In Aotearoa New Zealand, the preconditions for a true democracy were set by a pluriversal framework that granted equal rights to colonial settlers and Indigenous Peoples. However, since the government changed in 2023, the fragile foundations of emancipatory politics have been violently erased, transforming the country into a laboratory for recolonization. In her contribution to the “Deep Democracy” series, Christine Winter (Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa, Pākehā) explores the situation.
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Colonialism was and remains violent. It was and remains adaptable. While direct colonial rule is long gone in my home country, its signatures – greed, power, and universalism – remain and, fueled by international influences, have enjoyed wholesale revival over the past three years.
On the whenua (lands) of my ancestors, of me, my children, and future generations, Aotearoa, colonialism’s fires burn anew. Subtle, stealthy, shifty. The duplicitous National/New Zealand First/ACT coalition government has spent its current term (October 2023-November 2026) stoking the smoldering embers of latent resentment, avarice, and racism.
In less than three years they have stripped government, institutions, and the courts of their pluriversal objectives and powers, castrated local governance, silenced community voices, accelerated environmental destruction, and undercut and hamstrung Māori-led initiatives for Māori. Let me back up a little, before we revisit the present and imagine the future.
Creating and breaching a pluriversal agreement
New Zealand does not have a ‘constitution’ as such. It has a Constitution Act (1986) and various supporting laws which form the basis of organization of the state. These are fairly mundane national instruments. What it has in addition are two founding documents: He Whakaputanga o te Ranagitira o Nu Tireni (the Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand,1835) and Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi, 1840). These are the documents of legitimation: they are exemplars of pluriversal governance agreements.
He Whakaputunga allowed the British to enter the land and become citizens alongside Māori, and guaranteed continued Māori sovereignty (Tino Rangitiratanga) and importantly, separate Māori identity and self-governance (Mana Motuhake).
Five years after this agreement, when Māori outnumbered the British (70-100,000 to ~2,000), Māori leaders called on Queen Victoria to restrain her citizens on these shores. And a treaty was signed by representatives of the Queen and about 500 Māori rangatira (leaders). Te Tiriti o Waitangi created a pluriversal agreement: the British would govern the British settlers, Maori would govern themselves and retain possession of their lands, waters, and treasures.
By the late 1850’s the two populations’ numbers drew even and from then British settlers rapidly outnumbered Māori. And te Tiriti was breached: the colonial thirst for lands, arrogant and ill-informed assertions of cultural superiority, and averice trumped honor.
Honor is the glue of Māori politics, from family to local to widespread levels. Leaders are expected to keep their promises, and so, with patience and commitment, Māori waited for the Crown to keep its promises for nearly one and a half centuries. In the meantime multiple Acts of Parliament stripped Māori of lands, language, knowledge, culture, hope.
The big regression
In the 1970’s Maori patience wore thin and through activism, community revival, political mobilization, hikoi (marches), deep commitment and determination Māori slowly, glacially slowly won back a place in the state by 2023 that began, but only began in the smallest ways, to honor the pluriversal commitments of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
What changed in 2023? A change in government. A conservative, right-leaning coalition of the center-right National Party, the populist, Trump-esque New Zealand First Party, and the libertarian, Atlas Foundation-influenced ACT Party took the reins of government from the former six-year progressive coalition government of the Labour Party, the Green Party, and Te Parti Māori.
Why have I outlined the influencers of the current government and not for the former one? Because it is relevant to what is to come. I’m arguing that it is these associations with regressive, far right political influencers and influences and the policy agenda of the government is not coincidence, and that if we observe closely we will see that Aotearoa New Zealand has and is being used as a laboratory test for recolonization, and the domination and suppression, and racial abuse of Indigenous Peoples.
A country where parliamentary and corporate leaders seem to enjoy seeing their fellow citizens become poorer, disenchanted, dispirited, powerless, and sick.
100-day sweep-out
By the end of the last Labour-led government, Māori had gained positions of influence in local bodies, over waters and resource consenting processes, and in some of their former territories. This was in line with Te Tiriti and the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Peoples (to which Aotearoa New Zealand is a signatory), as well as statutory requirements.
The government seemed genuinely intent on moving the nation into pluriversal governance structures over lands, waters, Māori health and education, language revival and recognition, and cultural revitalization. Imperfect to be sure but at least an inching towards pluriversality. There was a recognition of the value to Māori in prouly being Māori, and a co-benefit to society as a whole.
