Councils’ obligations to Māori
Councils’ obligations to Māori
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12:12 pm, August 30th, 2025 - 12 comments
Categories: local government, Maori Issues, Te Reo Māori, treaty settlements, uncategorized -
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Earlier this year the Kaipara District Council commissioned Franks Ogilvie to prepare a report outlining local Council’s obligations to Māori.
The resulting 126-page report , which cost an unbudgeted $52,000, was narrowly approved by the Council in a 5-4 vote. 68 pages were recycled advice previously given by Franks Ogilvie to Hobson’s Pledge.
I have not been able to analyse the document in detail but some glaring inaccuracies stand out.
The report claims that Councils owe no treaty obligations to Māori. Given that Councils are creatures of statute and that Councils could cause liability to the Crown by acting in breach of Treaty rights this seems to me to be an overstatement. And when Council is exercising delegated powers the Crown’s obligations and limitations must apply.
Besides limiting what Council does to what it is legally required to do does not fit with my view of Local Government’s potential for good. A minimalist approach fails to fit with the high expectations that residents have of their Councils.
The report also states that the Treaty of Waitangi is not considered to be a “fundamental constitutional document” and asserts that sovereignty was ceded by the Treaty. This claim has always been contentious.
Opponents on the Kaipara District Council were scathing. From the Northern Advocate:
Te Moananui o Kaipara Māori ward councillor Pera Paniora said the report was “bulls***” and an echo chamber of the political positions of some councillors.
…
Several councillors opposing the adoption tried to pause the vote to allow time for an information briefing, in line with normal council process.
Mark Vincent questioned the motives of those pushing for adoption at the meeting without that step.
“We need to give it proper consideration,” he said.
…
[Eryn] Wilson-Collins said the document undermined the Treaty of Waitangi as a constitutional document, treating it more like a political courtesy.She said it denied that councils had Treaty obligations, claimed Māori had no right to consultation or outcomes, and framed participation as a burden.
“This is disrespectful to local mana whenua.
“It said mana whenua mandates had no statutory basis.”
This was a complete dismissal of hapū and iwi rights, with existing obligations spun as optional.”
The associated agenda item stated that the report has been peer reviewed by Simpson Grierson. In particular:
The committee also agreed that the CE conduct a legal peer review of the draft document. The CE then coordinated that using council’s solicitors, Simpson Grierson.”
The report was circulated to all Local Government entities in the country with an assurance that it has been peer reviewed. This has resulted in an extraordinary response from Simpson Grierson denying any suggestion that it endorsed the report.
From Susan Botting at the Northern Advocate:
A Simpson Grierson spokesperson said it did not endorse the content of the July 22 final opinion adopted by the council and then distributed around New Zealand.
The spokesperson said the firm’s limited role in relation to the opinion had been to peer review an earlier draft version in May.
“There remain several matters on which we disagree with Franks Ogilvie, including statements about Treaty obligations, domestic law interpretations and the application of Local Government Act provisions,” they said.
The spokesperson said the firm’s role was in a high-level review only, as had been requested by KDC chief executive Jason Marris, and was provided to the council on June 18.
Simpson Grierson said its peer review included specific qualifying statements about its scope and limitations.
“We expressly did not review political commentary, criticism of judges and courts, or advocacy statements contained in the final opinion.”
Nor had the firm reviewed discussions of Government policy or proposed legislative reforms that had not yet reached the preliminary, or bill, stage of the Parliamentary legislative process.
It offered to release its letter if Kaipara District Council gave permission to do so.
Putting to one side the legal views contained in the Franks Ogilvie opinion , it is regrettable that Kaipara District Council should attempt to minimise and sideline Māori aspirations and wishes as well as Te Ao Māori.
Franks Ogilvie is at the centre of a number of right wing organisations. The Taxpayers Union has links to the organisation. Hobson’s Pledge is clearly a client. The Free Speech Union, Hauraki Gulf User’s Group and the Water User’s Group, all organisations opposed to Te Ao Māori have registered offices at Franks Ogilvie’s premises.
Its opinions are being used for political advocacy. I do not believe that the status being given is warranted.
And presenting Council’s obligations to Māori in such a minimalist way is deeply disrepectful to Māori. No Council that I have ever been part of has decided to do the minimum permissible for any of its communities let alone for Tangata Whenua.
