Govt rejects Treaty settlements that question Crown sovereignty

Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says the Government will not sign any Treaty settlement that includes clauses disputing the Crown’s sovereignty.

His remarks came during a Māori Affairs select committee hearing, where he addressed negotiations with East Coast iwi Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and ongoing efforts to settle with Ngāpuhi, the country’s largest iwi.

A draft deed negotiated under the Labour Government included an unprecedented clause that allowed both parties to “agree to disagree” on sovereignty.

The iwi maintain they never ceded sovereignty and still hold it today. The Crown asserts its sovereignty is incontrovertible.

Goldsmith said the government would not progress with any settlement that included such wording.

“It makes it difficult in the sense that you’re signing up to a full and final settlement, but the entity fundamentally doesn’t acknowledge the authority of the Crown,” he said.

“The Crown’s position is clear: the Crown is sovereign. The Crown is simply the representation of the democratic will of the people of New Zealand.”

Former Treaty Minister Andrew Little, who led the earlier negotiations, said the agree-to-disagree clause was “unnecessary” to remove and posed no threat to the Crown’s position. “The Crown’s position on whether or not sovereignty was ceded is perfectly credible, but it is not going to be agreed to,” he said.

Goldsmith’s office confirmed that no future settlements under the current Government would allow clauses that question the Crown’s authority.

Centrist Ltd.