As the National-led Government races legislation through Parliament under urgency and heads towards the end of its first term, three new Bills targeting Treaty references have brought its wider record on Māori rights, representation, health, language and decision-making back into focus.
This week Parliament began considering three Government Bills dealing with references to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi across existing legislation. One would repeal references to Treaty principles, another would standardise the strength of Treaty obligations to no more than a requirement to take them into account, while a third standardises terminology. The Government says the changes are about clarity, consistency and reducing legal uncertainty.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith announced in May that 19 Acts would be changed following a review originally covering 28. Seven Treaty-principles references are targeted for repeal, provisions across ten Acts would be limited to the take-into-account standard, and two references would become more specific. Existing full and final Treaty settlements are excluded.
But the timing has intensified the political battle. The Bills were introduced as Parliament went into urgency alongside legislation covering local government, serious youth offending, move-on orders, public works, policing, corrections and immigration.
For Māori, however, the Treaty-clause reforms are not arriving in isolation. They are the latest chapter in three years of substantial change.
TE AKA WHAI ORA ABOLISHED
One of the Coalition Government’s first major Māori policy decisions was the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora – the Māori Health Authority.
The Pae Ora amendment legislation was passed in 2024, removing the independent Māori health authority and transferring functions elsewhere within the health system. A Hauora Māori Advisory Committee remained within the revised framework.
The Government argued a single health system focused on need rather than separate bureaucracies would produce better outcomes. Critics argued Te Aka Whai Ora had been created precisely because decades of mainstream delivery had failed to eliminate entrenched Māori health inequities.
That debate went to the Waitangi Tribunal and became one of a series of urgent inquiries examining Coalition Government policies affecting Māori.
MĀORI WARDS PUT BACK TO REFERENDUM
The Government also restored binding polls over Māori wards and constituencies, including requiring councils that established them without a referendum under the previous law to put their future to voters.
The Government framed that as restoring local democracy.
The Waitangi Tribunal reached a sharply different conclusion. It found the Crown had failed to consult its Treaty partner, inadequately considered its Treaty obligations and breached principles including partnership, equity and active protection. It also noted other types of wards were not subject to the same automatic referendum requirement.
SECTION 7AA REMOVED FROM ORANGA TAMARIKI
Then came the repeal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act.
The provision placed specific Treaty-related duties on the chief executive and was intended to reduce the disproportionate number of tamariki Māori entering care, improve outcomes for those already in care and strengthen relationships with whānau, hapū and iwi. Parliament repealed it in 2025.
Children’s Minister Karen Chhour argued section 7AA risked creating conflict with the requirement to put an individual child’s safety and interests first, while maintaining that cultural wellbeing and partnerships with iwi and Māori organisations could continue without it.
The Waitangi Tribunal again became involved, examining the repeal through an urgent inquiry.
THE TREATY PRINCIPLES BILL
No issue generated more visible opposition than ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill.
National agreed through the coalition process to support the Bill through its first reading and select committee but not beyond that point. The proposal generated one of the largest hīkoi seen at Parliament and was ultimately defeated at its second reading in April 2025.
The Waitangi Tribunal’s work on the proposal and the Government’s wider Treaty-clause review concluded that significant Treaty issues arose from both policies.
The Bill died.
The constitutional argument did not.
TE REO MĀORI IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE
Another area of contention has been the status and visibility of te reo Māori across government.
Coalition agreements drove greater emphasis on English-first agency naming and communications, while the use of Māori names, bilingual branding and public-sector language policies became politically contested.
The Waitangi Tribunal subsequently examined te reo Māori in the public sector, one of a cluster of urgent inquiries generated by Coalition Government policies since 2023.
For supporters, the changes were about making government agencies immediately understandable to everyone. For critics, they represented a retreat from decades of work normalising an official language of Aotearoa.
TAKUTAI MOANA AND CUSTOMARY RIGHTS
The Government’s proposed changes to the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act have also produced major opposition from iwi, hapū and Māori legal interests.
The issue centres on the legal tests for customary marine title and the Government’s response to court interpretations of those tests.
Again, the dispute ended before the Waitangi Tribunal, which produced urgent inquiry reports in both 2024 and 2025.
For many applicants, the controversy is not abstract. Customary marine title cases can involve years of historical research, whakapapa evidence, legal preparation and significant expense.
SMOKEFREE REFORMS REPEALED
Health policy generated another flashpoint when the Coalition Government repealed the previous Government’s smokefree reforms.
