GUEST BLOG: Tadhg Stopford – A Truth-Based Legal Revolution Statement

Thou shalt speak truth to power—

even when the halls of power call it disruption.

even when the cost is exile.

even when silence is safer.

Because truth is sacred,

and power without truth is tyranny.

When Te Pāti Māori MPs performed a haka in Parliament to oppose the Treaty Principles Bill, they weren’t just protesting a bill. They were challenging the lie at the heart of our political economy: that Aotearoa is a fair, just, and inclusive nation.

It is not.

Not when the Crown rewards truth with suspension.

Not when tikanga Māori is treated as disruption.

Not when haka—the sacred cry of mana—is punished like misconduct.

All New Zealanders should understand:

This is not about rules.

This is about raw, unaccountable power.

Judith Collins’ Privileges Committee claimed the haka was “intimidating.”

But the haka was not intimidation. It was honour—a rightful response to a despicable bill, sold with lies and cloaked as “progress,” when in fact it was an act of economic, moral, and legal betrayal.

This punishment wasn’t about parliamentary order. It was a political signal—an assertion of Pākehā supremacy over Māori expression. Te Pāti Māori’s haka was not chaos. It was ritualised truth-telling, confronting a government actively working to dismantle Māori political standing through legislative trickery.

The haka was truth to power.

And power, ashamed of itself, has tried to silence it. But that’s not how these things go.

The truth still exists. We are still being robbed.

Here’s the thing, The Treaty Principles Bill was economic war—on Māori, and on All of Us

The Bill, pushed by the ACT Party and ideologically aligned with the Atlas Network, sought to erase partnership interpretations of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. If passed, it would have cleared the way to:

• Privatise public assets currently co-managed with Māori,
• Nullify Treaty settlements and legal redress,
• Undermine obligations in freshwater, biodiversity, health, and education governance.

This is the global neoliberal pattern at work: dress up exploitation in the language of equality (“one law for all”), while transferring public power into private hands.

We’ve seen it before—in Canada, in Brazil, and now again in New Zealand.

This Government is not neutral.

 It is strategically regressive and economically repressive. Because it is not working for the public interest. They are zombie politicians, serving a darker purpose.

The ACT–National–NZ First coalition is not a governing body. It is a conduit for extraction and enclosure, waging an ideological war on democratic values. They do not serve us.

• ACT pushes a hardline anti-Māori agenda, cloaked in libertarian language.
• National gaslights the public, deregulates for donors, and feigns centrism while enabling corporate capture.
• NZ First plays cynical culture war politics to divide the nation while distracting from deeper structural looting.

Together, they are attempting to:

• Delegitimize Māori resistance,
• Criminalize dissent,
• Expand resource exploitation—all under the illusion of democratic process.

Their agenda is deceitful, dishonourable, and destructive. But rest assured: corporate reward awaits them after their well-paid betrayal of the public interest. As it did for the wine box creeps.

Here’s another thing, truthful economics requires justice in leadership. 

Not corruption.

There can be no prosperity built on lies.

Our campaign has long exposed how false narratives about public debt and finance have led to national decline, disempowered communities, and the hollowing out of democracy.

This episode proves it again:

The Treaty is not just a moral contract—it is a legal-economic covenant

Rewriting it is not symbolic—it prepares the ground for further privatization, of everything from water to governance itself

The punishment of haka is not about noise—it’s about suppressing one of the only political forces still grounded in spiritual truth and ancestral memory

As Ha-Joon Chang puts it:

“Economics is politics in disguise.”

In Aotearoa, politics has become corporate colonialism in drag. It’s remarkable how oblivious we seem, and how tolerant we are, of the corruption that helms us towards peril.

The Haka was a declaration of resistance and opposition to gaslighting and betrayal. The suspension is retaliation. 

“Thou shalt not speak truth to power.”

That’s the unspoken rule of empire. It’s why the Book of Enoch—which condemned corrupt rulers—was excised from the Western canon.

Because unjust authority cannot withstand truth.

Because a nation cannot prosper while rewarding deceit and punishing integrity.

Te Pāti Māori stood in that House and said:

“We are not your subjects. We are a people with mana.”

The state responded:

“You are out of order.”

That contradiction is not incidental.

It is the crisis.

Economic Sovereignty and Mana Motuhake are one fight.

New Zealand now stands at a threshold moment. A test of whether we are willing to confront injustice—or be consumed by it.

• When haka is punished, identity is criminalised.
• When the Treaty is rewritten, wealth theft is institutionalised.
• When banks are bailed and Māori are jailed, we see who the state is built to serve.

Let us be unequivocal:

There can be no economic sovereignty without cultural justice.

There can be no real wealth built on lies.

There is no legitimate governance without truth.

We must stand together, or we will fall. 

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

It is the people who will decide what kind of nation we are.

Will we be citizens—or customers?

A community—or a colony?

The Truth-Based Legal Revolution asserts:

• That public finance must serve the people—not banks;
• That law must protect justice—not privilege;
• That mana is not a threat to democracy—it is its lifeblood.

The haka shook Parliament because it was truth made flesh.

And when truth is punished, the entire system is on trial.

We can and must do better, New Zealand.

Thou shalt speak truth to power.

Thou shalt honour justice above order.

Thou shalt defend the commons from the thieves in fine suits.

Thou shalt not be gaslit.

Thou shalt not be bought.

Thou shalt not kneel to corruption.

Tadhg Stopford is a Historian and Teacher. Join him at www.thehempfoundation.org.nz