Change NZ’s constitution this way? Give me a break

A few years back the Ardern government in New Zealand commissioned a report. When it appeared its English name was "The 2019 Report of the Working Group on a Plan to Realise the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Aotearoa/New Zealand".

The authors also gave their working group report a name in the Maori language, namely He Puapua. And on the very first page they define this phrase. They say it means "a break", usually in the waves. Then they go on to say, all still in the preface, that the reference here is to breaking "the usual political and societal norms … [and hope their report will lead to a breakthrough for changing the constitution]."

I was recently approached by the think tank Democracy Action to write a responding report. I was to give an analysis of this He Puapua call for constitutional change in New Zealand. I will be speaking this week in New Zealand about my reply to this He Puapua report. And the gist of what I will be saying is that when you read He Puapua you soon realise it is a very radical report, pretty much what you might expect from a Maori Studies department in one (meaning any) of today's left-leaning universities.

In general terms this He Puapua report trades in group rights thinking. Identity politics assumptions are pervasive. It also strongly pushes a sort of "co-governance" or partnership model of governing. Now you can somewhat disguise the underlying of what you are pushing when you deal in happy talk about "a partnership", especially if someone is strumming Kumbaya in the background. But at the heart of all "co-governance" models is race-based or ethnic-based identity politics, in this instance one where one group represents about 15 per cent of the population and the other everyone else. Nothing about that sort of model is particularly liberal.

Nor do I think there is much attractive about implicitly abandoning equality concerns (which focus on the individual) for equity concerns (which deal in group and statistical thinking).

Alarmingly, despite protestations by NZ's current Labour government that the report is neither policy nor an approved plan, its recommendations are being implemented under the guise of various justifications but never overtly confirming the driving force of UNDRIP or He Puapua.

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This realisation of UNDRIP, for New Zealand, has seen the creation of a separate Maori Health Authority, changes to electoral representation at local government level, reclassification of conservation land to provide iwi control, and most recently the transfer of control of drinking, waste and storm water to a 50 per cent co-governance model.

The government is planning the transfer of control of drinking, waste and storm water to a 50 per cent co-governance model. Picture: iStock

The subtle shift that is having the greatest impact is the language of Treaty of Waitangi discussions now referring to a guarantee of equity rather than simply equal rights. In a grievance settlement environment the distinction is significant.

Then there is the fact that this He Puapua report nowhere defines or tells us how it will be determined who gets to be in the "Maori" group. Will it be a genetic or blood test? Will some tribal elite decide? Will it collapse into a self-identification test? Surely this is a crucial matter for anyone pushing the co-governance barrow.