Data from the Electoral Commission up to 25 November showed 2262 people changed from the general roll to the Maori roll - up from 59 in October. Just 28 people changed from Maori roll to general roll.

There were also 862 new enrolments on the Maori roll - up from 29 the previous month. All up, there were 3096 more people on the Maori roll than at the start of the month. Read more

Despite his claim of Maori ancestry, he is defending his Treaty Principles Bill.

His comments came as a hikoi opposing the bill reached Parliament, backed by passionate speeches and strong objections from Maori leaders.

Leaders voice Hapu concerns

Te Runanga o Ngati Rehia issued a statement condemning Seymour's proposed legislation, calling it a threat to mana Maori motuhake (Maori self-determination).

"Ngati Rehia oppose everything this bill stands for" the runanga said, urging Seymour to withdraw the bill which they say contradicts the principles his ancestors fought for.

They also expressed fears the bill would harm Maori communities.

"He has disregarded our voice and continued with this divisive kaupapa" their statement read.

Seymour stands firm on individual freedoms

Seymour responded by emphasising his belief in individual freedom over collective identity, stating he does not feel obligated to follow the perspectives of his hapu.

"If the proposition is that being Maori means I have to bow down and follow leadership, then that's not a very attractive proposition" Seymour told Local Democracy Reporting.

"The idea that I have to think the same as every ancestor I have."

He also dismissed the hikoi's objections as lacking coherence, while acknowledging the intensity of Maori-related discussions at his public meetings.

Highly contentious remarks at ACT meeting

NZ Herald reports that at an Act Party meeting in New Plymouth on Wednesday, Seymour's audience voiced sharp criticisms of Maori issues, reflecting the polarising nature of the debate.

One attendee compared Maori to seagulls, suggesting continued government support led to dependency.

Another claimed the Treaty had been reinterpreted over time to serve a Maori elite, while another dismissed pre-colonial Maori society as violent.

Source

• NZ Herald

"important national conversation about the place of the Treaty in our constitutional arrangements".

The hikoi is timed to coincide with the first reading of the contentious Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill on Thursday.

It and other similar protests are a response to what many perceive as a fundamental threat to New Zealand's fragile constitutional framework.

With no upper house, nor a written constitution, important laws can be fast-tracked or repealed by a simple majority of Parliament.

As constitutional lawyer and former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer has argued about the current Government's legislative style and speed, the country "is in danger of lurching towards constitutional impropriety".

Central to this ever-shifting and contested political ground is te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi.

For decades it has been woven into the laws of the land in an effort to redress colonial wrongs and guarantee a degree of fairness and equity for Maori.

There is a significant risk the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill would undermine these achievements, as it attempts to negate recognised rights within the original document and curtail its application in a modern setting.

But while the bill is almost guaranteed to fail because of the other coalition parties' refusal to support it beyond the select committee, there is another danger.

Contained in an explanatory note within the bill is the following clause:

The Bill will come into force if a majority of electors voting in a referendum support it. The Bill will come into force 6 months after the date on which the official result of that referendum is declared.

Were David Seymour to argue his bill has been thwarted by the standard legislative process and must be advanced by a referendum, the consequences for social cohesion could be significant.

The referendum option

While the bill would still need to become law for the referendum to take place, the option of putting it to the wider population - either as a condition of a future coalition agreement or orchestrated via a citizens-initiated referendum - should not be discounted.

One recent poll showed roughly equal support for and against a referendum on the subject, with around 30 percent undecided.

And Seymour has had success in the past with his End of Life Choice Act referendum in 2020.

He will also have watched the recent example of Australia's Voice referendum, which aimed to give a non-binding parliamentary voice to Indigenous communities but failed after a heated and divisive public debate.

The lobby group Hobson's Pledge, which opposes affirmative action for Maori and is led by former ACT politician Don Brash, has already signalled its intention to push for a citizens-initiated referendum, arguing:

"We need to deliver the kind of message that the Voice referendum in Australia delivered."

The Treaty and the constitution

ACT's bill is not the first such attempt. In 2006, the NZ First Party - then part of a Labour-led coalition government - introduced the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Deletion Bill.

That bill failed, but the essential argument behind it was that entrenching Treaty principles in law was "undermining race relations in New Zealand".

However, ACT's current bill does not seek to delete those principles, but rather to define and restrain them in law.

This would effectively begin to unpick decades of careful legislative work, threaded together from the deliberations of the Waitangi Tribunal, the Treaty settlements process, the courts and parliament.

