Thousands have signed an open letter following Regulations Minister David Seymour’s scathing response to the United Nation raising concerns over the impact of Government legislation and policies on Māori.
The letter to Albert Barume, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, invites him to “remain engaged” with Māori following Seymour’s intervention last week.
Indigenous rights advocate Tina Ngata, an author of the open letter, said Seymour’s response was “quite alarming” considering no conclusion from Barume’s work has been made.
She said on TVNZ’s Marae: “It is [Barume’s] job, where concerns are repeatedly raised to him, to inquire more deeply and it’s the first stage of that inquiry where he basically comes to us and says to our government… ‘well, there are these issues that have been raised to me, can you please explain what this is about?’”
Watch the full discussion panel on TVNZ+
Barume had written to the Government outlining concerns over the alleged “persistent erosion” of Māori rights through “regressive legislations and policies” that breached New Zealand’s international obligations. He included a reference to the Regulatory Standards Bill.
Seymour responded to his concerns saying they were “presumptive, condescending, and wholly misplaced”.
He also stated: “As an indigenous New Zealander myself, I am deeply aggrieved by your audacity in presuming to speak on my behalf and that of my fellow Māori regarding legislation that aims solely at ensuring clarity, consistency, and accountability in regulatory processes.”
He eventually withdrew the letter after he was pulled up by his coalition partner and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for overstepping.
‘Shed some light’
Indigenous governance partner at the Human Rights Commission Dayle Takitimu said indigenous advocates “from across the United Nations framework”, which included the Human Rights Commission, called on the UN to “shed some light” on the Government’s obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, that needed to be upheld.
“There’s been a lot of advocacies saying – from various quarters – that people think that’s not up to scratch at the moment, and the United Nations, through this special rapporteur, has responded to that, as Tina [Ngata] said, in a very initial way, prompting that discussion,” she said on Marae.
She acknowledged there was tension between human rights and domestic sovereignty that exists across all international law.
“But at the end of the day, the United Nations, in fact, exist to assist to resolve that tension and that conflict by viewing and monitoring human rights, so they are seen as universal and paramount across the global order.”
Last week’s incident prompted Ngata, alongside fellow Māori rights advocates Leonie Pihama and Tania Waikato, a lawyer for the Toitū Te Tiriti movement, to draft an open letter to Barume that invites him to Aotearoa amidst “deepening political and constitutional crisis”.
Ngata said the open letter reaffirms Māori have a right to international protection.
“It reaffirms that we will continue to be our own voice which called out to the United Nations for their oversight, and it invites them to continue that oversight, to remain in dialogue with us throughout this political crisis – and it is a political crisis. It might be a crisis of idiots and egos, but it’s a crisis nonetheless and so we’ve called upon them to remain in contact with us and to maintain their oversight over what’s happening in Aotearoa.”
When asked if the UN had the power to hold Aotearoa to account over indigenous rights, Takitimu said that because New Zealand subscribes to the “international framework”, and has sought legitimacy from it on occasion, it has to take the support with the criticism.
“Indigenous peoples have always utilised that framework, and so has New Zealand as a state party, and so that, again, comes back to the very foundations of the United Nations to set some sort of global standards, and they have, in regards to indigenous rights and human rights, and they are holding the New Zealand Government to account for that. That’s exactly what they are set up to do.”
