LOCAL DEMOCRACY

Amend Local Electoral Act 2001 - Māori wards

"Restore the right to local referendum on the establishment or ongoing use of Māori wards, including requiring a referendum on any wards established without referendum at the next Local Body elections."

In 2021, the Labour government enacted legislation that revoked a community's right to petition for a binding referendum when their council implemented the introduction of Māori wards or constituencies. You can read more about this here.

✔  DELIVERED — The Local Government (Electoral Legislation and Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Act 2024 restored poll provisions and required specified councils that had established Māori wards or constituencies without a poll to hold a binding poll at the 2025 local elections.

Repeal Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Act 2022

"Repeal the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Act 2022."

Labour's legislation allows Ngāi Tahu (the dominant South Island iwi, with considerable economic interests) to choose two members to sit on the Canterbury Regional Council. This flies in the face of democratic accountability to the community.

✗ No progress.

The promised repeal has not occurred. The 2022 Act remains in force. It continues to provide for Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu to appoint two members to the Canterbury Regional Council.

Electoral (Lowering Voting Age for Local Elections and Polls) Legislation Bill

The bill would amend the Local Electoral Act 2001 so that persons aged 16 or 17 years are eligible to vote in local elections and polls. It would not change the voting age for parliamentary elections. The bill would establish a new category of electors, named youth electors, and provide for 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds to be registered on a youth electoral roll.

✔ Withdrawn by the Government on 26 January 2024. See more here.

JUSTICE

Amend Marine and Coastal Area Act 2011 - section 58

"Amend section 58 of the Marine and Coastal Area Act to make clear Parliament’s original intent, in light of the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Whakatohea Kotahitanga Waka (Edwards) & Ors v Te Kahui and Whakatohea Maori Trust Board & Ors [2023] NZCA 504."

✔ DELIVERED — The Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) (Customary Marine Title) Amendment Act 2025 is now in force. It amended section 58, including the test for exclusive use and occupation and the circumstances in which customary marine title can exist.

Defund Cultural Reports

 Cultural reports, or 'section 27 reports'' named after a section of the Sentencing Act 2002, are pre-sentencing background reports used to give judges insight into what brought people before the court. They can cut an offender's sentence almost in half, rely on information given by the criminal themselves, with no formal obligation on report writers to verify what they are told. Funded by taxpayers, costs have ballooned to more than $7.5 million in the year to June 2023. 

✔ DELIVERED — Taxpayer funding through legal aid for section 27 cultural reports was stopped as part of the Government's 100-day law-and-order programme.

TREATY PRINCIPLES

Review Treaty principles in legislation

"Conduct a comprehensive review of all legislation (except when it is related to, or substantive to, existing full and final Treaty settlements) that includes “The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi” and replace all such references with specific words relating to the relevance and application of the Treaty, or repeal the references."

Dozens of statutes refer to the "principles of the Treaty". However, there is no established set of principles that guide those who operate the law.

⚠ PARTLY DELIVERED / WORK IN PROGRESS — This can no longer be described as 'no progress'. The review has been completed to the policy-decision stage. In May 2026 the Government announced proposed changes across 19 Acts: some Treaty-principles references are to be repealed, some made more specific, and others standardised. Legislation is still required before the commitment is fully implemented.

Introduce Treaty Principles Bill

"Introduce a Treaty Principles Bill based on existing ACT policy and support it to a Select Committee."

The bill will propose the principles say that: 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; 3. All New Zealanders are equal under the law, with the same rights and duties. 

✔ DELIVERED — The precise coalition commitment was delivered. The Bill was introduced on 7 November 2024, received its first reading, went to the Justice Committee and was reported back on 4 April 2025. National and New Zealand First then voted against it at second reading on 10 April 2025, when it was defeated 112 votes to 11. The agreement did not require National or New Zealand First to support it beyond Select Committee.

Amend Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975

"Amend the Waitangi Tribunal legislation to refocus the scope, purpose, and nature of its inquiries back to the original intent of that legislation."

The Labour government created the Waitangi Tribunal to hear Māori claims of breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. It has now set its sights on our constitutional arrangements.

⚠ PARTLY DELIVERED / WORK IN PROGRESS — A formal review of the Treaty of Waitangi Act was announced in May 2025 expressly to implement this coalition commitment. However, the promised legislative refocusing has not yet been completed.

CO-GOVERNANCE

Remove co-governance from public services

"Remove co-governance from the delivery of public services."

Co-governance was introduced to key public services by the last Labour government, including our health system, our resource management system, and in the provision of water services.

✔ 

⚠ PARTLY DELIVERED / WORK IN PROGRESS — Major structural examples have been removed or changed, including Labour's Three Waters model and the separate Māori Health Authority. However, this is a broad commitment and co-governance or partnership arrangements remain in parts of the public sector. It is therefore more accurate to record this as partly delivered rather than complete.

Public services on need not race

"As a matter of urgency, issue a Cabinet Office circular to all central government organisations that it is the Government’s expectation that public services should be prioritised on the basis of need, not race."

"Ensure government contracts are awarded based on value, without racial discrimination".

✔ DELIVERED — Cabinet Office Circular CO (24) 5 was issued on 13 September 2024. It states that targeting, commissioning and design of public services should be based on the needs of all New Zealanders and expressly says it gives effect to the coalition commitment.

