Tensions within the coalition government have spilled further into public view this week, with Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour once again under fire, this time for comparing karakia to enforced spirituality and drawing parallels with abortion prohibition and homosexuality bans.
His comments prompted a hit back from New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who said he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Seymour’s remarks, included in written speech notes for his keynote at the Local Government New Zealand Conference in Christchurch on Thursday morning, criticised the inclusion of karakia and tikanga requirements in resource consenting processes, particularly for large-scale projects like solar farms, supermarkets, and housing developments.
“You and your ratepayers want renewable energy, but the consenting process demands ceremonial chanting and spreadsheet-level detail about every shrub on site. These two aims don’t compute,” Seymour’s prepared speech read.
However, he did not deliver those lines on stage, instead facing questioning at Parliament’s tiles later that day, where he doubled down on his stance.
“I don’t expect a priest to show up every time I break ground on a new building, and I don’t think that you need a kaumatua to come and say karakia either,” Seymour said. “We’ve moved past imposing one person’s spirituality on another… a lot of the arguments say the prohibition of abortion or even homosexuality were really spiritual beliefs imposed on another person… I’m saying the same thing with building stuff.”
When asked who was enforcing the use of karakia, Seymour pointed to planning regulations and said developers are just “playing along” to avoid controversy.
“Really, you don’t think that it’s actually criteria of their resource consent?… They come and say, ‘We love this stuff’ because they’re not going to say anything else. That’s why I’m standing up for it.” He said.
The comments prompted a swift and scathing rebuttal from coalition partner Winston Peters, who suggested Seymour was speaking far outside his expertise.
“Why am I responding to what David Seymour doesn’t know? Excuse me,” said Peters.
“I’ve spent a lot of my career… defending the right protocol. This is a long history of defending and knowing what we’re talking about.”
Pressed on whether karakia should be used, Peters was clear.
“It depends on the building. It depends on the occasion… Karakia are appropriate when used correctly.”
A pattern of public rebukes this week
This latest clash comes just weeks after another public misstep, this time over New Zealand’s international human rights obligations and a controversial letter sent to the United Nations.
Without approval, Seymour sent a strongly worded letter to the UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Albert K Barume, dismissing concerns about government policies and accusing them of undermining New Zealand’s sovereignty.
Peters, as Foreign Minister, publicly rebuked Seymour for his pre-emptive response.
“This is a matter of experience here, and it’s called diplomacy,” Winston Peters told reporters on Tuesday afternoon. “Experience is important in this business.”
