Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

In the end it was kind of an anticlimax.    After almost 18 months of anger, obfuscation, hīkoi and haka, and hundreds of thousands of submissions, the Treaty Principles Bill was voted down in fairly emphatic style. I suspect the majority of New Zealanders are so over it.    Looking back, I’d say David Seymour and ACT largely got what they wanted. Te Pāti Māori were perhaps even greater political beneficiaries. And the whole saga will endure as a bit of a stain on Christopher Luxon’s tenure as Prime Minister. It was telling that once again, just as for the first reading, this week’s vote was scheduled for a time when the PM wasn’t in the house. I think being there and suffering through it would have shown greater leadership.   I watched the speeches in Parliament and thought David Seymour was right in his observation. Almost none actually considered the substance of the government’s defined Treaty principles. Like most of the debate outside of Parliament, they were all emotion. At tim