Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics: Treaty Principles Bill 2.0 will claim “Treaty a fake”

Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly, mostly satirical column on politics that appears on listener.co.nz on Friday mornings.

Act leader David Seymour says he is planning a new parliamentary bill to dump the Treaty of Waitangi because it is a “hoax”. The soon-to-be Deputy Prime Minister says he has proof the treaty was not agreed, written and signed in 1840 but fabricated in the early 20th century. It was the work of a “sinister left-wing cabal” and was a “deliberate and outrageous” attempt to make the Pākeha squatocracy and its government feel guilty for colonisation, the dispossession of Māori and the New Zealand wars.

“The treaty is a fake” Seymour told a rally in Epsom. “It’s a historical fiction, a hoax. It was created by dark forces who want us to believe the fake news that this country’s first people were here first and owned the place.”

He said the guilt created by the fake treaty had created “intergenerational harm” for Pākeha, which the new bill would end.

The first Treaty Principles Bill, which sought to kill the treaty by rewriting history, was voted down 112-11 in Parliament ending 18 months of protest, division, anger, bitterness, family squabbles, graffiti and racism while also keeping the Act Party in the news most weeks. Seymour said he hoped his new bill would do the same.

The Act Party will also be seeking another referendum on the treaty, putting two questions to voters, the first asking “Do you want to believe the Treaty of Waitangi is a fake?”, while the second asks “Is it true some of your best friends are Māori?”

Historians have dismissed Seymour’s claim that the treaty is not an actual historical document as “delusional” and not based in fact.

“If David Seymour has proof the treaty is fake, he should present it to the nearest rubbish bin immediately,” said one historian who did not wish to be named.

Asked what proof he had the treaty was a hoax, Seymour said the voice in his head, who he called Dave, had told him. “Dave is always right. He told me the treaty was a fake, that most of the so-called signatures are forgeries and the paper used for it was from Whitcombe & Tombs and had been artificially aged using spilt coffee and a colony of moths. What more proof do you need?”