Everything you missed from day seven of the Treaty principles bill hearings, when the Justice Committee heard two hours of submissions.

Read our recaps of the previous hearings here.

Lee Short, chair of Democracy Action, was the first speaker of the day and supported the bill, saying it was “not to the benefit of other New Zealanders to lose our democracy and equality to a specific group”. He referenced Sir Apirana Ngata, who may well be the most quoted Māori throughout these hearings, in his belief that Māori did not cede sovereignty.

The Human Rights Commission’s Dayle Takitimu (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Ngāti Porou), speaking against the bill, labelled it an “unhelpful and erroneous approach to human rights” and the “most comprehensive breach of the Treaty in recent time”, which promoted a “vastly different” interpretation of the Treaty to that which has been understood by the courts and Māori.

“We assert that te Tiriti is a core agreement that affirms the place to belong and a place to stand for everyone in Aotearoa,” Takitimu said. “It is the promise of two peoples to take the best possible care of each other. This bill is not in that spirit.”

Tuku Morgan, Donna Flavell and Jamie Ferguson of Te Whakakitenga o Waikato, the governing body of Waikato-Tainui, said they “vehemently oppose” the bill. Morgan, a former New Zealand First MP and then independent MP, drew on the iwi’s Raupatu Settlement 1995 –  about to mark its 30th anniversary, and the only settlement to be signed by Queen Elizabeth II – and the “intergenerational hurt and mamae” the iwi has suffered since the Crown’s invasion of the Waikato between 1863-1864, which saw 1.2 million acres of land confiscated by 1865 and many Māori displaced.

“We not only had our lands taken, but we had the most important taonga of all [taken], our tīpuna awa,” Morgan said.

Introducing himself as “that fella” who led a nationwide hikoi against the bill, Toitū Te Tiriti’s Eru Kapa-Kingi (Te Aupōuri, Ngāpuhi) was the next to submit. “I could give the most articulate and moving kōrero, and it would not change a thing,” he said. “That is the reality of advocating for rights of an albeit beautiful, oppressed and minoritised people, even on their own whenua.”

He said the bill has made it “dangerous” to be Māori, who had been “whitemailed” into a discussion that has only given legitimacy to racism. “Do not get it twisted that our participation in this process gives it any legitimacy,” Kapa-Kingi said. “If you’re locked in a burning house, of course you’re going to try to put out the fire.” He made his mother, Te Pāti Māori MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, sitting on the committee, shed some tears: “Well done my son,” she said.

Ngāti Kahungunu iwi leader Bayden Barber said there was “no way” the iwi could support the bill as it “totally undermines our taonga”. He challenged parliament to embody the spirit of the Ngāti Kahungunu haka ‘Tika Tonu’ – to hold fast to what is true and right, come together, and work as one. “If we can do that, nothing is impossible for us to achieve as Māori and as New Zealanders,” he said.

Otago University professor of law Andrew Geddis also spoke against the bill, which he called “a solution in search of a problem” and “essentially a fiction” which bears no relation to the Treaty. Rather than giving clarity, he said the bill would lead to “greater conflict” within Aotearoa’s society. “It’s been enacted in bad faith – it’s got one partner defining the effective terms of te Tiriti without meaningful dialogue with the other,” Geddis said. If the bill went ahead, “You’d basically be setting up a much, much bigger constitutional clash.”

Kapa-Kingi and the Greens’ Hūhana Lyndon wiped tears from their eyes after Te Rūnanga-Ā-Iwi-O-Ngāpuhi’s Moana Tuwhare, Mane Tahere (CEO) and Alva Pomare opened their submission with a karakia, led by Tuwhare’s young daughter. Tuwhare warned the bill had “distinct implications” on Ngāpuhi’s status as an unsettled iwi, and argued that as the first iwi to make contact with the British monarchy, Ngāpuhi had an established relationship with the Crown long before the Treaty was signed.

“Our dedication to advocate for the rights of our mokopuna, of our tamariki, whānau and kāhui hapū will always outlast any government and any attempts to dismantle Ngāpuhi,” Pomare said. “No government, no law and no colonial agenda will ever erase the tino rangatiratanga and mana motuhake of Ngāpuhi.”

Lawyer and political pundit Liam Hehir spoke against the bill, with a “good faith … centre-right argument” to complement the mostly left-leaning opposition to the bill. He said issues with the Treaty were an ongoing diplomatic and political matter that required discussions between the Crown and Māori, rather than judicial rulings or a public referendum. “The idea that the Treaty is a pervasive legal principle that permeates the whole legal system is something that we shouldn’t just accept as a given,” Hehir said.

Lawyer and former Act Party MP Stephen Franks opened his submission in support of the bill by recalling his time on the select committee, saying “the magic of democracy is that MPs are always looking forward”. It was his position that the “Supreme Court is utterly unwise”, judges are not equipped, nor are courts “set up to take nuance into account” in order to properly define the Treaty. “We are allowing the court to jerk around everyone else,” he said.

Former prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley opened her submission against the bill using the same word she had used in the Crown’s apology to Ngāi Tahu in 1998: the bill was “unconscionable”, and may have future governments finding themselves in the position she was in, “apologising for generations past”.

She said she “admired the audacity” of a minor party like Act to be able to bring a bill such as this to parliament, but took “deep offence” for what she saw to be 50 years of relationship building between the Crown and Māori coming undone. She said that codification of the principles of the Treaty had been avoided for 185 years until now, and trying to do it now would take power away from “the next generation of Māori leaders who are going to balance guardianship with stewardship”.

The morning hearing ended with a submission against the bill from the National Iwi Chairs Forum’s Aperahama Edwards (Ngāti Wai) and Te Huia Bill Hamilton (Ngāti Kahungungu, Ngā Rauru, Ngāti Raukawa)’. “Our whānau have experienced racism, colonisation, discrimination and breaches by our parliament,” Hamilton said. “This Treaty principles bill is no exception … It is as bad as the legislation of the 1860s and 1880s that sought to smash the rangatira.”