Hīkoi: ‘The whole world is watching’

The Treaty Principles Bill may have started this discussion, but it was not the centre of contention as the hīkoi reached Parliament.
Instead, the ire whipped up by the bill’s introduction catalysed a resistance movement varied in scope and membership. In the crowd, patched gang members stood next to suburban mums and listened to speeches critiquing the fast-track bill, military-style boot camps and divisive language. It was not just about the one bill, and it was not heard by just the one group. 
But at the centre of it all was just the one politician: Act Party leader David Seymour, whose desire to inspire national debate was clearly solidified on Tuesday afternoon – a debate that may prove to be a bit more broad than he intended.
The first reading of the Treaty Principles Bill was meant to be on Tuesday, as Te Hīkoi mō Te Tiriti arrived at Parliament. 
It had already been read by the time protesters arrived. The first reading had been abruptly moved forward to last Thursday, creating some breathing space ahead of the incoming hīkoi, and denying the crowd the opportunity to present their grievances alongside the targeted vote. 
But whatever distance this move created was eliminated by a haka led by Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke. Video of the haka spread so quickly online that by the time the hīkoi arrived, what may have originally been a national audience had swelled by the millions, both onshore and overseas. 
During his speech outside Parliament, party co-leader Rawiri Waititi said that thanks to her, “the whole world is watching”. International outlets picked up the haka story and ran with it, priming the global stage for Tuesday’s historic protest. 
Those headlines focused on “race relations” and a “Māori rights bill”, but Seymour, the bill’s architect, remained insistent it was about equal rights for all.
Seymour has maintained the Treaty Principles Bill is about debate, about sparking a national conversation around a legal quirk that has gone uncontested for decades. He has said the Treaty needs to be firmly clarified through Parliament rather than letting the courts “meddle” with the interpretation of what is, essentially, a three-paragraph document written 180 years ago. 
So on the one hand, Seymour has positioned this bill as a simple matter of debating those original three paragraphs, and making sure they apply equally to all New Zealanders. This call has seemed, to some, to be perfectly reasonable; to others, it’s anything but.
On the other hand, while championing the ideal that all New Zealanders ought to receive equal treatment and opportunity, the coalition Government has spent its first year in power running a policy blitz of legislation that data suggests will disproportionately affect Māori. 
These policies include repealing smokefree bans, scrapping the Māori Health Authority, adjusting university entrance pathways for Māori students, rejecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, defunding Section 27 reports while also increasing prison capacity, removing Section 7AA from the Children’s and Young People’s Wellbeing Act and removing Te Tiriti from its position as a foundation for classroom study. 
In the past fortnight alone, a slew of these policies have been pushed forward by the Government. The first reading of this bill was last week, and the enforcement of the gang patch ban starts on Thursday, which was broadened after the select committee process to allow in-home searches – a change severely criticised by Māori and experts, including the Law Society. At the same time, the Government’s work programme to repeal and review Treaty clauses in 28 pieces of legislation is underway. 
The bill that would allow children to be put into boot camps was introduced the day before the hīkoi arrived, and last Friday the social services and community select committee quietly published their report on the repeal of 7AA that again reiterated that there was no evidence underpinning the removal of provisions designed to ensure tamariki Māori are rehomed to culturally appropriate homes. 
To those paying attention from Māoridom and beyond, the Treaty Principles Bill doesn’t feel like just a debate about an old document – it feels like the representative thrust of a wider policy initiative aimed squarely at Māori. 
Many in the crowd admitted this; they were not just here to protest the bill, they were here to protest against David Seymour and what he stood for. 
Elaine Stevenson, a protester, told Newsroom the bill felt like “a bit of a distraction to Māori” while other legislation was passed. 
But the stage was not reserved solely for Māori. Palestinian and Pākehā voices also had their turn in front of the crowd. Michelle Hennessy, a Pākehā attendee, told Newsroom “there’s a lot of fear that’s been taught to us our whole lives”, and if Pākehā could learn to look past that, they would see there was nothing scary about the hīkoi.
She went on to thank Seymour, because he’d “done everyone a bit of a favour, because, really, he’s brought everybody together”. 
But Hennessy didn’t think the buck stopped with Seymour. “Everyone’s putting David Seymour in the spotlight,” said Hennessy. “But what about Christopher Luxon? Because he’s the one that’s let this all happen.”
The Prime Minister did not meet protesters outside Parliament. 
Seymour was greeted with chants of “kill the bill” when he briefly appeared outside Parliament, flanked by his party members and security. He spoke for a few minutes to a private camera, waved at the crowd, and then returned indoors. He said he would have liked the chance to speak, but Waititi said in his speech that “your time to speak was Thursday”. 
In the end, it was Maipi-Clarke with the final words, followed by a rousing haka and a return to Waitangi Park. 
“This march was never about the bill,” said Maipi-Clarke. “I ripped that in half and chucked it away. This march was about us: walking, marching, side-by-side, generation-by-generation.”
Down the street at Waitangi Park, the chalk outline of a body was drawn outside a row of portaloos. A single sentence was scrawled next to it, with a pointing arrow: “Here lies Seymour’s hopes and dreams.”