As such, in mid-August the Tribunal found the first iteration of ACT's bill

would reduce the constitutional status of the Treaty/te Tiriti, remove its effect in law as currently recognised in Treaty clauses, limit Maori rights and Crown obligations, hinder Maori access to justice, impact Treaty settlements, and undermine social cohesion.

In early November, the Tribunal added:

If this Bill were to be enacted, it would be the worst, most comprehensive breach of the Treaty/te Tiriti in modern times.

If the Bill remained on the statute book for a considerable time or was never repealed, it could mean the end of the Treaty/te Tiriti.

Social cohesion at risk

Similar concerns have been raised by the Ministry of Justice in its advice to the government.

In particular, the ministry noted the proposal in the bill may negate the rights articulated in Article II of the Treaty, which affirms the continuing exercise of tino rangatiratanga (self-determination):

Any law which fails to recognise the collective rights given by Article II calls into question the very purpose of the Treaty and its status in our constitutional arrangements.

The government has also been advised by the Ministry of Justice that the bill may lead to discriminatory outcomes inconsistent with New Zealand's international legal obligations to eliminate discrimination and implement the rights of Indigenous peoples.

All of these issues will become heightened if a referendum, essentially about the the removal of rights guaranteed to Maori in 1840, is put to the vote.

Of course, citizens-initiated referendums are not binding on a government, but they carry much politically persuasive power nonetheless. And this is not to argue against their usefulness, even on difficult issues.

But the profound constitutional and wider democratic implications of the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, and any potential referendum on it, should give everyone pause for thought at this pivotal moment.

• First published in The Conversation
• Alexander Gillespie is a Professor of Law, University of Waikato
• Claire Breen is a Professor of Law, University of Waikato

Describing the proposed Bill as "radical", former National Party minister Chris Finlayson and political commentator Matthew Hooten say the bills should not have the National-led Government's support.

Former  National Party attorney general and minister for Treaty negotiations under Sir John Key's leadership, Finlayson is firmly opposed to a referendum about the Treaty.

The ACT Party's Treaty referendum would "derail years of good faith bargaining and empower weirdos" he says.

"It will bring out of the woodwork the sort of people who used to write to me and say ‘why don't you get cancer?', ‘how dare you give property rights to people above their station' or, as sometimes even happens now, walking along Lambton Quay, someone will call me a ‘Maori-loving c***'."

Respected political commentator Matthew Hooton, who has ties to both ACT and National, agrees with Finlayson's concerns.

"The principles of the Treaty were put into legislation to the disadvantage of Maori because the risk was that if the Maori text was taken as authoritative, then the Crown would not be sovereign.

"You do not want to put the words ‘tino rangatiratanga' into statute" he says.

Catholic religious orders are concerned

Some members of the Catholic Church's Congregational Leaders Conference of Aotearoa New Zealand [CLCANZ] are also concerned.

The group, representing Catholic religious orders, is troubled by the current political discourse regarding the Coalition Government's policies about Maori language and the Treaty.

CLCANZ has issued a public statement saying:

"Te Tiriti o Waitangi was the foundational document of Aotearoa, with Bishop Pompallier present at the gathering.

"It had the flavour of a covenant, a sacred agreement.

"It was between the British Colonial Office then, and the Government today, and Maori.

"Any ongoing conversations today should involve members from both parties.

The religious leaders are alarmed by the rhetoric surrounding curbing Maori language and attempting to rewrite the principles of the Treaty and say it is not time to remain silent.

"This current coalition government appears to be continuing a litany of broken promises to Maori, the indigenous peoples of our country.

"We stand in protest at the attitude of the present coalition government in disestablishing the bicultural relationship between Maori and the Crown, and destroying many efforts made over significant years.

"We commit ourselves to learning more about our responsibilities living in a bicultural milieu," say the group of leaders.

The proposed Bill

The five principles the proposed Bill will consider include:

• Kawanatanga - the principle that the Government has the right to govern and make laws
• Rangatiratanga - the right of iwi to control the resources they own
• Equality - all New Zealanders are equal under the law
• Co-operation - there must be co-operation between the Government and iwi on big issues of common concern
• Redress - that the Government acts responsibly to provide a process to resolve Treaty grievances

ACT is committed to replacing and rewriting those principles.

Sources

• NZ Herald
• Otago Daily Times
• For further information CLCANZ statement, please contact the President, Fr Thomas Rouse, on 04 5677216 or by email