Raw Politics: MPs face-off over the Great Divide

Parliament saw two historic days this week, one of great solemnity and unity, the other a raucous and high-stakes stand-off between political foes over the Treaty of Waitangi.
Raw Politics looks first at the volatile reception for Act’s Treaty Principles Bill at its first reading, how parties performed to their voting bases, and what lies ahead now in select committee hearings over the next six months.
Newsroom political editor Laura Walters and co-editor Tim Murphy, co-piloting the panel with both Marc Daalder and Sam Sachdeva on assignment overseas, look beyond the heat of Thursday’s drama to search for any light in the arguments both ways over a law change.
Before the first reading, Act leader David Seymour had claimed the bill was not “divisive”. National leader Christopher Luxon responded that it was divisive. Parties traded allegations over the origins of division.
The optics of the three opposition parties standing togther in haka, but the three parties of government divided by Act’s proposed law, were a first this parliamentary term.
The panel discusses the motivation of the National speakers who spoke from remarkably similar talking points, dissing Act while seeking credit for their party’s approach to individual Treaty and race measures.
Then it’s onto the milestone moment of the Crown Apology to victims of abuse in state care – an occasion unlike the Treaty Principles Bill first reading, that could be the beginning of meaningful, lasting change.
But will it? Or might the goodwill and hope and promises of Tuesday dissipate as the bureaucracy, politicians and voters tire of the complexity and burden of creating a just system of redress.
Finally, we recommend something to read, listen to or watch on the weekend ahead:
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