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August 10, 2025
Māori and First Nations’ People – a one line mention in Trans-Tasman joint statement
Claudette Hauiti
Posted On August 10, 2025
One line. That’s all Māori and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples get in the trans-Tasman joint statement signed in Queenstown on Saturday. A single acknowledgement of our “integral role”, with no governance, no Treaty obligations, and no say in the sweeping agenda that follows.
The statement signed by NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, maps out a decade of deepened Australia-New Zealand cooperation:
- defence and AUKUS Pillar II talks
- mutual recognition of digital identities
- a single competitive procurement market
- climate and minerals projects
- pacific policing
- streamlined travel systems
Yet nowhere in these clauses is there a commitment to Māori decision-making, uphold indigenous sovereignty, or protect Treaty rights.
Procurement: The single market approach could unlock trans-Tasman opportunities for Māori enterprises. But without explicit protection, it risks erasing the already reduced domestic Māori procurement targets. This is a “level playing field” trans Tasman-style that ignores equity.
Digital Identity: Shared recognition of digital IDs and driver licences may simplify travel and business, but without Māori Data Sovereignty frameworks, our identity information becomes another tradable commodity, open for exploitation and abuse. No safeguards, no Māori governance.
Defence and AUKUS: Continued engagement with AUKUS Pillar II, framed as regional security cooperation, comes without any Māori role in shaping foreign or defence policy. Our anti-nuclear commitments and Pasifika whakapapa ties demand Māori voices at the table, yet the statement offers none.
Standards and the Single Economic Market: Alignment of standards and economic integration could further erode protections for Māori intellectual property and mātauranga Māori unless explicitly ring-fenced in law and policy that both nations are accountable too. What’s to say we’ll end up with our whānau featured on billboards supporting policies opposing our first nations whānau?
Pacific Initiatives: Joint climate, policing, and banking projects in the Pacific could benefit communities, or replicate colonial patterns of over-policing and exclusion if Māori-Pasifika co-governance isn’t built in.
Climate, Energy, and Critical Minerals: The move to expand clean energy and mineral cooperation risks fast-tracking extraction on Māori land without free, prior, and informed consent. The statement is silent on ownership, control, or benefit-sharing. Silent on both pre and post Treaty Settlements.
Even the “Our Peoples” section reveals the gap. It highlights the citizenship pathway that’s seen over 90,000 applications from New Zealanders to Australia and new travel declaration pilots, but frames people-to-people links as processing flows, not safeguarding rangatiratanga and motuhake.
The joint statement signals a comprehensive alignment of trans-Tasman policies and priorities. Within that alignment, the role of Māori and First Nation Australians remains limited to a single symbolic reference, leaving unanswered questions about how, or if, tangatawhenua rights and governance will be integrated into this future framework.
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