Olivia O’Malley is a former press secretary to New Zealand’s Leader of the Opposition and long-time Conservative staffer. She currently works in public affairs.
New Zealand’s annual Waitangi Day commemorations each February 6 are a minefield for its politicians.
From the fraught discussion over which of New Zealand’s leaders are permitted to attend in a given year, to the inventive antics of protestors – such as former minister Steven Joyce famously being struck in the face by a flying pink dildo in 2016 – the anniversary of the signing of New Zealand’s founding document can be famously tricky to navigate.
Coupled with the fact that, due to a number of significant reforms, race relations issues have become especially tense over the past 12 months, this year’s Waitangi Day service was always going to be an early test for Chris Hipkins, the new Prime Minister.
It was also a test for Opposition politicians hoping to be in government after this year’s election, scheduled for October 14.
In the role barely a fortnight since Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation, Hipkins called for unity, accusing his opponents of using race relations to stoke division.
But this criticism ignores what veteran political journalist Audrey Young has called one of the Labour Government’s biggest failures: the failure to effectively communicate the benefits of new reforms aimed at empowering New Zealand’s Māori population – which, given around one in seven New Zealanders has some Māori heritage, is by no means small.
One of these major changes has been to establish a Māori Health Authority, providing resources for healthcare to be delivered by Māori, for Māori, to address lingering health inequalities.
Opposition parties National and ACT have alleged that what this ultimately means is one healthcare provider for some New Zealanders, and one for another. This appears to have touched a nerve among voters.
Still more controversial has been the so-called Three Waters reform to the ownership of water.
Taking responsibility for water infrastructure out of the hands of New Zealand’s 67 local councils and transferring it to four publicly owned entities, Three Waters also contains robust co-governance rules, promising equal representation between councils and iwi (tribes) in the new governance structure.
These co-governance provisions have stoked uncertainty and fear that Māori will receive a degree of preferential treatment. That uncertainty has cut through, and plagued Labour for months. David Seymour, the ACT leader, described co-governance as “a culture war” in a speech this week, while National under Christopher Luxon has made the issue a relentless focus.
All of this controversy means that on taking office, Hipkins quickly announced that he was moving away from co-governance and reframing the debate.
On the one hand, this bodes well for Labour. Recognition that the policy’s benefits have been poorly communicated is welcome, and voters are expected to respond positively to it.
On the other, it is not clear what this reset means in practice, and voters will want to see tangible differences between Hipkins’ new approach and the previous co-governance proposals.
It’s clear enough now that race relations will take centre stage in the lead up to this year’s election. It has not always been this way: National and Labour have much on which they are aligned. Both parties recognise the need to combat persistent inequalities in health, education, and justice that primarily affect Māori.
The previous National Government also led the way in negotiating redress with Māori to deliver more Treaty of Waitangi settlements than any other.
And for the first time since 2002, the National Party will stand candidates in the Māori constituency seats this year – though only one or two. It remains to be seen how well it will do, but the one thing that is ultimately important is to give voters on both electoral rolls a choice.
Race relations has not been the primary focus of political debate for well over a decade, save for a few isolated instances.
Yet Labour’s move towards separate delivery of public services appears to be a step too far for voters, while National continues to successfully cut through on key areas. It has pledged to scrap the Māori Health Authority and do away with co-governance if it is elected.
While this year’s Waitangi Day was a display of relative calm and cross-party representation, this year’s biggest political battles are yet to come. Hipkins may be calling for unity now, but it is his own Labour Government’s reforms that have fuelled this debate.