Let’s not play into Seymour’s hands

Opinion: David Seymour is playing the long game, and we’d be dangerously foolish to count him out.
As his Treaty Principles Bill passed its first reading in Parliament last week, there was no shortage of news coverage and analysis.
Much of the commentary has focused on the ignorance of his interpretation of Te Tiriti, or the racist redefinition of the principles. Māori are furious, and view his bill as a complete undermining of progress in Māori-Crown relations. Several analyses have said the bill would be the largest breach of the Treaty since its signing and would eventually nullify it wholly.
National and NZ First have affirmed that the bill has no chance of becoming law, stating that its introduction was a formality of the coalition agreement. So why would Seymour continue?
The devil is, as is always the case, in the details. Specifically, the bill going to select committee now means that there will be a six-month public consultation process. Moreover, and more importantly, there will also be a six-month ad blitz and propaganda campaign in favour of the bill.
The groundwork for this campaign has already been laid. Unfortunately, the rhetorical foundations have been put in place for a simple, effective messaging strategy that plays on entrenched fears and racial biases.
By playing on many of the same fears that led to National’s election win, this campaign, featuring right-wing lobbying groups Hobson’s Pledge, Groundswell, the Taxpayers’ Union, and others has a good chance of succeeding in winning over public support for the Treaty Principles referendum, with serious social and political consequences.
The key to any successful political campaign is to craft a message that is simple and resonates with your target audience. Once you hit on an effective message, you repeat it over and over again.
Seymour has been extremely consistent in his messaging and rhetoric about his bill. Every interview. Every public statement. Every retort to a criticism or answer to a question.
His speech during the reading of the bill in Parliament was a masterclass in reinforcing this messaging. He framed the legal and academic history of defining and interpreting the Treaty principles as anti-democratic and an attempt by an elite minority to enshrine different rights for different races.
Casting himself as the true friend of democracy, Seymour commits “to give equal enjoyment of the same fundamental human rights to every single New Zealander. The challenge for people who oppose this bill is to explain why they are so opposed to those basic principles.”
This seemingly commonsense framing of the bill will be nearly impossible to counter effectively using the current predominant oppositional messaging.
The fiery and emotional Opposition speeches during the reading made for great news bites and social media posts. But amid appeals to the better angels of human nature, progress that has been made in Māori-Crown relations, and accusations of either intentional or unintentional ignorance and outright racism, the Opposition has not been able to settle on a message as simple and effective as Seymour’s.
It could prove their undoing.
As evidenced by the successful campaign that framed Three Waters, Te Aka Whai Ora (the Māori Heath Authority), and other movements towards equity and representation for Māori under the rubric of co-governance as a race war and helped to sweep the current Government to power, the public is very vulnerable to disingenuous and flatly dishonest messaging. The right-wing group Hobson’s Pledge has already organised to flood the submission process and lobby for a public referendum. Don Brash, founder of Hobson’s Pledge, indicated “the need to deliver the kind of message that the Voice referendum in Australia delivered”.
How can we fight back?
I suggest that a strategy based predominantly on framing the Treaty Principles Bill as racist toward Māori and ignorant of the actual and intended meaning of the Treaty plays right into Seymour’s hands. Although true, it puts the Opposition on the defensive and requires the public to parse complex, esoteric, and unsettled academic and legal arguments. Worse, it is too easily reframed as an argument for unequal rights and treatment for Māori at the expense of the rest of New Zealand.
We need to go on the offensive with a simple message that can unify Aotearoa against Seymour’s reinterpretation of the Treaty principles.
A recent editorial cuts through the disingenuous equality framing of the bill by Seymour and his backers and the complex arguments about Māori sovereignty by the Opposition.
In short, it argues that the bill is about opening up New Zealand to corporate exploitation for profit. It’s as simple as that.
As noted by the editorial writer Rupert O’Brien, “The Treaty principles have proved a significant roadblock to both corporatisation and privatisation in the past and present a clear threat to any plans of future development of public assets to the private sector. This effect is likely one of the key, although unstated, reasons for the push to return Te Tiriti to its erstwhile status as a simple nullity.”
I suggest this is the message we should be hammering home in Oppositional arguments to the bill. As part of the messaging, we should make clear the ties that Seymour and his backers have to corporate interests, both domestic and international and their plans to appropriate and exploit natural and public resources for private enrichment.
The message should be simple: The Treaty protects all New Zealanders from corporate exploitation.
This bill is about the people (tangata whenua and tangata tiriti) vs corporate profits.
There is a reason Seymour has hidden the true purpose of his bill behind human rights language. The public generally disapproves of and will reject a nakedly corporate agenda.
It remains to be seen if such a framing could help to win over strong public opposition to redefining the Treaty principles, but recent polling that shows that 65 percent of participants favour some kind of capital gains tax indicates a large majority of New Zealanders have a strong antipathy towards the severe wealth inequality in Aotearoa.
By contrast, polling indicates that 36 percent of New Zealanders support redefining the Treaty principles, with roughly 30 percent undecided, indicating we are losing the messaging battle with a significant sector of the public and there remain many who don’t understand what is at stake with the bill.
Now is the time to leverage the political appetite for redistributive social and political policy against opening up further avenues for upwards wealth distribution by corporations.
By seeing the Treaty Principles Bill for what it truly is, and laying its real purpose bare to the public, rather than focusing predominantly on a strategy that plays into a race-war rhetorical battle which we will most likely lose, we can beat Seymour at his own game.