Iwi chairs prepare to challenge government, ahead of Prime Minister’s Waitangi visit

Source: Radio New Zealand

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will arrive at Waitangi on Wednesday, ahead of meetings with iwi leaders, after opting to stay away in 2025.

While he will not stick around for Friday’s commemorations, Luxon will meet with the Iwi Chairs Forum on Wednesday and take part in Thursday’s pōwhiri.

When announcing the Prime Minister’s intention to return to Waitangi, a spokesperson said Luxon was “looking forward” to the visit, and would be “taking the opportunity to keep engaging with iwi about the response to last week’s weather events and the work the government is doing to grow the economy and help every New Zealander get ahead.”

Despite many politicians having already arrived at Waitangi, they will be formally welcomed onto Te Whare Rūnanga on Thursday morning.

On Tuesday, Labour leader Chris Hipkins joined the Greens on a Treaty Grounds walkabout with Māori Wardens, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters held a bilateral meeting with his German counterpart on the Purerua Peninsula, and associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka visited the flood-affected community of Ngaiotonga.

“They’ve gone through some pretty severe weather, trauma, and severe conditions. It’s damaged a lot of infrastructure, roads, farms, whānau, houses [and] communities, and we’ve taken action,” Potaka said.

The government has sent campervans to parts of Northland as emergency accommodation assistance, which Potaka expected would be needed for a “couple” of months, at most.

The government’s response to the severe weather was something Potaka expected would come up in meetings with the forum, along with the “basics” like the economy, law and order, and education.

However, the chair of the Forum’s Pou Tahua (economic arm), Jamie Tuuta, said the last term had been a challenging one.

Tuuta said iwi leaders had been focused on the government for years, but had now reached a stage where iwi were at the precipice of working together to “actually transform the realities” for Māori.

Pou Tangata chair Rahui Papa said the key message to the government would be what strategies would they employ to bolster Māori aspirations, instead of legislation which “unpicks” te Tiriti o Waitangi.

“We want to hear from them, what is their program of mahi? We also want to say to them, ‘here’s some of our points in a manifesto and you have to live up to this if you’re going to be a government for all.’”

On Tuesday, iwi leaders unanimously gave their backing to a court case by Ngāti Manuhiri, which seeks to challenge amendments to the Marine and Coastal Areas Act (MACA).

Speaking at a rare press conference alongside Labour, Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said the opposition was in Waitangi to “reaffirm” a shared message that te Tiriti required “leadership to step up and take the guidance” of communities.

Potaka, who is also Minister for Māori Crown Relations, insisted the issues that iwi chairs raised were “very engaging,” regardless of who was in government.

“A lot of the kōrero is actually engaged and directed by the chairs themselves, and we want to hear what their concerns are, and we can respond to them accordingly,” he said.

“A lot of them have those concerns around emergency management, but also around the Treaty settlement process, making sure we implement Treaty settlements, and we close out those historical settlements that are outstanding.”

Potaka acknowledged there were serious economic and social “deltas” between many Māori communities and the rest of New Zealand. He said the government would be working “very robustly” in a manner befitting te Tiriti o Waitangi, while also ascribing to National’s values of equal opportunity and citizenship.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand