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       Fourth urgent inquiry by the Waitangi Tribunal, this time on Māori
       wards
        
 (HTM) Source
        
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       (file image).  Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook
        
       The Waitangi Tribunal is conducting another urgent inquiry into plans
       to require councils to hold a binding referendum on Māori wards.
        
       It adds to a growing list of urgent Tribunal inquiries into government
       policies, taking the number to four since the government took office.
        
       In April, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown announced the move,
       saying it would reverse the previous government's "divisive changes
       that denied local communities the ability to determine" if Māori wards
       were set up.
        
       Speaking to RNZ, lead claimaint and Indigenous Rights campaigner Te
       Raukura O'Connell Rapira (Te Ātiawa, Ngāruahine, Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa,
       Ngāti Whakaue) said the government was feeling threatened by the
       progress that Aotearoa had made towards becoming a more Tiriti-
       honouring society.
        
       "The proposal to remove Māori wards, or force councils to put them to
       a referendum is just the latest attack in a long string of attacks. In
       the past few years Aotearoa has gone from having three councils with
       Māori wards to 49 who now have them or will have them at the 2025
       local elections.
        
       "We don't govern our way towards a better, more harmonious, future
       through bullying and division. We govern our way to a more harmonious
       future through consensus-based and participatory decision making -
       that's what we're trying to protect," they said.
        
       The government had massively overreached into the jurisdiction of
       local councils, Rapira said.
        
       "They're bringing colonised thinking, fear and projection to these
       spaces when, actually, the councils that have put in place Māori wards
       have been through their own localised processes because those councils
       are more in touch with the community than some bureaucrats in
       Wellington.
        
       "Not only are they riding roughshod over their Treaty obligations,
       they're also riding roughshod over their supposed belief in liberal
       democracy.
        
       "We have a famous whakataukī in the Māori world which says, 'With your
       food basket and my food basket, the people will thrive'. They bring
       the baskets of knowledge contained within the Māori world together
       with the baskets of knowledge contained within the non-Māori world so
       that all of Aotearoa and the people that call this place home can
       thrive," they said.
        
       Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said all three parties in his
       government campaigned on restoring the rights of communities to
       determine whether to introduce Māori wards.
        
       Luxon told RNZ the tribunal was free to do what it wanted, but the
       change was well sign-posted.
        
       When the Coalition reviewed the focus and scope of the Tribunal in a
       post-treaty settlement world, it would be done in a proper and
       considered way, Luxon said.
        
       Claimant evidence and opening submissions were due 8 May, with the
       Crown's evidence and opening submissions due 10 May. Claimants will
       then have until 14 May for closing submissions and reply to the Crown.
        
       The Tribunal has to release its report before 20 May, when the
       government is set to introduce the bill.
        
        
        
        
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