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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 6 Feb 20266 Feb 2026<\/p>\n
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New Zealand\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour has rejected criticism of his claims that colonisation was positive for the country\u2019s Indigenous Maori population.<\/p>\n
Dozens of people started booing and shouting when Seymour stood on Friday to offer a prayer during a dawn service at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where New Zealand\u2019s founding document was signed in 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and more than 500 Maori Indigenous chiefs, setting out how the two sides would govern the country.<\/p>\n
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Seymour made his controversial comments that colonisation had been an overall positive experience for Indigenous people on Thursday during a speech to mark national Waitangi Day, an annual political gathering that gives Indigenous tribes a chance to air grievances.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m always amazed by the myopic drone that colonisation and everything that\u2019s happened in our country was all bad,\u201d said Seymour, who is leader of the right-wing ACT Party and a member of the Maori community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth is that very few things are completely bad,\u201d Seymour had said, according to local online news site Stuff.<\/p>\n
Describing his hecklers on Friday as \u201ca couple of muppets shouting in the dark\u201d, Seymour said the \u201csilent majority up and down this country are getting a little tired of some of these antics\u201d.<\/p>\n
Following Seymour\u2019s prayer on Friday, left-wing Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins was also loudly jeered by those in attendance.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Indigenous leader Eru Kapa-Kingi told parliamentarians \u201cthis government has stabbed us in the front,\u201d and the previous Labour government had \u201cstabbed us in the back\u201d.<\/p>\n
Seymour\u2019s government has been accused of seeking to wind back special rights given to the country\u2019s 900,000-strong Maori population, who were dispossessed of their land during British colonisation and remain far more likely to die early, live in poverty or be imprisoned compared with the country\u2019s non- Indigenous population.<\/p>\n
Controversial legislation that was tabled last year seeking to reinterpret the treaty\u2019s principles and roll back policies designed to address inequalities experienced by Indigenous people led to protests and failed after two of the three governing parties did not vote for it.<\/p>\n