Antipodean Innovations: Exploring Taiohi/young People’s Experience of a Tiriti/Treaty Based Climate Assembly in Aotearoa New Zealand

Aotearoa New Zealand has an international reputation for being clean, green and progressive in terms of its relationship with Māori, the Indigenous people. In 1996, a new Mixed Member Proportional voting system was also ushered in, promising to strengthen and diversify its democracy. While there have been some improvements in representation, the country is still vulnerable to the tides of political fortune. In late 2023, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour-led government was replaced with a right wing coalition with strong populist and libertarian tendences. Since then, a raft of legislation has been pushed through under urgency, focused on strengthening property rights and rolling back previous governments’ commitments to address climate change, social and economic inequities and a previously relatively strong bipartisan commitment to biculturalism. In 1840, a Treaty (Tiriti) was signed between the Crown and many Māori tribes. While Māori leaders sought to enable the Crown to govern while Indigenous people retained their sovereignty, the experience of colonisation has been very different. Nearly two centuries later, and bolstered by four decades of neoliberalism, colonisation has created severe economic and social inequities in this settler colonial state. Young Māori and Pacific people continue to be over-represented in negative statistics, and as the effects of climate change begin to take hold, are among those most exposed to climate risk. In response to these challenges, in early 2025, Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira, a local tribal authority, partnered with a civil society organisation to trial a new approach to democracy. The Porirua Assembly on Climate was simultaneously both the country’s first Tiriti-based citizen’s climate assembly and the first to involve young people under 18. Its purpose: to develop community-led local solutions to climate change, using the standard mini-public model of education, deliberation and recommendation building. This presentation will discuss the findings from my doctoral research, which explored whether and to what extent children and young people’s involvement in the Porirua Assembly might advance their rights in climate change. For practitioners seeking to decolonise deliberative processes and build inclusivity, this study generates important insights around connection, creativity, culture and continuity. I will also consider whether and how the emergence of a youth-led Indigenous group, Future Unity, can contribute to grassroots democratic resilience and renewal in Aotearoa, and finally, whether any of the learnings from this study may be transferable to other contexts.