Whanganui iwi have successfully convinced the Whanganui District Council to adopt a proposal to create of a platform for joint initiatives that detail how the council is to partner with the post-settlement governance entity proposed by the Whanganui Land Settlement Negotiations Trust (WLSNT).

The Whanganui Lands Negotiation Settlement Trust (WLSNT) and the Crown negotiator are seeking agreement from the Whanganui District Council to support the Trust's aspiration to establish a partnership framework with the Council, aiming to include this proposal in their Treaty settlement.

Government plans a local government system that actively embodies the Treaty partnership.

On 23 April 2021 the Minister of Local Government established a review into the future for Local Government:

 “The overall purpose of the Review is, as a result of the cumulative changes being progressed as part of the Government’s reform agenda, to identify how our system of local democracy and governance needs to evolve over the next 30 years, to improve the wellbeing of New Zealand communities and the environment, and actively embody the Treaty partnership”.

Photo: Penny Smart, Chair of Northland Regional Council

The partnership-with-iwi provisions are creating significant cost pressures for councils. This includes large and on-going costs associated with implementing and maintaining the variety of ways Iwi/Māori are involved in local government and contribute to council decision making.

Progressing the Treaty ‘partnership’ agenda is a key priority for the Labour government. But by doing so they are introducing divisive policies that are undermining our democracy.

Labour’s Māori Manifesto 2020 recommits to the partnership path with Māori. They will continue to support the role of Māori Crown relations – Te Arawhiti in growing the capability and capacity of government departments and organisations to be better Treaty partners, promising to look to take even bolder steps to create change.

Two Labour Members of Parliament have confirmed the claim by Democracy Action that the Government and Police condoned the illegal iwi roadblocks on public roads. Tamati Coffey (Labour - Waiariki) and Kiri Allan (Labour – List MP living in the East Coast) have stated that these roadblocks were “well supported” by the Government and that police “helped with the checkpoints”.

Meng Foon and Paul Hunt of the Human Rights Commission use the illegal roadblocks as an admirable illustration of the Treaty of Waitangi 'partnership' principle. It is a model they would like to see replicated.

“The two treaty partners collaborated – with kāwanatanga, or governorship, represented through local councils, Civil Defence and the Police, and rangatiratanga, the authority of chiefs, upheld by hapū and iwi”.

 “This relationship between rangatiratanga and kāwanatanga is ready to be used across all aspects of government during the recovery programme. The time has come,” they write.

The partnership interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi is manifesting in a myriad of ways. The recent unlawful closure of the road to the North Cape by Ngati Kuri, with the collaboration of government agencies including the Department of Conservation, the NZ Police and the NZ Transport Agency, is but another example.

Last year, the Government created a new agency - 'Māori Crown relations'. At the launch, Minister Kelvin Davis, announced that "The agency…will help facilitate the next step in the Treaty relationship – moving beyond the settlement of treaty grievances into what it means to work together in partnerships."