PM requires civil debate as authorities faces backlash over efforts to roll again insurance policies to help Maori group.
Printed On 6 Feb 2026
New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has rejected criticism of his claims that colonisation was constructive for the nation’s Indigenous Maori inhabitants.
Dozens of individuals began booing and shouting when Seymour stood on Friday to supply a prayer throughout a daybreak service on the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, the place New Zealand’s founding doc was signed in 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and greater than 500 Maori Indigenous chiefs, setting out how the 2 sides would govern the nation.
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Seymour made his controversial feedback that colonisation had been an total constructive expertise for Indigenous folks on Thursday throughout a speech to mark nationwide Waitangi Day, an annual political gathering that provides Indigenous tribes an opportunity to air grievances.
“I’m at all times amazed by the myopic drone that colonisation and every little thing that’s occurred in our nation was all unhealthy,” mentioned Seymour, who’s chief of the right-wing ACT Get together and a member of the Maori group.
“The reality is that only a few issues are fully unhealthy,” Seymour had mentioned, in line with native on-line information website Stuff.
Describing his hecklers on Friday as “a few muppets shouting in the dead of night”, Seymour mentioned the “silent majority up and down this nation are getting slightly bored with a few of these antics”.
Following Seymour’s prayer on Friday, left-wing Labour Get together chief Chris Hipkins was additionally loudly jeered by these in attendance.
On Thursday, Indigenous chief Eru Kapa-Kingi informed parliamentarians “this authorities has stabbed us within the entrance,” and the earlier Labour authorities had “stabbed us within the again”.
Seymour’s authorities has been accused of in search of to wind again particular rights given to the nation’s 900,000-strong Maori inhabitants, who had been dispossessed of their land throughout British colonisation and stay way more more likely to die early, reside in poverty or be imprisoned in contrast with the nation’s non- Indigenous inhabitants.
Controversial laws that was tabled final yr in search of to reinterpret the treaty’s rules and roll again insurance policies designed to handle inequalities skilled by Indigenous folks led to protests and failed after two of the three governing events didn’t vote for it.
Talking on Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon referred to as for nationwide unity and for steps to handle challenges confronted by the Maori community.
Luxon additionally mentioned the nationwide debate over the legacy of British colonisation ought to stay civil.
“We don’t settle our variations by means of violence. We don’t activate one another; we flip in the direction of the dialog. We work by means of our variations,” Luxon mentioned in a social media put up.
Denial concerning the harmful legacy of colonialism and its connection to up to date challenges confronted by Indigenous communities stays a frequent topic of contentious debate in former colonies world wide, together with Australia and New Zealand.
