National runs down clock on promised Waitangi Tribunal reforms

Summarised by Centrist

The National-led Government looks increasingly likely to reach the election without delivering its promised overhaul of the Waitangi Tribunal.

National and New Zealand First’s 2023 coalition agreement did not merely promise another review. It committed the government to amend the Waitangi Tribunal Act and “refocus the scope, purpose, and nature of its inquiries back to the original intent” of the legislation.

The review was supposed to report by September 2025, with amending legislation introduced before the end of that year and passed during this parliamentary term.

Eight months after the deadline for introducing legislation, Ministers have not even released the completed review.

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka would only tell say that its findings were being “actively considered”.

Reports suggest that the review does not recommend removing the Tribunal’s power to conduct broad policy inquiries. Potaka also says he supports retaining its current inquiries, which extend into climate change, freshwater policy and the rights and status of Māori women.

With historical claims winding down, these contemporary inquiries will increasingly define the Tribunal’s work. NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones argues that this amounts to “mission creep”, with broad public-policy disputes that are “best dealt with through the democratic process”.

Māori law lecturer Carwyn Jones said examining contemporary Crown policy was part of the Tribunal’s original 1975 purpose, when it could not hear historical claims.

Shane Jones acknowledged that attention would turn elsewhere within 80 to 90 days as the election approached.

National promised to rein in the Waitangi Tribunal but has failed to act. In the meantime, the Tribunal has condemned the government’s plan to weaken or remove Treaty clauses from 19 laws, even before the bill reached Parliament. 

The finding is not binding, but Jones argues that an appointed tribunal should not be passing judgment on policies voters elected the government to pursue, “by dint of an election”. 

Read more at RNZ

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