Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Will ACT's big plan actually scrap the Waitangi Tribunal?

You know what ACT's Waitangi Tribunal policy is? In my opinion, it's the kind of policy you release when you don't actually want to do the thing the policy gives the impression you're going to do.

ACT's headline policy is that it will scrap the Waitangi Tribunal, which many people, including me, may see as a good idea because the tribunal has gone completely off piste. It has started to resemble a branch of the Māori Party, finding in real time that one Government policy after another breaches the Treaty of Waitangi.

In some cases, it has made these findings about policies that have not even become law yet, which means there cannot be an actual breach because nothing has happened.

When the point of the Waitangi Tribunal was to investigate contemporary breaches, not the possibility of contemporary breaches, the distinction is important. That distinction turns the tribunal into a political player.

Because it has become exactly that, a political player, which was not the original intention, it's not unreasonable to applaud a plan to scrap it.

However, that is not what ACT's plan actually does. ACT is proposing to scrap the tribunal only once all historical Treaty claims have been settled. And when do you think that's going to be? When do you think that's going to happen?

It will only happen when Ngāpuhi finally settles and Ngāpuhi is not going to settle anytime soon because its various groups are still fighting among themselves about it. I reckon they'll be arguing over it for decades.

So, in my view, this is so far in the future that David Seymour will likely be retired and spending time with his grandkids before it actually happens.

Beware of these kinds of policies this election. You'll come across plenty of them. They're designed to make it look as though a party is going to do the thing you really want it to do, without having to go through the political drama of actually doing it.

In my opinion, this policy is a case in point.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know what ACT's Waitangi Tribunal policy is? In my opinion,
it's the kind of policy you release when you don't
actually want to have to do the thing that the
policy makes it, gives the impression you're going to do.
So ACT's policy headline is that they're scrapping the Waitangi Tribunal,
which many people, including me, will think is a good
idea because the tribunal has gone completely off piste. It's
started to resemble a branch of the Maori Party because

(00:21):
it's finding in real time that one government policy after
another is breaching the Treaty of Waitangi. And in some cases...
It's finding this against government policies that haven't even become
law yet, which means there's no actual breach of the
treaty because it hasn't happened. Now, when the point of
the treaty, of the Waitangi Tribunal, was to investigate contemporary breaches,

(00:41):
not the possibility of contemporary breaches, the difference is material
because the difference turns the tribunal into a political player.
So because it's become exactly that, a political player, which
was not the intention, it's not unreasonable to want to
applaud a plan to scrap the tribunal. However, that is
not what ACT's plan is, because ACT is only proposing

(01:02):
to scrap the tribunal when all the historical claims are settled.
And when do you think that's going to be, eh?
When do you think that's going to be? It's only
going to happen when Ngapuhi finally settles, and Ngapuhi is
not going to settle any time soon, because they are
still all fighting with each other about it, and I
reckon they're going to be fighting for decades. So this is,

(01:23):
in my opinion, so far in the future... And I
reckon David Seymour will be retired and hanging out with
his grandkids before this actually happens. Beware these kinds of
policies this election. You will come across a lot of them.
These are policies that are designed to make it look
like a party is going to do the thing that
you really want them to do, but without them actually

(01:44):
having to go through the political drama of doing it.
And this is a case in point. For more from
Heather Duplessy-Allen Drive, listen live to News Talk ZB from
4 p.m. weekdays or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.