'It's our future at stake'

The Treaty Principles Bill is a breach of faith not only to tangata whenua but also a betrayal of all the young people of Aotearoa New Zealand whose future is at stake

Hot on my post sharing my own submission, I thought I would share my son’s. He is 16 years old and joined me and his little sister on the hīkoi mō te Tiriti in November. I suggested to him that he might want to write a submission and join me in speaking to it in person. A valuable opportunity to participate in a democratic (if imperfect) process.

Again, I am sharing his submission in the hope that it is a prompt for others - perhaps with listless teenagers at home, who may want to channel their creative and communicative energies.

Submission on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill

My name is ________. I am a 16-year-old student from __________, on the Kāpiti Coast.

I oppose the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill.

Like many young people my age, I am worried about the future. I worry about climate heating, about biodiversity decline, about resource depletion and worsening geopolitical tensions as fossil fuels, minerals, water and arable land become increasingly scarce. New Zealand will not be immune from the deepening polycrisis. There is therefore much our government should be doing to ensure that our economy, our social infrastructure and our communities are as resilient as possible, and able to withstand the shocks to come.

But instead of taking any meaningful action to reduce climate pollution, environmental degradation or improve our country’s resilience, this government is instead putting its energy into reducing our resilience. It is doing this by making it easier to exploit our precious natural environment, and by removing the supports for the most vulnerable people in our society. One of the ways it is doing this is through the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill.

The government knows that the Treaty has acted as a barrier to previous government attempts to destroy or exploit our natural heritage and to sell publicly owned assets - our common inheritance. That is why it wants to make the Treaty weaker in legislation. Even though the Prime Minister has said that the National caucus will only support the bill to its first reading and through Select Committee, behind the scenes, the government is taking out or amending the Treaty clauses in 28 existing laws. And the Fast Track Approvals Act, which makes it easier to exploit our natural environment, has no general Treaty provisions for this same reason.

So even though the Prime Minister says he does not support the bill, actually this is dishonest because his government is doing everything it can to weaken the protections that the Treaty provides – not just for Māori, but to all New Zealanders and the natural environment we treasure as our taonga.

This bill and this government’s actions is a breach of faith not only to tangata whenua but also a betrayal of all the young people of Aotearoa New Zealand whose future is at stake.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate that I oppose the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill.

I would like to speak to my submission.