In October 2023, a new government was elected and began dismantling progressive legislation, Māori-led for Māori institutions, Māori co-governance arrangements for water management, and visible signs of te reo (Māori language). A similar 100-day sweep-out of a former government’s legislation was repeated in the United States by Donald Trump at the beginning of his second Presidency.
Dismantling the basis of pluriversality
Many of us (the optimists shall we say) thought this might be it. That, having stamped, huffed, and blasted through those first 100-days they would be have satisfied their lust for expressing white Anglo-centric supremacy and rule honorably. They have made fools of those who thought thus.
I’m going to focus on three concerns here, the place of Te Tiriti in governance and the management of the conservation estate, although the list of transgressions against Maori, Te Tiriti, and the glimmers of pluriversal governance reaches its icy fingers into every aspect of Maori life and well-being. Indeed, journalist Joe Maxwell (Te Rarawa) recently listed ‘24 ways this Government has targeted Maori.’
The first signs of the lengths to which the government was prepared to go to dismantle the flickers of pluriversality was the introduction of the Treaty Principals Bill (introduced by the ACT party members of the coalition) – an attempt to ‘re-interpret,’ but in reality rewrite, Te Tiriti, to favor settlers and castrate Maori rights. It was roundly rejected by the populace. It received the greatest number of dissenting submissions ever for a bill and prompted the largest march on Parliament in protest. The National Party (along with the opposition parties) voted it down when it came before the House. For a moment, it seemed that the bill was ‘dead and buried.’ Not so.
Stealthily and insidiously, every act of Parliament has been scanned for Te Tiriti-rights-activating clauses. Where an act once required the government, the courts, and/or institutions to ‘give effect to’ Te Tiriti, it now requires them to consult with Māori on relevant matters. Explicit Treaty obligations will be stripped from 19 laws, with the mild and meaningless phrase ‘take into account,’ or in some cases references to the Treaty will be entirely repealed before the election on November 7 this year.
Areas of particular concern to Māori, education, environmental management, public health, and local government are the primary targets. Recolonization and dishonoring Te Tiriti are again teaching Māori their place is not in decision-making realms. They are being taught that only one ontological position, epistemology of value, language of worth, and culture of repute is acceptable in this land, and it is not theirs.
Neo-colonial landgrabbing
Meanwhile, our lands, waters, air, and seas are under assault. A bevy of bills have been passed that undermine environmental protections, consultation with Māori, and expert advice. The first was the Fast Track Bill which prioritizes infrastructure, mining, etc., and was in its original form leaving the decision-making powers to just three Ministers of the Crown with no requirement for consultation or expert advice – although it was amended to include expert panel oversight one key politician still advocates for Minister-alone powers.
The latest reforms concern the 1987 Conservation Act, which the Department of Conservation website describes as a process of ‘modernization.’ ‘Modernizing’ means opening the conservation estate, for which Aotearoa New Zealand is renowned, to commercialization. Indeed, the Act’s primary purpose is to enable more commercial activity and development on conservation land, including mining. One clause in the Act has exercised the minds of citizens and forced the Minister to back down. The Act loosens constraints on the sale of Crown-owned conservation land and specifically states that it will not permit the sale of 40% of conservation land – effectively suggesting that the remaining 60% is open for sale. The population’s negative response has been overwhelming. However, removing that clause alone still leaves the land susceptible to commercialization, particularly mining, which concerns many.
Under conservation lands lie a range of minerals from gold to rare earth minerals so vital for the burgeoning AI industry. The government has been in conversation with the Trump administration about access to them, although no details have been made publicly available. However, the Trump administration’s use of tariffs as a mechanism to force their will upon other nations is now legend. What the Act does is open the way for foreign businesses to ‘fly in’ and decimate the country’s natural landscapes.
The colonial-era extractivist ethos
There is a parallel in Argentina, where the Trumpist regime there has passed legislation opening previously protected glacial and peri-glacial areas to mining. There, like here, there is no consultation and engagement with Indigenous communities of those places. I am pointing to the fact that international processes of recolonization are strong and on the rise. We can add Venezuela, Greenland, Iran, Gaza, Albania, and many more to the list of prospective or actual sites of recolonization.
Here in Aotearoa New Zealand the government is employing the language we see repeated by far right political actors and agitators world-wide: ‘activist’, ‘too ideological’ or simply ‘ideological,’ ‘equality not equity’, ‘anti-white racisim’ and so forth. This is neither accidental nor is it a coincidental. The move to recolonize, realientate and privatize lands, quash language and culture, to disempower all people and things Indigenous is driven by the colonial-era extractivist ethos: dig, drill, burn, commercialize, take take take, pollute pollute pollute.