The Government has incurred $4,425,404 in legal expenditure defending Māori-related policies since taking office in 2023, according to Official Information Act data.
The Waitangi Tribunal has conducted 10 urgent inquiries in the past three years under the current Government, compared with 6 during the previous Labour-led government across 6 years from October 2017 to November 2023.
Legal costs across policy areas
The disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority accounts for the largest legal expenditure, at $991,854. Proposed changes to the Marine and Coastal Area Act have resulted in $761,584 in legal expenditure, while the Treaty Principles Bill has resulted in $778,660 in legal costs.
Te reo Māori public sector policy changes have resulted in $636,401 in legal work, and repealing section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has resulted in $353,275 in legal fees.
The expenditure was incurred in proceedings before the Waitangi Tribunal and the courts, including High Court and Court of Appeal proceedings over the summons to Minister Karen Chhour related to section 7AA, and High Court proceedings launched by iwi on coastal legislation, health authority changes and language policy.
Legal community responds
Claimant lawyer David Stone said he had not previously witnessed such a volume of urgent inquiries granted within a comparable timeframe.
"When you look at some legislation that's literally been pushed through under the cover of darkness, under urgency without consultation and all that sort of stuff – this is what you get," Stone said.
Lawyer Harry Clatworthy, who has acted for claimants in 6 urgent inquiries, said the tribunal does not grant them easily. "It is a really high threshold and the tribunal does not grant it easily, so the fact that there's been so many granted really does say a lot," Clatworthy said.
Clatworthy said urgent hearing preparation amounts to unpaid work for claimants.
Political divide deepens
Former National minister Chris Finlayson, writing in a chapter in a new Helen Clark Foundation essay collection titled 'Facing the Future', said the coalition had severely undermined the relationship with Māori.
"I just regret that the National Party didn't heed the excellent advice of John Key in August 2024 when he said at the National Party conference 'tone it down, stop it, use different language because the way you express yourself can be very harmful'," Finlayson said.
Finlayson added: "We just need to get real, grow up. We don't need this aggressive, nasty stuff. If you're going to be speaking about these things, speak with the language of [Abraham] Lincoln, not the language of [Donald] Trump."
Treaty Negotiations and Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said he disagreed that the Māori-Crown relationship had been substantially damaged.
"It's an indication the Waitangi Tribunal like to grant urgent inquiries whenever something comes up. The Government campaigned on various things and we're doing what we campaigned on," Goldsmith said.
On the legal expenditure, Goldsmith said: "I don't think New Zealanders would expect us not to defend claims against the Government and the Crown and defend our ability to get on with the legislation and changes that we're elected to do."
Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka defended the legal costs figure and cited Government initiatives serving Māori, including investment in marae, advancing treaty settlements, and efforts to increase 2-year-old immunisation rates.
NZ First MP Shane Jones said his party had run on a platform of limiting the Waitangi Tribunal's authority. "We do believe that the recalibration, in terms of changing the number of references to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in law is necessary, and I sort of feel that the Waitangi Tribunal is sort of like a farmer's collie, lame, chasing every passing car - and we'll deal with that after the next election," Jones said.
Opposition criticism
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said she was shocked and flabbergasted by the harm, time and expenditure.
"What a slap in the face spending that amount of money on an absolute waste of time, something that even the Prime Minister knew was never going to support it. What an absolute slap in the face for people who are doing hard, for community organisations who are doing it hard right now when that sort of waste of money on something that was extremely racist and was never going to see the light of day as it was," Davidson said, referring to the Treaty Principles Bill spending.