Over 150 New Zealand organisations on Monday released an open letter to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon calling for work to stop on a contentious bill that would define in statute the principles of te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi, the nation’s founding constitutional document.

In the letter published by ActionStation Aotearoa, organisations described the Treaty Principles bill as “constitutionally destructive” and demanded its withdrawal before public consultation at the select committee stage.

The proposed legislation originates from an undertaking in the coalition agreement between ACT New Zealand and the New Zealand National Party to introduce to the select committee a Treaty Principles bill based on existing ACT policy. The proposed principles are:

1. The New Zealand Government has the right to govern New Zealand;

2. The New Zealand Government will protect all New Zealanders’ authority over their land and other property; and

3. All New Zealanders are equal under the law, with the same rights and duties.

But as constitutional scholars, historians and the Ministry of Justice have noted, the draft principles bear no resemblance to either Māori or English language texts of the te Tiriti/Treaty.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Māori text signed by the overwhelming majority of chiefs, was an agreement between the Crown and Māori (New Zealand’s Indigenous people) which extended to the Crown a limited power of kāwanatanga (governance) to control New Zealand’s quickly expanding British settler population while guaranteeing tino rangatiratanga (ultimate power and authority) over their lands, their villages and all their treasured possessions and granting Māori the rights and privileges of British subjects. Māori did not, as the Waitangi Tribunal notes, cede their sovereignty to the Crown in 1840.

Organisations in the open letter expressed concern that the bill “promotes misinformation and is highly misleading to the people of this country.” A 2023 poll conducted by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission found that 87 percent of New Zealanders had not read the Māori language version of the text.

Defining the principles of the Treaty has historically been left principally to the judiciary and the Waitangi Tribunal, a quasi-judicial body exclusively tasked with investigating breaches of the Treaty. The landmark 1987 case of New Zealand Maori Council v. Attorney-General was the court’s first and most renowned articulation of these principles, including active protection and partnership.

An exposure draft of the Treaty Principles bill is expected to be made public shortly. It was previously scheduled for release on July 22 in a Ministry of Justice memo, which was partially leaked in January 2024.