Wednesday, 8 October 2025

Māori Party Opposes RMA Reform due to Too Little Co-Governance

NZ Herald

November 23, 2022

Ian Cooper

PHOTO: Ian Cooper

Co-governance is only a step on the road to realising our rights as tangata whenua, but these changes don’t even get us that far. Māori will be a minority on the crucially important regional planning committees, rather than being able to exercise the rangatiratanga and kaitiaki leadership that is our right.

Why did the Crown refuse to release all sections of the legislation to its Treaty partners prior to introduction to the House? Not only did they make us sign confidentiality agreements before we could see parts of it, they also then gagged us from sharing that information with our own people. Is this not the age of partnership? Sidelining Treaty partners has meant that iwi settlements cannot be renegotiated to reflect the new landscape.

Once again “mainstream” interests are being catered for first, and those protected by Article II of Te Tiriti come second. Even the Tiriti clause falls short of requiring the Crown to honour Te Tiriti, despite there being precedent for that language in the Education and Training Act.