The bill would set out specified principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in legislation and require those principles to be used, where relevant, when interpreting other legislation.
These are claims MPs made in Parliament’s debate — not verified facts.
The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill would, for the first time, set out in an Act of Parliament a definition of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi that are referred to across much of New Zealand law. It proposes three principles: first, that the New Zealand Government has full power to govern and Parliament full power to make laws; second, that the Crown recognises the rights that hapū and iwi Māori held when the Treaty was signed, with those rights differing from the rights of other New Zealanders only where established through a Treaty settlement; and third, that everyone is equal before the law and entitled to equal protection and benefit without discrimination. These definitions would be used to guide how courts and officials interpret laws that mention Treaty principles, shifting that task from the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal to Parliament.
The bill originates in the ACT-National coalition arrangements following the 2023 election and was driven by ACT leader David Seymour, who also advocated putting the definition to a public referendum. The argument for it is that the principles have been developed over decades by courts and the Tribunal without an explicit democratic mandate, creating uncertainty, and that Parliament defining them would affirm equal citizenship and give clearer, more predictable law. The argument against, voiced by many iwi, legal scholars and the Waitangi Tribunal, is that the bill unilaterally rewrites the meaning of te Tiriti, ignores its guarantee of tino rangatiratanga (Māori authority and self-determination), narrows and diminishes Māori rights, and was developed without Māori consent; it drew large-scale public opposition, including one of the biggest protest marches, or hikoi, ever seen at Parliament.
See the Parliament.nz ↗ site for the full bill.