Should he or shouldn’t he? Christopher Luxon’s decision to skip out on visiting the Treaty Grounds for Waitangi Day has been criticised, but those on the ground are continuing as usual.
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The lawns of the Waitangi Treaty Grounds will be trodden on a hundred times over today. The sun over the Bay of Islands will scorch the fields below, the sun will kiss and sweat out skins and turn the heat up on celebrations until tensions are hot enough to burst or melt. At the Upper Treaty Grounds, parliamentarians will attend a pōwhiri in the morning, strapping in for hours of talks and challenges between MPs and iwi leaders.
The prime minister, meanwhile, will be preparing to look out over different waters: the Banks Peninsula, where on the east coast of the bay lies Ōnuku Marae, about 15km from Akaroa. He’ll spend Waitangi Day with Ngāi Tahu, the iwi to which his newly minted minister for the South Island, James Meager, belongs. Where Ngāti Rangiāmoa chief Iwikau and Ngāi Te Kahukura and Ngāi Tūāhuriri chief Hōne Tīkao (under the name John Love) signed te Tiriti on May 30, 1840. In a statement, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu said they expected “hundreds” to be in attendance in Akaroa for this year’s celebrations.
In Luxon’s place on the Treaty Grounds will be minister for Māori development Tama Potaka, who told reporters in parliament he was expecting “hard kōrero, but also a welcoming atmosphere”.
“My view has always been [that] the people of Te Tai Tokerau show enormous manaakitanga and aroha to manuhiri like myself who visit the rohe from time to time,” Potaka said.
Asked how he’ll handle the “hard kōrero” without his leader, Potaka said that he’ll just be one of many senior National MPs on the ground, alongside Shane Reti and Paul Goldsmith. “We won’t be up there just for one day or one pōwhiri, we’ll be there for many days, so there’s quite a degree of opportunities for us to liaise with and engage with whānau, hapū and iwi in the rohe,” he said.
In the NZ Herald on Tuesday, opposition leader Chris Hipkins slammed Luxon’s decision, writing “a more divided country will be his legacy”. Speaking with the Herald, Waitangi National Trust board chairman Pita Tipene said hard feelings over Luxon’s snub had now “died a natural death”, though “two out of three [Winston Peters and David Seymour] ain’t bad”. Te Pāti Māori’s Rawiri Waititi had already labelled Luxon a “drop-nuts” for his decision in parliament.
Other commentators have criticised the timing, off the back of tensions over the Treaty principles bill and Luxon’s own admittance that Māori-Crown relations are “probably worse” since the coalition government came into power.
Greens co-leader Marama Davidson, who made her return to politics following her breast cancer diagnosis at the Treaty Grounds on Monday, said she believes the prime minister has a duty to honour the significance of the site on Waitangi Day. “It’s a way of acknowledging the people of the North, but [also] the nation,” Davidson said. “The significance that this place holds, it’s expected for prime ministers to be able to show up and be accountable for their actions, and actually, to front up to people”.
A short history of Waitangi no-shows
Luxon’s decision to skip out on the Treaty Grounds follows that of the last National party prime minister, Bill English, who spent Waitangi 2017 at Auckland’s Takaparawhau/Bastion Point with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei. A year prior, English’s predecessor John Key had skipped out on attending the formalities following a fallout with Māori activists over the Trans-Pacific Partnership – Steven Joyce was left to cop a dildo to the face instead.
From 1996 to 1998, official Waitangi Day celebrations were held at Government House, following a tense year on the Treaty Grounds. Prime minister Jim Bolger and his cohort were jostled by protestors who took issue with Bolger’s proposed billion-dollar cap to settle historical Treaty claims. “There can be no going back to commemorate and celebrate Waitangi as it was,” Bolger said in 1995. “That is over”.
Helen Clark, who vowed not to visit the Treaty Grounds after being brought to tears when activist Titewhai Harawira (Ngāpuhi) questioned her right to speak in 1998, did not return to the site until 2004, when government and oppositions MPs were jostled and met with mud slings in response to the Foreshore and Seabed Act. In 2000 she, like Luxon soon will, spent Waitangi at Ōnuku Marae, and from 2005 she opted to miss out on visiting celebrations to instead host her own walkabouts on the Treaty Grounds.
Who leads instead?
On Tuesday, the Kīngitanga arrived, for Ngawai hono i te po’s first Waitangi Day as Kuīni. The Kīngitanga, though not traditionally followed by many major iwi across Aotearoa, has seen a significant rise in influence since the Hui-ā-Motu hosted by the late Kīngi Tūheitia in January 2024. Some hope Ngawai hono i te po may even have enough influence to sway government policy in the future.
Today, when the parliamentarians arrive, Luxon’s absence will leave room for Act and New Zealand First to carve out their own positions on the relationship between Māori and the Crown – though the strength of NZ First’s Shane Jones’ and Winston Peters’ names in the North carry significantly more weight than that of Act leader David Seymour, whose own hapū, Ngāti Rēhia, had asked him to stay away from Waitangi. Seymour’s Treaty principles bill will be on the tip of everyone’s tongues come time for debating on the marae.
Luxon’s absence arguably also leaves room for the opposition to have a stronger voice in debates. Their united stance against the Treaty principles bill and criticism of the government will only add to the frustration voiced by iwi leaders, and the subject of Luxon’s absence will likely make be easy fodder for the day’s speakers.
Community-focused events have grown at Waitangi in recent years, with this year’s celebrations including multiple talks and performances, and Toitū Te Tiriti “activations” throughout the week. On the lower Treaty Grounds, the Waitangi Forum Tent has days of talks hosted by iwi from Te Tai Tokerau, and other influential Māori speaking on tino rangatiratanga, economic freedom and more issues specific to tangata whenua.
Speaking on a panel for Ngāpuhi, the Greens’ Hūhana Lyndon, whose influence in Te Tai Tokerau is boosted by her former roles as CEO of Ngāti Wai Trust Board and Ngāti Hine Forestry Trust, encouraged listeners to save their energy for ensuring the strength of their own communities and kainga, and to “ignore the Crown and focus on ourselves”.