NZ’s next government will inherit a Treaty debate that is far from resolved

Joe Allison/Getty Images For the past three years, reducing the role of te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi in public life has been one of the coalition government’s main priorities.

This has meant removing references to te Tiriti in legislation, abolishing institutions such as the Māori Health Authority, and reversing a previous trend toward strengthening Māori language and culture in public institutions.

The government’s argument has been that equality and effectiveness in policy, and the delivery of government services , should be based on “need, not race” (although there is no mention of “race” in te Tiriti).

In different ways, the parties in opposition have argued that culture and colonial context (which are not at all the same as “race”) are highly relevant to policy working as well for Māori as for anyone else.

This ideological fault line runs through the current election campaign, too.

Depending on the final result, it may again be a defining feature of the next parliament.

A polarised parliament So far, the National Party hasn’t released a specific Treaty policy for 2026.

But the two smaller coalition parties, ACT and New Zealand First, are promising to continue the pattern of the past three years.

Both want to abolish the Waitangi Tribunal once final historical settlements have been reached (the implication being that te Tiriti can’t be breached in the present or future).

That’s despite the tribunal itself having found government policies – in education, health, child care and protection, citizenship, local government, and marine and coastal area rights – have breached the Treaty over the past three years.

As the ACT Party’s Treaty Principles Bill showed, the debate has become deeply polarising .

Around 270,000 people made submissions against the bill, which essentially sought to redefine the meaning of the Treaty’s three articles, and 40,000 marched against it .

Some 10,000 showed their opposition at a hui convened by King Tuheitia before the bill was introduced.

Those are significant numbers in a population of just over five million, and National didn’t support the bill largely because it was so divisive.