Rather than a politically led discussion on such an important issue, we need an independent external group, comprising no current or former politicians, to shape and lead the consultation process
Opinion: In 2018 the government commissioned a report on potential co-governance arrangements with Māori. But since receiving the He Puapua report in 2019, it has constantly denied that its proposals represented government policy or intent. Indeed, it was only after much goading that it even admitted the report’s existence, and it was not until the middle of last year that a redacted version was publicly released.
But last week, with little fanfare, the Prime Minister acknowledged at a media conference, almost as an aside, that the government was working on advancing co-governance proposals and would be carrying out public consultation on its plans later this year. She offered no further details on the scope of any co-governance arrangements, the form of the public consultation, or what the government’s endgame was. Neither did she say why an issue her government has been downplaying for the past two years was now being advanced more quickly.
She did, however, true to her government’s form, blame it all on the previous National-led government, because it had given New Zealand’s support to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2010.
The following day, Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson spelled out the government’s intentions in more detail. He said organisations including the New Zealand Māori Council, the Māori Women’s Welfare League, and other unnamed but “significant” Māori and iwi groups and leaders (but apparently no Pākehā organisations or individuals) were being tasked with developing a plan for co-governance. He would then take the plan to Cabinet for approval, before its release to the public for general consultation.
The reaction of the political right was immediate but predictably knee-jerk. In an apparent u-turn from its 2010 position, National quickly ruled out supporting any form of co-governance arrangements. For its part, ACT, sensing the opportunity to seize hitherto New Zealand First ground, demanded Parliament define once and for all the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and then submit these to a public referendum. The makings of a bitter and divisive public debate were being brewed.
Add in the suspicion that, given the electoral timing, any public consultation on an issue as significant as co-governance was likely to be perfunctory and superficial and it was beginning to look like another of this government’s self-inflicted train wrecks was looming. But the issues raised by the co-governance debate deserve far better consideration than the divisive, highly politicised process that now appears likely.
Co-governance is not a new idea. It has been at the heart of many of the successful treaty settlements of the past 30 years. In the specific instances where it has been applied, it has generally worked well.
The question now is not so much whether we should have co-governance arrangements, because we already do, but rather the extent of future arrangements in other areas and how these are to be managed. There is the opportunity to develop an overarching co-governance framework, rather than the current essentially ad hoc, case-by-case approach, but only if the constructive goodwill is there to do so.
Such a considered public discussion on the overall process is timely and should not be feared. However, the way the debate has been blundered into, and the early responses to it, suggest the forthcoming public discussion will be neither considered nor reasonable. It therefore risks degenerating into one more immature slugfest, even before it has started.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the New Zealand way of handling complex, often controversial, issues. We appear incapable of having such public debates in a mature and rational way. Consequently, the outcomes that follow often leave everyone equally dissatisfied and the issue at hand unresolved.
The cannabis debate before the last election is a good example. Most people accept that our current cannabis laws do not work. The referendum provided an opportunity to do something about that. However, it was left almost entirely to the Green Party to front the issue. That immediately suggested that the Labour Party was too suspicious of trusting the public mood and certainly scared stiff of upsetting then coalition partner New Zealand First, so chose to play safe and absent itself from the public debate.
All that did was signal that Labour was not taking the issue seriously, and that drug law reform was really an issue just for the Greens. So it became easy to treat the referendum as a judgement on the Greens’ overall drug policy approach, rather than on the specific issue of the recreational use of cannabis.
The referendum’s defeat, albeit extremely narrowly, was almost inevitable from that point. There was no effective campaign for reform - the political parties, including the Greens, were all understandably much more focused on the general election - and the external lobby groups lacked the necessary resources. With the government quickly ruling out any drug policy law changes after the referendum result, the existing situation, which nearly everyone before the referendum seemed to agree was unsatisfactory and unworkable, has been left to carry on indefinitely. The referendum was therefore no more than an exercise in futility, honouring a Labour political commitment to the Greens, but otherwise serving no useful purpose.
It had been a similar story in 2016 with the referendum to change the New Zealand flag. For years, groups, including the Labour Party, had been calling for changes to the flag. However, when former Prime Minister Sir John Key set up a process for considering alternative designs to be put to a public referendum, many of those same groups, including the Labour Party, were quick to dismiss the idea as just a personal vanity project and a large waste of money.
Rather than becoming an opportunity to look at the relevance of the current flag to our contemporary emerging sense of nationhood, and to select an emblem more representative of that, the debate quickly descended to the level of the petty and pathetic. In the event, the referendum was lost - again, by a rather small margin - but the vitriol it generated has scared off any political party from promoting a new flag or any wider constitutional reform for the foreseeable future.
The lesson that arises, which is of acute relevance to the co-governance debate, is that reasonable public consideration of important issues will not take place if it is constrained by a framework constructed by politicians. All that ensures is that the outcome of any such consultation is shaped and ultimately decided according to the partisan political lines dominant at the time.
The one occasion where we stepped above that approach was in the 1992-93 electoral reform debate before the referendum that led to the introduction of mixed-member proportional representation. Then, an independent external panel led by respected former Chief Ombudsman Sir John Robertson was established to oversee the public information and education “Taking It to the People” campaign before the referendum, and to ensure the accuracy of the various arguments being raised. The process worked well and was widely acknowledged after the 1993 referendum.
Labour would be wise to look to a similar model if it wants to ensure an inclusive, respectful, tolerant, and informed public debate about co-governance. With respect, that cannot happen if the consultation is led by the minister of Māori development or any minister for that matter. A politically led discussion on an issue such as co-governance has a high potential to be divisive, something the parties of the right are already testing, and which extreme groups will certainly exploit in a far more inflammatory way.
What is needed is an independent external group, comprising distinguished and respected New Zealanders, and no current or former politicians, to shape and lead the consultation process, to educate and inform as necessary, to correct inaccurate statements, and to ensure every group has a reasonable opportunity to have its say and be heard. At the end of the engagement and consultation process, it should be the group’s responsibility to produce a full report setting out future options for consideration.
The report should be released publicly when completed, without being sanitised by the government filter. To ensure that, it should first be submitted to the Governor-General and then released to the Government and the public at the same time.
Such a process would make the report completely transparent. Although it could not commit the Government to any specific action, it should lay out clear conclusions and recommendations for the Government to consider. For its part, while the government would not be obliged to accept any of the recommendations, it would be expected to clearly account to the public for any subsequent decisions.
The co-governance debate is an important one for our country’s future. It has been unfolding since the treaty settlement process began in earnest and spans the life of at least the past four governments, including the current one. To that extent, it has already transcended party politics. As it moves to its next and more formal stage, it deserves a wider public engagement and consultation process than the narrow, partisan, politician-led approach the current Government proposed last week.
