Pitched as ending what it calls the Treaty of Waitangi "grievance industry" so that all New Zealanders are equal citizens with equal rights, NZ First wants to replace the Waitangi Tribunal with a short-lived body whose only job is to finish historical claims.

📋 NZ First: Ending the Waitangi Make-Work Industry, September 2026 →

What it does

• Tables legislation within the first 100 days after the election to abolish the Waitangi Tribunal, which NZ First describes as a "make-work organisation" now hearing claims that would once have been dismissed.
• Replaces it with a Treaty of Waitangi Completion Commission that would finalise claims made before 2008, after which its work would end.
• Gives a strengthened Ministry of Māori Development responsibility for contemporary claims, modern policy differences, post-settlement leadership and the implementation of existing settlements, and returns Crown-Māori relations work to that ministry, as set out in law when it was created in 1991.
• Makes Māori land reform and administrative improvements at the Māori Land Court a major priority, the party says.
• Was announced by leader Winston Peters at a public meeting at Tauranga's Holy Trinity Church on 26 September 2026, 1News reported.

The debate

• Peters said the tribunal was not fit for purpose in today's political environment and that "The days of the Waitangi Tribunal acting as an authority of parliament will be over."
• Māori health advocate Lady Tureiti Moxon told RNZ that efforts to abolish or limit the tribunal were an attempt to "bury" a body that exposes Treaty breaches, describing it as the only permanent commission able to look into breaches of Te Tiriti.
• National leader Christopher Luxon said there was "a very legitimate question" about the tribunal's role once Treaty settlements were concluded, but would not say whether National would dismantle it. He pointed to a completed government review of the tribunal that will not be released before the election, the Herald reported.
• ACT is campaigning on a related plan to end the tribunal's jurisdiction over contemporary Crown policy and wind it up once historical claims are resolved, RNZ reported.