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Confusion about protocol and roles with the government seems to have caused confusion inside the coalition after Regulations Minister David Seymour sent a scathing letter to a UN official – without clearance. The letter, defending his Regulatory Standards Bill, was labelled “presumptive” and “offensive” by the UN for ignoring Māori rights.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says Seymour overstepped, even though he agrees with the letter’s content. Luxon insists Foreign Minister Winston Peters should handle UN matters. Peters says he had to explain that process to Seymour. Seymour has now withdrawn the letter-but offered no apology.
Tina Ngata is a Ngāti Porou mother and advocate from Te Ika a Māui’s East Coast, working locally and globally to advance Indigenous, environmental, and human rights, and challenge the impacts of settler colonialism.
Ngata says, the language that Seymour used (meddling in domestic issues, affront to national sovereignty, offensive, ill-informed) to evade oversight of the Human Rights Council is the same language that pretty much all member states who engage in extreme human rights abuse use.
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