David Seymour at Waitangi on Monday. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Analysis - Nearly four months after the election David Seymour's Treaty Principles Bill is still at the forefront of political discussion despite National trying to shift attention by announcing its law and order crackdown has started.
And it's not likely to drift away - Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said this week he hoped the bill would be introduced and the select committee process completed by the end of the year.
That means heavy media coverage is almost guaranteed and, if Luxon can't find a more compelling diversion, he could spend the first year of his three-year term watching from the sidelines.
ACT's original intention was for the bill to be passed, the principles of the Treaty defined, and a referendum held to set them in law.
National wouldn't go that far, it definitely didn't want a hugely divisive referendum, so to get ACT into coalition it agreed to support the bill on its first reading only and send it to a select committee for public submissions.
A special select committee is likely to be set up for that and there could be thousands of submissions.
Luxon this week for the first time firmly ruled out supporting the bill any further, RNZ reported.
Christopher Luxon has taken a stronger position on the Treaty Principles Bill this week, Peter Wilson writes. Photo: Angus Dreaver / RNZ
Speaking after Wednesday's Cabinet meeting he said: "The National Party position - and as leader of the National Party now, not as prime minister, is that we will not be supporting that bill."
He had previously said, on numerous occasions when asked, that National had "no intention" or was "not committed" to supporting it beyond its first reading.
Luxon denied that killing the bill after its first reading made the whole exercise a waste of time, saying it would be a good thing for people to be able to have their say on the Treaty principles during the select committee hearings.
Seymour hasn't accepted that Luxon's stance means his bill won't go further.
He thinks National could change its mind if there's evidence of a big groundswell of public support for defining the principles and holding a referendum.
Luxon was asked about that at his press conference and replied "that's not a possibility".
But Seymour is undeterred.
"I mean, last week he wouldn't rule out supporting it further, yesterday he would. I think he got a bit nervous after Waitangi," he told Newshub's AM Show on Thursday.
He said there was one part of Luxon's press conference comments he didn't believe.
"The bit I don't believe is he won't change his mind if the public really wants it," he said.
"All politicians are very mindful of what the public wants, and I've seen polls published in the Herald that said that 60 percent of New Zealanders agree with what we're saying on the Treaty, 18 percent disagree; they want this debate."
All this is giving Seymour a vast amount of air time and media attention. He knows it and doesn't want any let up.
Seymour's latest tactic is a public information campaign about his bill, which could help maintain the momentum.
"The ACT Party has launched a public information campaign on its Treaty Principles Bill in an effort to ward off what it calls false claims from the opposition," RNZ reported.
It includes a new website, treaty.nz, which includes a Q&A section setting out ACT's approach and a video featuring Seymour.
"Time and again, the opposition have claimed we are trying to re-write, or even abolish, the Treaty," he said in a statement when the website was launched.
Māori distrust
Veteran Māori activist and previous MP Hone Harawira addresses members of the coalition government at Waitangi Treaty Grounds on Tuesday. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Seymour and Luxon have repeatedly stressed there is no intention to meddle with the Treaty but Māori just don't seem to trust them.
A report published by RNZ last week gave strong evidence of that with a series of quotes:
"There's no question about this; this is an attempt to abolish the Treaty of Waitangi."
"Te Tiriti o Waitangi is sacrosanct"
"I sense the mana that gripped iwi in the seabed and foreshore is starting to trickle through over the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi."
Those were all recent quotes from prominent Māori figures "amid growing fear and anger over the fate of a 184-year-old document that a junior coalition partner wants to revisit", reporter Sharon Brettkelly said.
The Detail podcast on the Treaty of Waitangi's articles, principles and changes
ACT's new website is an attempt to dispel those attitudes.
"The Treaty Principles Bill will not change the Treaty itself," it says.
"That was set in 1840 and will remain forever. What we are seeking to do is continue the process of defining the Treaty principles, for the first time incorporating the voices of all the people through a democratic parliamentary process, instead of through the (Waitangi) Tribunal or the courts."
One of the stated objectives of the bill is to ensure equal rights for everyone, and the website answers the question "Do New Zealanders not currently have equal rights" in this way: "Not always. Creative interpretations of the 'principles' of the Treaty have been used to justify different access to taxpayer-funded services, guaranteed positions on government boards, and even a separate healthcare authority, all based on people's ancestry."
There's much more, and the website is an obvious must read for anyone who wants to get to grips with what is going on and make up their minds about who is right and who is wrong.
Even if the bill is dealt with within the year, which seems unlikely given the number of public submissions likely to come in, there's more trouble ahead for the government, as the Herald's political editor Claire Trevett pointed out.
"The spotlight is currently on that Treaty Principles Bill, but there is a long line-up of other fraught issues in the coalition agreements waiting for their turn - the plan to scrap the Māori Health Authority, reform of the Waitangi Tribunal, a review of references to the principles of the Treaty in laws, paring back the use of Māori for government agencies and plans to change programmes which are race-based rather than solely needs-based," she said.
With all that in front of him, Luxon could be facing Māori angst over his government's policies for most if not all of his first term.
Changing the narrative
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The government, seeing everything else becoming peripheral to Seymour's bill, may have been trying to seize at least part of the political agenda and change the narrative when it announced on Wednesday it was "making good on its promise to restore law and order".
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith appeared with Luxon at the post-cabinet press conference.
What they had to say didn't make grabby headlines, however, and there was outright scepticism about one of the announcements.
They said a bill was being drafted to remove taxpayer funding from cultural reports used in sentencing and the government was scrapping Labour's target of a 30 percent reduction in prison numbers.
Section 27 of the Legal Services Act allows cultural reports, described by the Herald this way: "Section 27, or cultural reports, are used during criminal sentencing to provide the judge with information about the defendant's personal, family, community and cultural background, and how it may relate to their offending. These reports may lead to the judge allowing a discount to the overall sentence, but that is not guaranteed."
Goldsmith said the original intention of Section 27 had been for a friend or relative of the defendant to speak to the court but it had spawned a cottage industry involving professionals who produced written reports at the taxpayers' expense.
Goldsmith said $40,000 was spent on the cultural reports in 2017 and that surged to more than $7 million last financial year. Over that time the number of reports increased from 14 to 2500.
He said the Labour government, during its six years in office, had spent nearly $25m on the reports.
Speaking to media after the press conference, Goldsmith said there was no evidence the reports reduced reoffending, RNZ reported.
He said people could still give a cultural report orally in the court or in writing but there would no longer be funding through the legal aid system for written reports.
The Greens said Māori in particular faced "significant harm" because of the decision.
Courts spokesperson Tamatha Paul said the government was taking New Zealand "further away from a justice system that treats everyone with humanity, dignity and respect".
Luxon and Goldsmith had an easy ride explaining that measure, but they didn't when it came to scrapping Labour's prison reduction target.
"The government confirmed today it is scrapping an already expired prison reduction target," RNZ's report said.
Therein lay the problem, pointed out by journalists at the press conference - Labour leader Chris Hipkins said during the election campaign there would be no reduction target this term, which had been welcomed by National's then corrections spokesperson Mark Mitchell.
"Are you cancelling something that's already been cancelled?" one questioner asked.
Luxon said it had been difficult to understand what Labour was committing to during the campaign.
Goldsmith said the 30 percent reduction target had been long-standing Labour policy.
It wasn't clear whether they knew Hipkins had cancelled it.
*Peter Wilson is a life member of Parliament's press gallery, 22 years as NZPA's political editor and seven as parliamentary bureau chief for NZ Newswire.