many New Zealanders of European descent and other immigrant communities had “turned out in force” to support the protest march.
“The vision of our nation was right before our eyes as different communities came together to say, ‘We are not going to accept this divisive rhetoric.’ Show unity [to Seymour] ‘It is too late, brother – the horse has spoken’, he said.
