The Prime Minister is calling for a civil debate as the government faces a backlash over its efforts to roll back policies supporting Māori communities.
Published February 6, 2026
New Zealand’s Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has rejected criticism of his claim that colonization was good for the country’s indigenous Maori people.
As Mr Seymour stood to pray during a dawn service at the Treaty of Waitangi on Friday, dozens of people began booing and shouting. It was here that New Zealand’s founding documents were signed in 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and more than 500 Maori chieftains, setting out how the two nations would govern the country.
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Mr Seymour made the controversial comments on Thursday during a speech to mark National Waitangi Day, an annual political gathering that gives Indigenous tribes a chance to air their grievances, saying colonization was an overall positive experience for Indigenous peoples.
“I’m always struck by the myopic and empty view that colonization and everything that happened in our country was bad,” said Mr Seymour, leader of the right-wing ACT party and member of the Māori community.
“The truth is, very few things are completely bad,” Seymour said, according to local online news site Stuff.
Seymour described Friday’s heckling as “a few Muppets screaming in the dark” and said “the silent majority up and down this country are getting a little tired of some of this antics.”
After Mr Seymour’s prayer on Friday, left-wing Labor Party leader Chris Hipkins was also loudly jeered by those in attendance.
On Thursday, indigenous leader El Capa Kingi told MPs that “this government has been stabbing us in the front” and the previous Labor government “stabbing us in the back”.
Seymour’s government is accused of seeking to remove special rights granted to the 900,000 Maori population, who were stripped of their land during British colonization and are far more likely to die prematurely, live in poverty or be imprisoned than the country’s non-Indigenous people.
A controversial bill introduced last year that sought to reinterpret treaty principles and roll back policies meant to address inequalities experienced by indigenous peoples sparked protests but failed after two of the three ruling parties did not vote in favor of the bill.
Speaking on Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called for national unity and measures to address the challenges facing Māori communities.
Mr Luxon also said the national debate over the legacy of British colonization must remain civil.
“We will not settle our differences with violence. We will not turn against each other. We will move towards dialogue. We will overcome our differences,” Luxon said in a social media post.
Denial of the relationship between the destructive legacies of colonialism and the contemporary challenges facing indigenous communities remains a frequent topic of debate in former colonies around the world, including Australia and New Zealand.