Those measures would have progressively reduced nicotine in cigarettes, dramatically reduced the number of tobacco retailers and introduced a smokefree generation.
The Government argued its alternative approach could continue reducing smoking while avoiding problems associated with the previous regime.
For Māori health advocates, the concern was straightforward: smoking-related disease has disproportionately affected Māori, meaning changes to tobacco control carry an unequal health consequence.
PAY EQUITY AND THE MĀORI WORKFORCE
The Government’s overhaul of pay-equity legislation also became a significant Māori issue because wāhine Māori are heavily represented in care, education, community and support work where historic undervaluation has been central to pay-equity claims.
Changes passed under urgency terminated existing claims and imposed new requirements for bringing future claims.
The Government argued the previous system had become unsustainable and needed clearer thresholds. Unions, opposition parties and women’s organisations argued the changes shifted the burden back onto workers and would particularly affect women in traditionally undervalued occupations.
PUBLIC SERVICE CUTS
Then came the public-sector restructuring.
Thousands of positions have disappeared or been proposed for removal across agencies dealing with health, housing, social development, conservation, education and community services.
The impact has become increasingly visible in regional communities. Most recently, proposed changes to DIA’s Hāpai Hapori Community Operations would, according to the PSA, reduce Community Advisor positions and consolidate local services into Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
For Māori organisations dependent on navigating government grants, contracts and community funding, the argument is about more than Wellington bureaucracy. It is about whether culturally knowledgeable people remain available in the regions.
EDUCATION AND THE CURRICULUM
Education has now joined the list.
The Waitangi Tribunal has examined changes to the national curriculum and Māori-medium education through its Te Mātaiaho urgent inquiry, adding another major policy area to the growing body of Tribunal scrutiny during this term.
The dispute centres on Māori participation in curriculum development, the position of mātauranga Māori and te reo Māori, and whether a more centrally prescribed knowledge-rich curriculum adequately reflects the aspirations of whānau, hapū and iwi.
AND NOW 19 ACTS
That brings the Government back to Parliament this week.
The Prime Minister says the Treaty-clause reforms are not an attack on Māori rights but an attempt to replace a patchwork of terms such as honour, give effect to, have regard to and take into account with greater legal consistency. He has also pointed to Government investment in Māori education, broadcasting, Te Matatini and Māori economic development as evidence of its commitment to better Māori outcomes.
Critics see something much larger.
The supplied analysis describes a recurring concern across Māori representation, health, Oranga Tamariki, te reo, takutai moana and Treaty clauses: major decisions being advanced despite Māori opposition and, in several cases, adverse Waitangi Tribunal findings.
And the argument is already moving beyond the current parliamentary term.
ACT is campaigning to remove the Waitangi Tribunal’s jurisdiction over contemporary Crown policy and ultimately abolish the Tribunal once historical claims are completed. National has not adopted that proposal, with Christopher Luxon instead pointing to the Government’s existing review of the Tribunal’s future.
ACT has also proposed restricting the circumstances in which tikanga can influence court decisions and imposing stronger Cabinet controls over future Treaty clauses.
THE END-OF-TERM DASH
That is what makes the final weeks before the 7 November election significant.
This is no longer a debate about one policy.
Over this parliamentary term New Zealand has debated the Māori Health Authority, Māori wards, section 7AA, the Treaty Principles Bill, Treaty clauses, te reo Māori in government, customary marine title, smokefree policy, pay equity, public-sector restructuring, education and the future role of the Waitangi Tribunal.
Some measures have become law. Some remain contested. Some have been examined critically by the Waitangi Tribunal. The Treaty Principles Bill itself was defeated.
Now, with Parliament sitting under urgency, the Government is attempting to advance another major part of its coalition programme before voters decide who governs next. Parliament’s own record confirms the three Treaty-reference Bills entered the urgency programme alongside a substantial package of other legislation.
For the Government, the common thread is clarity, equal citizenship, democratic accountability, reducing bureaucracy and delivering better outcomes rather than maintaining structures it considers ineffective or uncertain.
For many of its Māori critics, the common thread is very different: a cumulative reduction in specifically Māori institutions, statutory protections, representation and mechanisms through which Māori exercise influence over Crown decisions.
That leaves one of the biggest questions of Election 2026 sitting squarely before tangata whenua.
After three years of profound change to the relationship between Māori and the Crown, what should that relationship look like for the next three?
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