The following article is an opinion piece and the views expressed are those of the author.
You may well ask what the heck he is on about.
Well it is either there is a current practice of the government bureaucracy adding sections into legislation without approval from the coalition government or the coalition government is adding these sections in against their express promises from prior to the 2023 election.
The latest example is seen in the addition of clause 13.2.2a in the India Free Trade Agreement which states:
“2. The Parties, subject to their respective reservations, affirm the following:
a. the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in New York on 13 September 2007 and their respective positions made on that Declaration.”
In 2010, the Key government sent Minister Pita Sharples to tell the UN that NZ now supported the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Commenting on what he told the UN, Sharples said:
“It reflects well on the relationship between the National and Maori Parties that this Government has been able to endorse this important declaration.”
The latest statement to the UN of New Zealand’s position was made to the session on 21 July 2023 of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which stated the following:
“Aotearoa New Zealand is committed to upholding the rights affirmed in the Declaration. The right to self-determination – a cornerstone of UNDRIP – can only be achieved if Indigenous Peoples can effectively participate in decision making processes that affect them, including at the United Nations.”
By 2023 under the Ardern/Hipkins Labour government, NZ had gone from endorsing UNDRIP to a commitment “to upholding the rights affirmed in the Declaration,” and seeking advice “to support the drafting of a plan to achieve the ends of UNDRIP in Aotearoa New Zealand.”
As the New Zealanders who claim indigenous status are Maori and governmental decisions affect all New Zealanders including Maori, this means the New Zealand position had become one where Maori should have the right to participate in all or most decision making. That is co-governance between a democratically elected government for all New Zealanders and Maori. Maori protocols ensure they are represented by an essentially, self-selected elite.
A majority of NZ’s believed that New Zealand’s position would change with the formation of the coalition government at the end of 2023, but it didn’t.
Under the heading Equal Citizenship, the NZ First coalition agreement stated:
“The Coalition Government will reverse measures taken in recent years which have eroded the principle of equal citizenship, specifically we will: …
Confirm that the Coalition Government does not recognise the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as having any binding legal effect on New Zealand.”
But that part of the agreement has not been ratified. New Zealand’s position with the UN and in international law remains one of commitment to UNDRIP and to its implementation.
The officials who included clause 13.2.2 a. into the India FTA and the Minister who signed the FTA have defied the “Equal Citizenship” requirements in the NZ First coalition agreement, and by doing so have effectively moved NZ from merely noting UNDRIP and New Zealand’s position to affirming both.
The government has not merely failed to confirm that New Zealand “does not recognise … UNDRIP as having any binding legal effect on New Zealand,” but effectively confirmed that UNDRIP has binding status if they sign the India FTA under its current wording.
While this may not have been the coalition government’s intention with the signing of the India FTA, it is one of the outcomes if they accept the agreement with its current wording.
This can have serious constitutional implications for NZ. The NZ First coalition agreement expressly committed to confirming UNDRIP has no binding legal effect. Yet officials and the signing Minister have, through an instrument of international law, done the opposite — affirming both the Declaration and a NZ position that endorses co-governance in substance if not in name.
There is no doubt that given recent experiences with activist judges, there is little doubt that the courts will take the affirmations for what they plainly are: New Zealand’s acceptance that UNDRIP is binding such that its principles may be utilised in the interpretation of legislation and as influencing the common law.
“The right to self-determination – a cornerstone of UNDRIP – can only be achieved if Indigenous Peoples can effectively participate in decision making processes that affect them, including at the United Nations.”
Democracy is based on the concepts of the equal Natural Rights of ALL PEOPLE to participate in the decision making processes that affect them.
The Prime Minister’s job is to protect our system of democracy & equality and to ensure that any threats to either are promptly and firmly opposed by, if necessary legislation, and by publicly speaking out against them.”
Stopping the tribal takeover is what National, ACT and New Zealand First promised to do when they agreed to prioritise “Ending race-based policies” in their Coalition Agreement.
We are now seeing the consequences of decades of allowing vested interest groups committed to subverting democracy and seizing power for their own enrichment, to infiltrate all levels of government in New Zealand both central and local.
Insistence on a separate Maori government has built up over the decades since the formation of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975. The Tribunal has over time constructed and publicised a complete rewriting of history – the “retrospective recrimination” and “counterfactual history” of the Tribunal, quoting the words of historian Bill Oliver. This fundamental reversal of the message and meaning of the Treaty has been aided by a captive media and the crippling of free speech.
After approximately fifty years of working to weave racial privilege deep into the New Zealand’s legislative framework, Iwi leaders are not only fighting any attempts to remove that privilege but to also extend it as far and as fast as possible before the Coalition Government can enact legislation to reverse race-based laws and practices.
The key reason New Zealanders have not resisted the tribal takeover is that activists pursued an incremental approach to avoid triggering public alarm. With operatives embedded deep within the machinery of the State decades ago, many changes were engineered from within.
In 2017, when Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister and Labour won all of the Maori seats, the incremental approach to institutional capture was replaced by a coordinated strategy spearheaded by a new government agency working in collaboration with tribal leaders.
The Office of Maori-Crown Relations reshaped the State sector from within, embedding a radical Treaty indoctrination framework across government - and when Labour won a majority in 2020; they revealed He Puapua, their secret blueprint to replace democracy with tribal rule.
Virtually every government agency was targeted by He Puapua activists and if the Labour-appointed radicals within the State sector are not ousted, government agencies will continue their journey towards a Maori Nation State.
A classic example of this is seen in the actions of the Local Government Commission in developing a universal code of conduct for elected members of local authorities, the draft of which includes a Treaty clause aligned with Labour’s He Puapua agenda.
Over the years, with pro-active support from Labour, the tribal sovereignty movement has embedded the framework for a separatist nation-state deep within government institutions. This constitutional transformation was never approved by the public - yet it continues to shape policy, funding, and governance.
The Maorification of our public service bureaucracy is not about creating a shared heritage and a unifying shared modern culture, it’s solely about domination of the national direction, and with it comes a cultural outlook that most of us never consented to and get punished if we try to resist.
If we try to push back, we’re dismissed, branded as bigots, called colonisers and in many cases accused of being white supremacists, no matter our actual ethnicity, background, or intent.
There can be no mature discussion about our future as a country until everybody accepts that the Treaty provided for the government to have final authority, with all citizens - no matter their ancestry - having equal rights.
We must stop being afraid to say it. This is not just wrong. It is corrosive. A separatist political model based on racial ancestry belongs in 19th-century Apartheid South Africa, not 21st-century New Zealand.
We have been told for many years now that Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. But we have also been told of the amazing exploits of the original Maori settlers who travelled to New Zealand from Hawaiki by canoe.
The Cambridge dictionary definition of indigenous is as follows:
Indigenous
Adjective:
Used to refer to, or relating to, the people who originally lived in a place, rather than people who moved there from somewhere else:
Used to refer to plants and animals that grow or live naturally in a place, and have not been brought there from somewhere else:
Not foreign or from outside an area:
So taking from this definition combined with the history of the Maori migrating to New Zealand from Hawaiki in their canoes we must conclude that the Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand just very early migrants by their own admission.
Given that by their own admission Maori are not indigenous to NZ then UNDRIP should not have any place in our FTA’s or in relation to our democratic system of government, particularly in relation to Maori – Crown relationships.
In relation to the India FTA, one can only surmise that the Minister and MFAT have either acted in defiance of Cabinet or without understanding what they signed. Either way, the FTA should not be ratified in its current form. New Zealand's UN position needs to be formally updated to reflect the coalition government's stated stance.