Pitched as a defence of "one person, one vote" democracy and equal citizenship for all New Zealanders, NZ First's position opposes co-governance, the use of undefined "principles of the Treaty of Waitangi" in legislation, and any binding domestic effect for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

The Policy: NZ First Democracy and Sovereignty Policy — 2023 Election →

NZ First leader Winston Peters argues that co-governance arrangements give appointed Māori representatives decision-making power outside ordinary democratic accountability, and that the "partnership" reading of the Treaty has been over-extended by the courts since the 1987 Lands case. Critics — including the Waitangi Tribunal, Te Pāti Māori, and a number of legal academics — counter that the position misreads Te Tiriti, weakens Crown obligations to Māori, and was advanced without adequate engagement with iwi and hapū. This entry describes NZ First's stated position and the contest around it; it does not endorse any characterisation of Māori, iwi, or co-governance.

What it does:

• Commits to a government review of all legislation (excluding Treaty settlements) that references "the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi", to replace those references with specific wording or repeal them — a coalition commitment NZ First secured in the November 2023 National–NZ First agreement.
• Targets a specific drafting device: dozens of statutes refer to Treaty "principles" without defining them, leaving the meaning to be developed by the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal. The Ministry of Justice review began covering 28 Acts across 13 agencies and was narrowed to a final 19 Acts across 11 agencies.
• Confirms in the coalition agreement that UNDRIP "has no binding legal effect" in New Zealand, and that the government will stop all work on He Puapua — the 2019 officials' report (working group chaired by law professor Claire Charters) that sketched a roadmap toward realising UNDRIP by 2040.
• Sits alongside, but is distinct from, ACT's Treaty Principles Bill: NZ First agreed only to support that bill to select committee, and Peters and NZ First's Shane Jones said publicly the party would not back it any further.
• Also folds in NZ First's opposition to specific co-governance proposals, such as the previous government's Three Waters water-services model, which Peters argued would have given mana whenua appointees disproportionate influence over board decisions.

The result:

The legislative pieces have moved unevenly. ACT's Treaty Principles Bill passed its first reading 68–54 on 14 November 2024 but was defeated 112–11 at second reading on 10 April 2025, with only ACT supporting it — an outcome NZ First's stance (support to committee only) helped guarantee. The separate review NZ First championed has advanced: by early 2026 Cabinet had taken policy decisions and the Justice Minister, Paul Goldsmith, had issued drafting instructions, though no amending bill had yet been introduced. Supporters frame this as removing vague law and restoring legal equality; critics, including the Waitangi Tribunal and legal academic Carwyn Jones, argue it weakens enforceable Crown duties (for example replacing "give effect to" with "take into account") and that Treaty jurisprudence is already settled after decades of case law. Officials at the Ministry of Justice reportedly warned the proposals carried "significant risk" and limited apparent benefit, and flagged likely litigation and Waitangi Tribunal claims. NZ First and the government reject the suggestion that clarifying or removing undefined principles diminishes settled Treaty rights.

The impacts to watch:

• Whether the eventual amending legislation survives legal challenge, given officials' warnings of litigation risk and a critical Waitangi Tribunal report.
• The breadth of public reaction: the Treaty Principles Bill drew an estimated 300,000-plus submissions and a national Hīkoi mō te Tiriti of about 42,000 people at Parliament in November 2024, signalling how contested any wider Treaty-clause changes are likely to be.