GRAHAM ADAMS: Hikoi threat over Treaty clauses review

Fighting talk from a TVNZ journalist.

The government’s review of Treaty clauses in legislation has mightily displeased one of the resident Māori activists at 1News. A column by Te Aniwa Hurihanganui that accompanied her televised news segment last week is titled “Govt risks another colossal hikoi if it weakens Treaty obligations”.

Published on 1News’ website, it was labelled “Analysis” but it was clearly “Opinion” — and an entirely predictable one at that. Ms Hurihanganui — in her role as TVNZ’s Māori Affairs Correspondent — is not exactly known for her dispassionate assessment of any move she sees as even temporarily thwarting the rise of Māori nationalism.

The move to cut Treaty references from five acts and amend as many as 14 — including by it needing only to be “taken into account” rather than, say, “given effect to” — evidently outraged her.

So much so, the column looked like a shot across the government’s bows to convince it to back off. The writer reckoned the Minister of Justice, Paul Goldsmith, might “come to regret” his decision to disagree with official advice criticising the proposed review if “the current rumblings of discontent among te ao Māori grow to anything like those seen over the controversial Treaty Principles Bill”.

Unfortunately, her stance seemed more wishful than staunch. Claiming the government “will not want another colossal hīkoi on its hands before the election” ignores the fact it might actually do the incumbents a world of good.

A common criticism of the Coalition government — and of National in particular — is that it has not done nearly enough to stem the expansion of co-governance and Treatyism despite its voters in 2023 believing it was committed to doing exactly that.

A hikoi in the run-up to November 7’s election opposing the government’s proposed legislation would massively boost its anti-Maorification credentials. In fact, enraging activists would be a powerful signal to the government’s supporters it was on target. It would also make the question of the role of the Treaty in the nation’s policy and laws even more prominent in the election debates.

The hikoi in November 2024 was held against an entirely different backdrop. Christopher Luxon and Winston Peters had already condemned David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill by making sure it would be voted down at the second reading. Effectively, they sided with the protesters in wanting to see it killed as quickly as possible.

The fact that only Seymour and his colleagues were targeted by a haka performed by Te Pāti Māori MPs in the House was significant. National and NZ First weren’t identified as the enemy — only Act was.

This time, the Treaty review is publicly supported, more or less, by the whole government so any hikoi would necessarily be aimed at all three coalition parties, which would present a united front in the face of criticism.

Sadly for Hurihanganui — and possibly the government — the chances of a “colossal hikoi” taking place in the few months before the election are not high despite her enthusiasm for one.

That’s not to say some disaffected Māori and their allies could not be persuaded to march on Wellington in protest — or more likely drive most of the way and hop out at the last minute with their placards — but it would likely be a minor affair compared to 2024’s “carkoi” (as Winston Peters characterised it).

Attempting to organise a similar caravan of cars in the middle of a fuel crisis when petrol prices are already eye-watering would be a tough sell — and the fact police have now closed Auckland’s Harbour Bridge to protesters on foot would diminish its appeal. The spectacle of thousands walking that section of the hikoi high above the water and bearing flags was the linchpin of TVNZ’s sensationalist coverage in 2024.

Since then, the parliamentary wing of Te Pāti Māori has collapsed amidst bitter infighting. Tākuta Ferris is sitting in Parliament as an independent, and co-leader Rawiri Waititi has had to “welcome” Mariameno Kapa-Kingi back into the fold through gritted teeth after tikanga-led conciliation failed and she felt obliged to turn to the despised colonisers’ court system for redress.

Organising the carkoi was a joint effort by Te Pāti Māori and Toitū Te Tiriti, which functioned largely as the party’s marketing and merchandising arm. Owned by Kiri Tamihere (Waititi’s wife and John Tamihere’s daughter), Toitū Te Tiriti was led by Mariameno’s son Eru Kapa-Kingi, who was a party Vice-President. He cut ties with the party last October in a bitter breakup in which he accused the leadership of running a “dictatorial” and “toxic” organisation. A reconciliation before the election seems highly unlikely.

