The Act leader’s unilateral reply to the UN has exposed fresh cracks in the coalition – and created a clean-up job for Winston Peters, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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Letter row underscores coalition strain
David Seymour’s fiery response to a United Nations letter has turned into a full-blown coalition controversy, exposing divisions over both diplomatic conduct and the ideological direction of government. In June, UN special rapporteur Albert K Barume wrote to the government expressing concern that Seymour’s Regulatory Standards Bill failed to uphold Treaty principles and risked breaching Māori rights. Without consulting his coalition partners, Seymour fired back, sending his own letter to Barume telling him his remarks were “presumptive, condescending, and wholly misplaced” and branding the UN intervention “an affront to New Zealand’s sovereignty”. As RNZ’s Craig McCulloch reports, prime minister Christopher Luxon yesterday described Barume’s letter as “total bunkum” but agreed Seymour had overstepped and should not have responded directly.
What the UN said – and what Seymour wrote back
In his letter, Barume said he was concerned about reports of “a persistent erosion of the rights of the Māori Indigenous Peoples… through regressive legislations” that may breach New Zealand’s international obligations. Seymour’s response was uncompromising. “As an Indigenous New Zealander myself,” he wrote, “I am deeply aggrieved by your audacity in presuming to speak on my behalf and that of my fellow Māori.” He dismissed concerns about Māori exclusion from consultation as “misleading and offensive”, and accused Barume of misunderstanding both the bill and New Zealand’s legislative process.
While Seymour has since agreed to withdraw the letter to allow foreign minister Winston Peters to respond officially, he has refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing, insisting that “we all agree the UN’s criticisms are crazy” and that the official response would be essentially the same as his own. When asked if that was the case, Peters sounded aghast, reports The Post’s Kelly Dennett (paywalled). “That’s not true,” Peters told reporters. “Why would he say that?” The government’s position would be made clear only after consulting all affected ministries, Peters said. “We don’t do megaphone diplomacy in this business,” he added acidly. “Don’t you understand diplomacy? You don’t speak to other countries via the media.”
Māori opposition to the bill runs deep
Behind the diplomatic drama lies the more substantive issue: widespread Māori opposition to the Regulatory Standards Bill itself. Writing in Te Ao Māori News, former MP Louisa Wall says Seymour’s claim that the bill doesn’t weaken Treaty protections is “demonstrably false”. In fact, she says, “the Bill is silent on Te Tiriti. It elevates a monocultural legal standard based on private property and individual liberty while excluding Māori values like tikanga, mana motuhake, and kaitiakitanga. This is not neutral. It is erasure.”
Wall also defends Barume’s intervention, arguing that he was fulfilling his mandate to monitor Indigenous rights worldwide and that his concerns echoed those already raised by Māori leaders and legal scholars. “Dr Barume is not imposing an external ideology,” she writes. “His letter reflects what Māori across the motu already know: our rights are being undermined.”
Coalition fault lines widen over Seymour’s bill
The clash over the UN letter comes at a tense time for Act’s relationship with NZ First, which has made no secret of its discomfort with parts of the bill. Seymour has “made it clear behind the scenes” that the regulatory standards legislation is “as bottom line as it gets”, writes Thomas Coughlan in a fascinating piece for the Herald (paywalled). Translation: “[Seymour] is willing to walk away from the coalition over it, bringing down the Government and triggering an election” if he doesn’t get what he wants.
While that’s an unlikely scenario – especially since the coalition agreement commits the government to passing some version of the legislation – Seymour’s passion for the bill speaks volumes about the junior coalition partners’ divergent ideologies, writes Coughlan. “Act is willing to risk short-term unpopularity, even losing an election, for long-term foundational change; NZ First is not.”
More from The Spinoff:
- Lyric Waiwiri-Smith: 30 things I learned from 30 hours of Regulatory Standards Bill hearings