Reprinted from gregpresland.com
One of the many 'interface' roles councils have is in their emergency response powers. Multiple reports note and laud the effective part played by marae (e.g., Mateparae report into severe weather events of early 2023). All this was reiterated at last week's 2-day hui of NEMA and Māori EM at Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt. But as the NEMA chair David Gawn admitted, NEMA (3rd smallest govt agency) cannot force councils to listen to Māori in an emergency, let alone in the all-important reduction and readiness phases of DRR. So Kaipara (and many, not all, councils) default to the classic kiwi strategy: she'll be right. Dear reader, she will not…
I agree: the so-called “opinion” is constitutionally unsound and fundamentally flawed. It disregards the fact that local government, as a creature of statute, operates within New Zealand’s constitutional framework and therefore shares in the Crown’s obligations to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
By claiming councils owe no Treaty obligations, the report ignores the well-established legal principle that when territorial authorities exercise delegated powers, they are bound by the same constitutional limitations and responsibilities as the Crown. It also undermines the democratic legitimacy of local government and dismisses the expectations of our communities that councils will engage meaningfully and respectfully with mana whenua and Māori.
On top of this, the report flies in the face of the generally accepted constitutional precedent that Māori did not cede sovereignty by signing Te Tiriti. This position is supported by leading constitutional scholars, the Waitangi Tribunal, and the courts. For the report to make such sweeping assertions to the contrary without proper context or balance is misleading and unhelpful for councils trying to navigate their obligations responsibly.
The clearest indication of publicsentiment on these issues is the widespread acceptance of Māori wards. We haven’t seen anything close to the level of opposition some predicted.
a recent candidate event in rural Manawatū, every single candidate publicly endorsed retaining Māori wards. That says a lot about where communities are at: they expect progress, inclusion, and partnership. Not retreat into outdated, minimalist interpretations of council obligations.
At the same time, there’s no ignoring the growing backlash over issues like Three Waters reforms and rising rates.
We could be heading toward a peculiarly Kiwi phenomenon in the next local body elections: a potential right-leaning surge driven by fiscal pressures and opposition to 3 waters centralisation, while Māori wards continue to become increasingly embedded, even against the preferences of the government.
We may be a nation of frustrate fiscal conservatives with no appreciation for local government, but we appear to be, in the main, drawing the line at racism.
Kaipara being an exception regarding Wards. They were racist and narrow sixty years ago when I lived in Kaukapakapa and attended Kaipara College in Helensville.
When John Key represented them, I thought that fitted with what I had observed and knew of their attitudes.
Now this awful Mayor and Council. This should require a judicial challenge at least .imo
I have a bevvy of relatives on my Dad's side in Helensville, Kaikapakapa and Parakai.
The numbers of intermarriages and different grant-and-great-grandchildren have softened the overall tenor of Pakeha-Maori views from something pretty hard core Settler to something much broader and easier.
Is that the great and lamented Engineers Union leader Don Presland in the photo?
His was the most pro-union Catholic mass funeral I've ever been to and by hoki that expressed deep and fundamental amity with Maori.
As someone who has had the privilege in the early 2000s of working in a Council who worked exceptionally hard to form a grounded relationship with their local mana whenua, I know it uplifted the mana of both.
It also stood me in good stead with a working knowledge of protocols to watch for and waiata and frankly a whole civic education in Maori.
It also gave me a lifelong drive to ensure that Maori narratives are instilled into all my major infrastructure projects, so that at large scale we can become far more than concrete and steel when we invest to strengthen this country.
We don't have to be a dumb people.
Stephen Franks of Franks Ogilvie was a long time ACT list MP. Bigotted racism runs through this whole shitty saga.
Stephen Franks – enough said. The Kaipara District Council appears to me to be part of an ACT assymmetrical racial disenfranchisement campaign. /Uugh
Another Frank who seems to have input. Frank Newman (of Muriel, oily rag, and New Zealand Centre for Political Research fame)
Every central government and local government body has the same obligations to Maori as they have to every one of the 160 ethnicities that make up the New Zealand population. Nothing more, nothing less.
How's that working out in all the key policy areas?
I admire well-constructed compelling arguments underpinned by strong reasoning. Your comment fell way short.
Your harebrained view ignores that Māori are the recognised indigenous people of Aotearoa-New Zealand as reflected in statutes and legal frameworks at national and international level. What other ethnicity has suffered and still is suffering the effects of colonisation, loss of land, and cultural suppression? You ignore governments’ obligation and responsibility to address historical injustice inflicted and forced upon Māori unlike any other ethnicity. You reject collective commitments to justice, reconciliation, and preservation of cultural heritage of Māori. You want to close the book on Māori, or re-write it, or simply burn it on the ‘bonfire of regulations’. In other words, you want to re-create an alternative reality with new facts and truths.