The Waitangi Tribunal's losing battle

A fight is brewing between the government and the Waitangi Tribunal over scrapping the Māori Health Authority - but we already know who's won. 

The government has gazumped the Waitangi Tribunal over its bill to get rid of the newly established Māori Health Authority - Te Aka Whai Ora. 

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced yesterday it would act to dissolve the Authority this week.

The Tribunal can't comment on matters before Parliament, so even if it gets its urgent inquiry into the matter going swiftly, its findings won't be released before the deed is done. 

But even if it had managed its urgent inquiry - would it have made any difference to the government's path? 

It doesn't actually have to take any notice of the Tribunal's decisions or recommendations. 

The Authority was created under Labour in the wake of another Waitangi Tribunal inquiry, WAI 2575, which found there was a need for a greater focus on Māori health equity, and that the primary health care funding model disadvantaged Māori patients.

It said the Crown had breached its Treaty obligations to design and administer a system that addressed those inequities. 

One of its recommendations was the establishment of an independent Māori health authority. It was described at the time as a gamechanger for Māori. 

All three parties in the new government campaigned on scrapping it. 

The claim over Te Aka Whai Ora was lodged by Māori health advocates Lady Tureiti Moxon and Janice Kuka and was granted urgency. 

Today on The Detail we look at the powers of the Waitangi Tribunal, the laws governing it, and what part it plays in our political debate. 

We talk to Carwyn Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu), the kaihautū (director) at Te Whare Whakatupu Mātauranga at Te Wānanga o Raukawa in Ōtaki. He teaches Māori laws and philosophy.

He used to work for the Waitangi Tribunal Unit (its administration and support team), so is in a perfect position to give co-host Tom Kitchin a rundown on what the Tribunal is, and how it was set up.

"Even where the government chooses to ignore the Tribunal's findings or recommendations," he says, (it) "allows for the evidence to be put around Treaty breaches and for that to be made public, and it can provide through some of its reports a kind of persuasive political argument. The Tribunal itself is not political but it provides the kind of evidence-base, and the Treaty analysis that might allow others to pick that up and try and use it to generate some political pressure on the government."

Jones also addresses the criticisms by another Jones - MP Shane - that the Tribunal has stepped beyond its remit. 

He runs through the history of the Tribunal, why it was established and talks about the expansion of its remit in recent years. 

"There's been lots of talk about whether the Tribunal ought to have greater powers, more binding jurisdiction and there are, I think, pro and cons to that,'' Jones says.

"If the Tribunal was to become more like a court, it would require the tribunal's process to become more formalised, it would have an impact on the kinds of evidence that the Waitangi Tribunal would be able to hear and receive. I think some of those aspects would be detrimental to the operation of the Tribunal."
 

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