Rather than devoting their attention to another mass mobilisation, Toitū Te Tiriti has joined a northern iwi, Ngāti Hine, to take an urgent case to the Waitangi Tribunal to oppose the Treaty review. 

It is a very sensible move, of course, given the tribunal will undoubtedly rubberstamp their grievances, allowing Toitū Te Tiriti to appear to be doing something meaningful.

On 1News, Hurihanganui makes little attempt to hide her role as an activist. For that reason, she is highly unlikely to acknowledge that the influence of Māori nationalists has dwindled sharply since the heady days of 2024’s hikoi. Yet that change is blindingly obvious to more dispassionate observers.

For example, opposition to the Marine and Coastal Area Amendment Bill last October was a fizzer that never went much beyond Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Tākuta Ferris standing together on Parliament’s forecourt next to a rubbish bin and burning a copy of the bill in a brisk breeze. Yet the bill was a significant check on iwi and hapū claiming Customary Marine Title over most of New Zealand’s coastline — with the legislation made retrospective to July 2024, thereby overturning titles already granted by the courts.

As Elliot Ikilei noted on The Platform, activists’ focus is shifting away from central government to sneaky power grabs on local bodies — as has been exposed in the Far North District Council by Act-aligned councillor Davina Smolders. 

While he acknowledged the public service still has to be cleaned up, Ikilei remarked that activists have “lost the big battle in Parliament”. Now, he says,  the “rats are scurrying around trying to defend the last vestiges [of race-based policy]” in councils.

1News’ viewers would never guess such shifts were taking place. Nor that Hurihanganui’s bullishness is at odds even with the views of some of her fellow Māori ethnocrats. 

Last week, in a column for e-Tangata titled “Election 2026 Survival Guide: Voting for Te Tiriti”, Tina Ngata summed up the despondency infecting those who are keen to establish an ethnocracy in New Zealand:

“This time last year [when the Treaty Principles Bill was defeated], there was a sense of hope, purpose, and political momentum. The hikoi of November 2024 had brought the nation together in a stirring commitment to Tiriti justice… Electoral enrolments (particularly for the Māori roll) were up, more rangatahi than ever were engaged, and people seemed clear about the path ahead.

“Today, there’s a sense of despair. The way forward is less certain. After multiple implosions within Te Pāti Māori, there’s been a significant exodus of support — some towards the Green Party or Labour — and sadly, many say they simply don’t see the point in voting anymore.

“And because the coloniser boot doesn’t quit, a review of Treaty clauses in legislation is kicking into gear, intended to reduce the government’s legal obligations to the lowest possible level, and to lock that in across the board. Even, in some cases, removing Treaty obligations altogether.”

With Te Pāti Māori looking like a spent force, Ngata recommends voting for any party that will lock in a “kaupapa” that “protects” the constitutional importance of Te Tiriti.

However, the chances of Ngata’s views being covered by Hurihanganui are vanishingly small. She determinedly uses her influential platform at TVNZ to cast radical Māori aspirations in the most positive light possible.

The fact she is even allowed to write an opinion column for the state broadcaster compromises her reputation as a reporter. As a TVNZ journalist she is obliged, by its own published standards, to be “impartial”. Yet how can her employer imagine that viewers who read her columns will see her as even-handed when reporting news?

TVNZ management obviously can’t grasp there might be a problem in allowing its journalists to not only present news but also opine on the events of the day. After all, before moving to RNZ’s Morning Report, John Campbell reported news for TVNZ alongside writing columns for the website — including a notoriously bitter assessment of the National-ACT-NZ First coalition government when it was first elected that asserted Luxon, Seymour and Peters were “empty of ideas”.

Campbell castigated them for their policies on climate change, poverty, race relations, landlords, guns and more.

Both Hurihanganui and Campbell see journalism as a way of changing the world to correspond to their view of what is just, good and desirable. All of which would be fine if they didn’t work for state-owned broadcasters, which should reflect the views of a wide range of New Zealanders — including the ones they don't like.

Graham Adams is a freelance editor, journalist and columnist. He lives on Auckland’s North Shore.

This piece was first published at Point of Order