The government’s plan to scrap Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements has drawn sharp criticism from legal experts, who argue the move is not only a breach of faith but a violation of the government’s own legislative standards.
Linda Te Aho, an Associate Professor at the University of Waikato’s Faculty of Law, says the government is effectively operating in direct contradiction to the regulatory framework it recently established for itself.
“I think it also comes into the prize given this government has just passed the Regulatory Standards bill which sets standards about how legislation and regulation ought to be made,” Te Aho says. “And this move makes legislation operate retrospectively, which is not a norm for good legislation or policy making. And so they’re going to [break] their own standards. So it does come as a surprise when they talked about, you know, good processes and they haven’t followed their own standards.”
For many iwi, the scrapping of Mana Whakahono ā Rohe – which provides a formalised pathway for iwi and local government to co-manage resources owned by iwi in the first place – is seen as an attempt to bypass established collaborative mechanisms.
Te Aho emphasises that these agreements are built upon decades of hard-won concessions, where iwi have consistently prioritised long-term partnership over full justice. She points to the Tainui Raupatu settlement as a stark example of this compromise.
“We compromised hugely in the negotiation of our settlements,” Te Aho says. “And if you look at the Tainui Raupatu settlement for an example, it actually says in the deed of settlement that we settled for less than two percent of the value of what we had lost.”
This history makes the current legislative direction particularly stinging for those who worked closely with previous National Party administrations.
“It’s really disappointing for the national government in particular,” Te Aho says. “The National Party cannot stand honourably in those arrangements that were made by some of the greats of their party like Jim Bolger, Chris Finlayson, who have achieved some really wonderful settlements in their time.”
The concern is not just about the loss of specific agreements, but the broader exclusion of iwi from the democratic processes that govern their natural resources they treasure. As the legislation progresses, Te Aho is calling for the government to change course and return to the principles it previously championed.
“I would hope that going forward, the Government actually honours its own Regulatory Standards and adopts and honours democratic processes,” Te Aho says. “And doesn’t kind of do these backward steps in terms of locking people out of democratic processes and making legislation retrospective, which is against the norm of what is acceptable in terms of legislative processes.”
Profound breach of trust, iwi condemn govt of reversing Mana Whakahono
Defiance on the ground: Local leaders resist central Government “overreach”