Disregard for indigenous rights comes straight from the top
Barume recently criticised New Zealand for breaching international human rights standards relating to Indigenous peoples.
Among other things, Seymour's letter to Barume called these criticisms 'an affront to New Zealand's sovereignty'. This is significant, but the timeline of how we got here is a bit complex, so here's some background.
A special rapporteur is a person, appointed by the UN, who has expertise in a particular area of human rights and has a responsibility to investigate, advocate for, and encourage countries to uphold those rights.
First, what is a special rapporteur and how does this role relate to NZ?
One high-profile special rapporteur you may have recently heard of is Francesca Albanese, who has a specific mandate relating to human rights in Palestine. Barume holds an equivalent position relating to the rights of Indigenous peoples around the world, including Māori.
Barume's criticisms, contained in a letter to the New Zealand Government, reportedly addressed a range of things, all broadly related to the Government's failure to uphold both te Tiriti o Waitangi and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
We don't know all the details of the letter but the part that seems to have annoyed Seymour relates to the Regulatory Standards Bill. Alongside his comment about New Zealand's sovereignty, Seymour called the letter 'presumptive, condescending, and wholly misplaced'.
Remember, there has been virtually unanimous condemnation of the Regulatory Standards Bill by te Tiriti experts, as well as by the Waitangi Tribunal. So, you can decide for yourself whether Seymour's comments are accurate.
Didn't the coalition agreements say something about UNDRIP?
Yes. The NZ First and Act coalition agreements with National both mention the New Zealand Government should no longer recognise UNDRIP. However, an Official Information Act request last year revealed nothing had been done about it – there was no correspondence with the UN and no express withdrawal of the government's endorsement of UNDRIP. In any case, the rights of Indigenous peoples now carry weight on their own, as they are a recognised set of norms in international law.
How did the PM get involved?
In comments to reporters this week, the Prime Minister said that Seymour shouldn't have sent the letter because this was Foreign Minister Winston Peters' job.
But while initially appearing to criticise Seymour for not following the right process, Luxon then said he 'completely agrees' with Seymour's letter to Barume. He called Barume's letter 'bunkum' and said the special rapporteur's comments were 'completely without substance'.
Remember that Barume is appointed as a world-leading expert on these matters, so again, you decide who might be right here.
To summarise so far, Seymour – in his capacity as the Minister of Regulation – wrote to a UN official criticising him for criticising New Zealand for breaching Indigenous peoples' rights, and then the Prime Minister publicly agreed with Seymour's comments.
Indigenous rights scholar Tina Ngata has pointed out the message from New Zealand that we reject Indigenous peoples' rights therefore isn't a matter of Seymour going rogue. It is a message that comes straight from the top. This matters and is something we should all be embarrassed about.
How did the UN find out about this so quickly?
This week, an annual meeting was held at the UN by a group called the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (known as EMRIP). On the same day Luxon made his comments, New Zealand had its speaking slot at EMRIP. The Prime Minister's comments were reported by members of the New Zealand delegation to the group, such as Auckland University professor Claire Charters (members are independent, not part of the government). So, the UN, and therefore the rest of the world, heard about it the same day it happened (credit again to Tina Ngata for highlighting this).
What's the bigger picture here and what happens next?
As much as this might seem like just an egg on your face moment for the government, the broader implications are pretty serious.
We all know by now about this Government's willingness to repeatedly disregard its Treaty obligations here at home, with the Waitangi Tribunal conducting an unprecedented number of urgent inquiries in 2024, all of which found breaches of te Tiriti and its principles. But this is bigger. The statement made by Seymour, and later endorsed by the Prime Minister, that the letter from the special rapporteur 'is an affront to New Zealand's sovereignty' will weaken our standing internationally when it comes to human rights.
This is because the affront to sovereignty line is one wheeled out any time a country commits human rights abuses and gets told off. Israel and the US, for example, are currently using it in response to Francesca Albanese's criticisms of human rights abuses in Palestine. So, when New Zealand says the same thing, we undermine any moral authority we might have had to call out other countries over other things. This is one of the things Claire Charters pointed out this week when she spoke to EMRIP. It's bigger than just te Tiriti.
We'll probably hear more about this in the next few weeks, but sadly it may not persuade the Government to do anything differently. We have seen over and over this term how willing the coalition is to disregard Māori rights. The only difference is that this time it has happened on a global stage.
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