New Zealand’s post-Ardern populist pivot angers Maori community The protests this week followed the introduction of a bill on the Treaty of Waitangi, a document academics refer to as “New Zealand’s Magna Carta”. The British government and Maori chiefs signed the treaty in 1840 enshrining the rights of the country’s First Nations people and establishing guidelines on governance.
Under the proposed bill, championed by the libertarian ACT party, which is part of Luxon’s coalition government, the rights enshrined in the treaty would extend to all citizens, rather than just members of the Maori community. The bill would also allow parliament to define principles that until now have been interpreted by court rulings and then incorporated into law.
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Treaty of Waitangi is the founding document of New Zealand. It guarantees Māori rights to their land, and it prevented a lot of White settler land stripping of the kind that happened in the US. The libertarians are trying to remove affirmative action parts of the interpretation of it, which they say favor Māoris, who do have problems with discrimination and lower life expectancies, much like colonized people in other countries.