Kamaka Manuel and Christopher Luxon at Rātana in 2025. Photo: RNZ / Reece Baker
It is a bill that has received the most submissions, generated the most publicity and created the most uproar in years, yet we know it is going nowhere - so why is everyone so bothered?
The first of 80 hours of oral submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill have been heard by the justice select committee this week, kicking off with the architect of the bill, ACT leader David Seymour, followed by a range of academics, iwi leaders and politicians.
"We are at a very serious crossroads," Auckland University professor Elizabeth Rata, a supporter of the bill, told the select committee during her allocated 10 minutes.
"The value of the bill is that it forces us to not only confront this fact but allows us to do so within the parliamentary select committee process."
Others told the committee they were uncomfortable about being there.
"I confess it's difficult to be in this house for this purpose this day. Everything about it screams colonial-era dishonesty and deceit that Ngāti Toa believed was behind us," Helmut Modlick of Te Rūnanga O Roa Rangatira said.
Their comments summed up opposite ends of the debate on the bill, a debate that is spilling into other events and meetings around the country and will continue well beyond the day the bill is voted down in Parliament, as promised.
"This year was always going to be spicy," Newsroom political editor Laura Walters says.
"It's pretty significant straight away and it's not going to stop any time soon either."
Walters has covered the select committee this week and says on one level it is very complex with the talk of legislative change and the impact on Treaty settlements or the Crown's obligation to Māori on equitable outcomes.
On another level, such as we saw at politicians' day at Rātana, strong feelings are expressed in a different way.
"There are two things happening. There's almost an academic and legislative debate that's happening as it should.
"But there's also just people talking about how they feel at the moment. Are they feeling like they're being valued, are they feeling like they're getting a fair go, are they feeling like the government is listening to them and what they want?"
Walters says that Kiingitanga leader Rahui Papa summed it up on the paepae at Rātana when he warned that the Māori-Crown relationship was the worst it has been for a long time.
"I'm here to tell you that the the state of the Māori nation is at the highest level of concern it has been for a whole lot of years," he said.
The depth of feelings at both ends of the debate makes it hard to imagine a situation where people will come closer together, Walters says.
"Many people have decided where they stand on this and they will not be moving because for so many people it is fundamentally important to them. It is about rights, it is about human rights, it is about rights as tangata whenua or tangata Tiriti."
Also feeding into divisions is the controversy over the overhaul of members at the Waitangi Tribunal, which is under review. Several longstanding members have been replaced, including three highly respected Māori leaders, in what has been called a 'refresh' by minister in charge Tama Potaka, and a 'whitewash' by Te Pāti Māori.
RNZ In Depth te ao Māori journalist Ella Stewart tells The Detail it adds to a stormy past year for the tribunal, which has heard a record number of claims over coalition government policies. This included the scrapping of the Māori Health Authority, limiting te reo Māori use and the Treaty Principles Bill.
Stewart explains the makeup of the tribunal and why people are worried that the overhaul is part of a move to narrow the scope of the tribunal.
Wherever people stand on Crown-Māori relations, Walters says that many agree that a broader constitutional discussion is needed.
"On the other side people are saying, we think that the principles of Te Tiriti do need to be defined, they have moved and shifted and there's a lot of misunderstanding around the principles, so let's legislate, let's define them in law.
"And then everyone in the middle is just going, 'hey I need to learn more about this so why not have a discussion and educate ourselves'."
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