PM wants to unite, but landmines remain
Yesterday was the day that Christopher Luxon became Prime Minister. Or at least yesterday’s speech from the throne and his own speech in reply finally allowed Luxon clear air to promote his own programme for National in government under his leadership, without the surrounding noise of his coalition partners.
It was a relief from even the day before, when the PM volunteered that it was not fair for his Government to face protests from Te Pāti Māori activists and kingitanga-aligned iwi barely two weeks into the job. But that was a function of Luxon having had to share with his coalition parties so far.
Luxon’s platform, outlined clearly yesterday, is tax relief for middle-income earners, investment in infrastructure and extracting better value and performance from public services. That remains the core of the coalition’s policy programme.
But the tone or the vibe of the new coalition was unavoidably set, and the spark for protests lit, by the hostile laundry list of complaints, especially in relation to Māori and Treaty issues, in the NZ First coalition agreement.
A promise not to change the country’s name to Aotearoa. Legislating to confirm that English is an official language. Demanding government agencies communicate “primarily” in English.
There are substantial policies in the agreement that put Māori rights at risk. But the sheer weight of trivial, but adversarial policies was like an angry neighbour storming into a party, shutting off the stereo and announcing the party is over. In the same vein, the protests organised between Te Pāti Māori and
Kingitanga-affiliated iwi were like a new prisoner walking up to the biggest inmate in the cells and punching him in the nose. It was also a statement of intent, with the added element of surprise.
It also offered a glimpse of a new way to be an opposition party in Parliament: using political office as a platform for movement organising, rather than a press release and speech production line.
There has never been a better opportunity. Te Pāti Māori expertly harnesses the unprecedented engagement by younger audiences on social justice issues, primed by social media to mobilise in direct action, by Black Lives Matter and the Gazan conflict abroad and Ihumātao at home, with greater penetration into the mainstream consciousness than ever before.
It’s up to Luxon to now course-correct the narrative of his Government on these issues. He entered politics to be a uniter, not a divider. Yesterday was the beginning.
The speech from the throne, delivered on Luxon’s behalf by the Governor-General, mentioned “working with iwi” a mere minute in.
Discussing health reforms, “emphasis will shift to the frontline. Services will be delivered on the basis of need” by “iwi and community groups who have the best reach into the communities” they serve.
Luxon is well aware there are deeply rooted links between need and race in New Zealand. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet are not blind to the fact that there is plenty of need in New Zealand, that much of it is rooted in particular communities, and that these communities often have particular demographic profiles, and they will often be best addressed by iwi.
There will be no mass cancellation of contracts with Māori services. More likely, there will be expansion.
He has focused his messaging on the benefits of improving under-performing public services for everyone, including Māori. This is incidentally the same pitch Willie Jackson and Labour used against the Māori Party Version 1.0 contrasting its focus on constitutionalism with the struggles of Māori at the flax roots.
However, aside from mood and tone, some landmines remain. A review of legislative provisions requiring government or other bodies to act in accordance with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi is a potential flashpoint. NZ First may get some quick wins. Why, for instance, is there is a Treaty clause in the Education (Domestic Tertiary Student and International Student Contract Dispute Resolution Scheme) Rules of 2023?
But courts have recognised rights as a result of Treaty clauses in more significant legislation, including the Resource Management Act, the Crown Minerals Act, and the Conservation Act.
Not coincidentally, these are also the areas where even conservative readings of the Treaty in any language guaranteed rights to local Māori chiefs in their lands. It would be an extraordinary step for the Crown to do anything in its review other than codifying those rights in law.
Reviewing the legal test for customary title under the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act is by definition fraught with risk; the original foreshore hikoi is the standard against which all Māori protest has been measured for the past 18 years. Luxon will have to confront these issues head-on, because as soon as Parliament resumes next year the Kingitanga will be holding a hui to discuss its next steps. Waitangi looms after that. The PM has one of his most important sales jobs yet.