A document entitled He Puapua (the breaking of the waves) has been produced by a group appointed by Te Puni Kōkiri, the Ministry for Māori Development. As its title implies, it has proposed revolutionary change in New Zealand’s constitution. Its authors believe its recommendations are in accord with Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

After discussion in Cabinet, the document was ‘parked’ and a redacted summary released. The full document has recently been released after a request under the Official Information Act.

ACT Party leader David Seymour asked several questions about the recommendations in He Puapua of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in Parliament. She was evasive and clearly had not been recently briefed about the document.

She did make it clear the Government had no intention of establishing a Māori Parliament but did not entirely reject an expansion of the Treaty Settlement process. National Party leader Judith Collins has now made a widely reported speech rejecting the ideas behind He Puapua.

It is disappointing the discussion so far has broken down on partisan grounds. Collins's speech has been framed as an attempt to shore up her leadership, even by commentators sympathetic to her party. Criticism of the document and its recommendations has been labelled as divisive.

Opposition parties and politicians in general have a responsibility to bring matters of great public concern to the attention of a wider audience. If such interventions are ‘divisive’, we need more, not less of them. Kneejerk reactions on partisan grounds are not conducive to informed public debate.

Critics are admonished to read Ti Tiriti but perhaps people should also read He Puapua. Meanwhile, Collins and Seymour’s criticisms are easily labelled as of a similar ilk to those of former National Party leader Dr Don Brash’s notorious Orewa speech.

In this vein, any criticism of He Puapua runs the risk of this framing. However, the argument that follows here comes from a position sympathetic to Māori aspirations for greater equality and fairness both in treatment and outcomes (as implicit in article three of the Ti Tiriti) as well as for greater control of their own affairs (under article two, the Rangitiratanga principle).

It acknowledges more could and should be done under article two and it would defend almost all the efforts to realise the ideas behind its principles so far.

He Puapua goes several giant leaps further.

In article one of Te Tiriti, the Chiefs assigned the Crown "for ever the government of all their land" (ake tonu atu – te kawanatanga katoa o o ratou whenua). In article two, the Chiefs were guaranteed the power and authority they wished to retain over their peoples, their lands and their possessions would continue.

The practical application of two articles was bound to require further negotiation and that process was soon short-circuited by claims of exclusive authority by settler governments. Over recent decades, the negotiation has been renewed.

But since 1840 much has changed. The role of government has expanded greatly. The Crown that signed Te Tiriti in 1840 has become domiciled in New Zealand. The government behind the Crown is a representative democracy in which Māori have their proportionate voice.

The New Zealand Government is no longer an autocracy of privileged elites under which voting rights were limited to the propertied.

Attempts to interpret Te Tiriti for contemporary purposes after nearly 200 years are inevitably more of a matter of imagination than of recovery. Thus the authors of He Puapua claim Te Tiriti demands extension of the authority of rangitiratanga deep into the heart of kawanatanga. In an alternative interpretation, it is that very extension that would be a breach of Te Tiriti.

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s unitary state with a single-chamber legislature and strong political parties elected under principles of proportionality stands up well across most comparative indicators that estimate the quality and effectiveness of government.

Our response to the COVID-19 crisis bears witness to the advantages of a limited separation of powers, a flexible constitution and a strong sense of common purpose. Revolutionary constitutional change would have unintended consequences, and not necessarily good ones. The pursuit of better lives for Māori is making progress under the current constitution and should continue to do so.

Nearly 10 years ago, New Zealand had a Constitutional Conversation, to which submissions were requested. It came at the request of the Māori Party and many of the ideas in He Puapua were represented in earlier forms. Its advisory panel produced a report that recommended further debate but no current changes.

If the Government is serious about He Puapua, it will explain its own position more fully, and if it wishes to pursue that agenda, or significant parts of it, it should set up the framework for a further constitutional debate to which all New Zealanders can contribute.

Otherwise, reinforced by other developments within government, and driven by conservative opinion leaders, more and more people will come to suspect radical change is being covertly pursued behind the scenes in the absence of public consultation.

Such concerns will not be good for the current Government or for confidence in politicians and the political process in general.

Professor Jack Vowles is in the Political Science and International Relations programme at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.

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