Redacted

They came with scissors and not for thread,

But to stitch the Treaty up instead.

Cut the words, reshape the frame,

Leave the shell, erase the name.

Too much mana, too much grief,

Too much truth beneath the leaf.

So they say: “Let’s bring precision, 

Clarity, and good decision.”

The Bill’s Aim:

“To define the Treaty’s scope and theme,

Bring certainty to Crown and team.”

But what they mean?

Strip it clean.

Make it tame, erase the dream.

Shrink the waka, gut the text,

Say “no offence” and then what’s next?

Whiteout laid on sacred vows,

A crown still feeding off our cows.

But when a haka breaks the floor,

Spoken breath from tūpuna lore. 

That’s the crime.

That gets time.

Record ban for culture’s climb.

Not for brawls or drunken spite,

Not for slurs said late at night.

Not for yelling over rules,

Or turning Parliament into school.

Just a haka.

A roar. A stand.

So they silenced it with shaking hands.

Double standards, front and center:

Culture’s punished. Chaos enters.

They call it law.

We call it theft.

A masked marae with nothing left.

This isn’t justice. This is spin.

Rewriting wrongs to wrong again.

Waitangi’s ink was blood and storm,

A living pact, not just a form.

You don’t define us with a clause.

You don’t erase us with applause.

We are the fire beneath your seats.

The storm that rises when truth repeats.

Our moko’s carved, not drawn in pen.

We are not asking you if or when.

So say it loud:

This is a coup in slow disguise.

Say it twice:

We see through lies.

You do not own the final say.

We are not moving out the way.

Your bill won’t bury what we keep

We are the ones who do not sleep.

We are the whenua.

We are the reckoning.

Not your footnote.

Not your lessoning.