Repeal Three Waters

Labour's Three Waters regime saw the confiscation of ratepayer assets and a loss of democratic control over these vital services. Despite widespread opposition to the reforms, Labour passed the legislation in 2022. Even though all three parties in the new government indicated an instant repeal, Labour soldiered and has now sunk over a billions of dollars into a programme most citizens do not want. You can read more about this here.

 ✔ Delivered — Labour's Water Services Entities legislation was repealed in February 2024. The Government then progressed its replacement Local Water Done Well regime, retaining local ownership and control rather than the previous entity model

Disestablish Māori Health Authority

The Māori Health Authority, established by Labour in the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022, was created as a standalone authority to work in partnership with Health NZ - the new centralised health system for all New Zealanders. An independent report released in 2023 shows that after a year of operation and over half a billion dollars spent, the Māori Health Authority has failed to deliver an overarching plan for activities, nor any timeframes, resources, accountability, or performance measures.

✔ DELIVERED — Te Aka Whai Ora — the Māori Health Authority — was disestablished in 2024 and its remaining functions transferred to Health New Zealand and the Ministry of Health.

Disestablish Te Pūkenga – New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology

Te Pūkenga, initiated by the Labour government as part of its service centralisation efforts, was presented by then-Minister Chris Hipkins as a solution to enhance student outcomes and alleviate polytechnic debt. The sector now faces twice the debt it had prior to restructuring, declining enrolments, and uncertainty leading to resignations. Te Pūkenga has also spent an extra-ordinate amount of time consulting on its preferred governance and leadership model - with the latest round of feedback calling for co-leadership at the chief executive level (to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi and rectify “an imbalance in mana”), and for the 16 original Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics to be divided into four regions—North, East, South, and West – as long as the borders align to traditional iwi-Māori boundaries laid out in Treaty settlement legislation. This reform programme has proven disastrous on multiple fronts.

✔ DELIVERED — Legislation passed in 2025 dismantled the centralised Te Pūkenga model and re-established regional polytechnics and Industry Skills Boards, with the new arrangements operating from 1 January 2026.

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Repeal Natural and Built Environment Act 2023 & Spatial Planning Act 2023

Labour’s resource management regime, which came into law in August 2023, diminishes local voices, reduces democratic accountability, increases uncertainty, and embeds inequitable rights based on race. You can read more about it here.

✓ DELIVERED — The Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act were repealed in December 2023, returning the system to the Resource Management Act while replacement legislation was developed. The Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill are now before Parliament as the next-stage replacement system.

Review Significant Natural Areas

The National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity came into force on 4 August 2023. It requires local government to “form strong and effective partnerships with tangata whenua” to provide direction in all aspects of the management of indigenous biodiversity, such as the identification of SNAs and decision-making on the management of such. It allows for a group of citizens, identified as tangata whenua, to be directly involved in the decision-making and management of areas of privately owned land. You can read more about this here.

✔ PARTLY DELIVERED / WORK IN PROGRESS — The Government suspended councils' requirements to identify and notify new Significant Natural Areas under the NPS for Indigenous Biodiversity until October 2027 and extended implementation timeframes. The NPS-IB itself remains in force, with amendments taking effect in January 2026. The immediate coalition commitment to stop and review implementation has been acted on, but the longer-term policy remains under reform.

Replace National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management

“Replace the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 to allow district councils more flexibility in how they meet environmental limits and seek advice on how to exempt councils from obligations under the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 as soon as practicable”.

David Parker’s National Policy Framework requires Regional Councils to set new regional regulations to improve water quality in line with four new national water quality "bottom lines" and Te Mana o te Wai. You can read about Te Mana o te Wai here.

✔ ⚠ PARTLY DELIVERED / WORK IN PROGRESS — Interim changes have been made, including changes to how Te Mana o te Wai applies to individual resource-consent decisions and restrictions on freshwater plan notification. However, as at September 2026 the NPS-FM 2020 remains in force, in an amended form, while work on a replacement continues. The promised replacement is therefore not yet complete.

INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE

Stop work on He Puapua

"Confirm that the Coalition Government does not recognise the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as having any binding legal effect on New Zealand."

The 2019 He Puapua report - hidden from New Zealanders until after the 2020 election - sets out to introduce new constitutional arrangements, purportedly based on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). There would be a significant impact the lives of all New Zealanders if the recommendations were implemented. New Zealand will turn from a nation-state to an ethnostate - one where political, social, and economic rights are based on ancestral membership rather than citizenship. You can read more about this here.

✔ PARTLY DELIVERED / WORK IN PROGRESS — The Government's 100 Day Plan included 'Stop all work on He Puapua', and MFAT's incoming-minister briefing records the coalition priority of confirming that UNDRIP has no binding legal effect on New Zealand. Those specific actions are consistent with the coalition wording. However, stopping He Puapua does not by itself remove every reference to, or policy influence of, UNDRIP. On the broader objective, further scrutiny remains justified.

Introduce a 'National Interest Test'

"Ensure a ‘National Interest Test’ is undertaken before New Zealand accepts any agreements from the UN and its agencies that limit national decision-making and reconfirm that New Zealand’s domestic law holds primacy over any international agreements."

✔ ⚠ PARTLY DELIVERED / WORK IN PROGRESS — The Government lodged the promised reservation in relation to proposed WHO health-regulation amendments so they could be considered against a National Interest Test. This demonstrates implementation of the mechanism in that case. Evidence of a fully developed, consistently applied test across all relevant UN agreements is less clear, so the broader commitment should remain under review.

To contact the leaders of our governing parties, send your messages to: