The gap in the public record

What ministers haven't said

A clearly-labelled note on three things absent from current ministerial framings of "Kiwi values" and from the publicly-named test topic list — te Tiriti o Waitangi, biculturalism, and New Zealand's Pacific identity.

What this page is, and isn't This page is an editorial observation about the public record, not an accusation. The reported topic list and ministerial quotes are linked on the What politicians say page; readers can verify for themselves what is, and is not, present. Whether these omissions matter — and how they should be remedied, if at all — is for citizens to decide.

1 · Te Tiriti o Waitangi

Te Tiriti o Waitangi, signed at Waitangi on 6 February 1840 between the British Crown and (ultimately) more than 500 rangatira Māori, is described by the Ministry of Justice as a constitutional document that "establishes and guides the relationship between the Crown in New Zealand (embodied by our government) and Māori". The Ministry for Culture and Heritage and Te Ara — the Encyclopedia of New Zealand both describe te Tiriti as "New Zealand's founding document".

The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 introduced "the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi" as a concept that has since been referred to in dozens of pieces of New Zealand legislation. The Waitangi Tribunal, established in 1975 and given retrospective jurisdiction back to 1840 in 1985, has heard more than 2,000 claims and shaped major Treaty settlements.

Te Tiriti was not in the topic list publicly named on the day of the announcement. Labour leader Chris Hipkins responded that any test "had to" include the Treaty. Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden then told RNZ that the test would include one question on the Treaty — a single item among twenty.

The contrast is significant: a country that describes te Tiriti as its founding document is preparing a 20-question test of "the responsibilities and privileges" of citizenship in which te Tiriti gets, on the public commitment so far, one question. Whether that proportion adequately reflects te Tiriti's constitutional weight is a question worth keeping open as the test is developed.

2 · Biculturalism and te ao Māori

Since the 1980s, biculturalism — the framing of New Zealand as a partnership between Māori and the Crown, with te ao Māori as a co-equal cultural foundation — has been an explicit feature of public-sector policy, education curricula, and the country's legal and constitutional vocabulary. References to tikanga Māori, Treaty principles, and the partnership relationship are now embedded in the operating language of central and local government.

None of this appears in the public framings of "Kiwi values" issued by ministers in announcing the test. The Prime Minister's reference point in defending the test was the United Kingdom and Australia — neither a bicultural country in the New Zealand sense — and his cited values were drawn entirely from the universal-rights tradition: freedom of expression, freedom of speech, women's equal rights.

The Internal Affairs Minister has used the phrase "the values of democratic freedoms". The ACT leader's framing, "in New Zealand, regardless of your gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or religion, you have the same legal rights as everybody else", is a statement of legal equality that is true under the Human Rights Act 1993 — but its framing is colour-blind individualism, not biculturalism.

The question of whether a citizenship test for new New Zealanders should reflect the bicultural framework that has shaped the country's institutions for forty years is, on the public record, not one ministers have engaged with so far.

3 · New Zealand's Pacific identity

New Zealand's relationship with the Pacific is constitutional in places — the Cook Islands and Niue are in free association with New Zealand; Tokelau is a New Zealand dependent territory — and demographic everywhere. Pasifika communities are a substantial and growing share of the population, particularly in Auckland and the wider upper North Island.

The reported topic list and the ministerial framings do not mention the Pacific. The proposed test is, on public evidence, framed in terms of universal rights and Westminster institutions, with the comparative reference point being the UK and Australia.

Whether any reflection of New Zealand's Pacific position will emerge as the test is developed remains to be seen. The Internal Affairs Minister has said officials will "provide guidance and other resources in advance" of the rollout in late 2027.

What this means for the mock test

The 65-question mock pool on this site is built only from topic areas ministers have publicly named, so that no one can claim the questions misrepresent what the official test will cover. After Van Velden confirmed on 7 May 2026 that the test would include one question on the Treaty, two te Tiriti questions were added to the pool — but the broader pool is still dominated by the Bill of Rights Act, the Human Rights Act, parliamentary structure and MMP voting, and silent on biculturalism and the Pacific.

That balance is the editorial point. If you take the mock test and notice that one or two Treaty questions cannot bear the weight of an entire constitutional relationship, you have noticed something true about the proposal as it currently stands.

Take the mock test → Read what politicians have said

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