IVAN BARNETT: Te Arawhiti issues the policy templates

Te Arawhiti is the Māori Crown relations agency in New Zealand.

Te Arawhiti issues the policy templates, the Treaty‑principles definitions, and the partnership expectations that now shape the entire public service. These frameworks are already embedded across government departments, councils, and regulatory agencies. They influence how officials interpret the RMA, how councils conduct consultation, and how infrastructure projects are assessed. They operate quietly, without public mandate, and without meaningful parliamentary oversight.

This is why the current situation cannot be dismissed as a one‑off failure or a localized dispute. It is the product of a systemic architecture that has grown over years — an architecture that elevates ancestry‑based consultation rights above equal citizenship, and that allows financial leverage to be applied to public‑benefit infrastructure without any statutory basis.

New Zealanders are now witnessing the consequences:

ports held to ransom, energy providers forced into massive settlements, councils pressured into agreements that deliver no public return, and essential infrastructure slowed or stalled because officials are unwilling to enforce equal treatment under the law.

This is not equality before the law.

This is not democratic accountability.

This is not sustainable for a modern economy.

The deeper question is no longer about individual cases — it is about who is in control of the system, and why those responsible for upholding the law are allowing these practices to continue. When public servants, Ministers, and councils refuse to enforce the law evenly, when they turn a blind eye to statutory overreach, when they sweep issues under the table rather than stand their ground, the integrity of the entire system is compromised.

The question must be asked plainly:

Should any group be able to demand vast sums of money from public‑benefit infrastructure solely because of ancestry?

And if ancestry is the justification, where is this stated in law?

It is not in the Māori‑language Treaty of 1840.

It is not in the RMA.

It is not in the LGA.

It is not in any Act of Parliament.

The answer is clear: No.

Not because of who the group is — but because the law does not permit financial leverage based on ancestry, and democratic systems cannot function when such leverage is tolerated.

We do not merely “believe” in one country with one law for all.

We assert that equal law is the only lawful constitutional foundation New Zealand has.

Those responsible for upholding that foundation — Ministers, public servants, councils, and statutory authorities — must stand up and enforce it. Equal citizenship is not optional. It is the core of our constitutional order.

The 2026 election will not, by itself, resolve this.

Recent experience has shown that simply changing the governing party does not dismantle entrenched policy frameworks. Te Arawhiti’s partnership‑based templates, Treaty‑principles definitions, and consultation expectations remain in place regardless of who leads the government. They are already embedded in the machinery of the state, and they will continue to operate unless Parliament directly confronts them. The One Country Fund exists because this reality cannot be ignored.

Equal citizenship must be restored through clear legislative action, not political slogans.

New Zealand’s future depends on a legal system that treats every citizen equally, protects essential infrastructure, and upholds the democratic principles that have served this country for generations.

Ivan Barnett is an 82 year old retired farmer who began farming in 1959 at age fifteen. He retired to Beckenham in 2022 .