As the Justice Select Committee hear the last few arguments for and against the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill this week, it saw a surprise guest in one of the submissions from Tā Tīmoti Kāretu.

The first Māori language commissioner, Kāretu said he feared the bill.

“E mataku rawa atu ana au. Ka mutu, ko ahau tētahi noa iho o te hunga i whakapau kaha kia ora tonu ai tō tātou reo. Nōreira, mihi mai ki a au, engari mihi ki te katoa o tātou e whawhai nei.

“Nā reira, te mataku nei i tēnei pire. Me taku kore i mōhio he aha rā i whakatere ai tēnei waka. Kei te pātai au ki a au anō, e whai hua ana rānei? Kāore noa iho rānei.

“Engari ki a au nei, ki te whawhai tātou, kua roa tātou whawhai ana me whawhai tonu, kia kite te autaia nei e kore tōna waka e ū ki uta,” he told the committee.

Kāretu was sitting alongside the planned speaker Dr Jeremy Tātere MacLeod, who said the bill misinforms the public and future governments.

“This dangerous rhetoric promoted has only deepened divisions, perpetuating the false narrative that every economic misfortune in this country was attributed to Māori receiving so-called special treatment.

“This misleading message fuels resentment and distracts from the real issues facing our country.”

He rejected the claims that Māori were given “special privileges or that we are advocating for separatism or apartheid”.

‘Privilege is not fighting for survival’

“What privilege is there in being overrepresented in every negative statistic?

“What privilege exists when the Māori language still faces constant challenges to its rightful place, when it must be fought over every term to ensure its mere survival and growth?

“Privilege is not fighting for survival, privilege is having the power to strip away that survival under the guise of equality,” said MacLeod.

Aotearoa ‘plagued by treaty-ism’

Immediately after hearing from Kāretu and MacLeod, the committee heard the submission of Thomas Newman - a trustee of Hobson’s Pledge - who stated that New Zealand was “plagued by a problem I refer to as treaty-ism.”

He defined the new word as a cultural and political phenomenon where any issues of public significance are framed around a particular understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi - in this instance, the one where Māori never ceded sovereignty and entered into a partnership.

“It casts Māori as a noble savage and eternal victim, and as New Zealanders with European ancestry as imperial colonisers and irredeemable villains. Both of these are distorted caricatures.”

“To live under treaty-ism is to live under constant stifling, pretentious moralising from a number of groups including governmental agencies, well-to-do civil society organisations, mainstream and tax-payer funded media, and a host of other organisations,” said Newman.

He said it “injects” itself into everything, with no one able to escape it.

“It gatekeeps higher education and entry into the professions, it does this by imposing regulations making compulsory subjects or professional development courses out of the likes of tikanga, mātauranga Māori, language and culture, and the treaty.

“Those who refuse, such as the likes of Janet Dickson, a real estate agent, lose their licenses.”

Newman said we lived in a “clown world”, and the Treaty Principles Bill will contribute to help fix the “problem.”

“These and many other things are said to be justified because of this particular understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi and its supposed principle.

“So, I think that it’s appropriate that an appropriate definition is given to those principles.”