India NZ FTA A Lost Opportunity For Māori And Business, Deplorable Racism Condemned

13 May 2026

Ngā Toki Whakarururanga is a Tiriti-based Māori entity created in 2021 through a Mediation Agreement in the Waitangi Tribunal inquiry on the TPPA. The Mediation Agreement commits the Crown to ensure that Ngā Toki Whakarururanga has genuine and meaningful influence on free trade negotiations and mandates it to conduct Tiriti o Waitangi assessments of final agreements. That assessment of the India New Zealand FTA finds the Crown failed to deliver on its Tiriti o Waitangi obligations.

Rongoā expert Donna Kerridge and member of ngā kaihautū leadership team expressed disappointment at the “lost opportunities”.

“Our hands were tied from the start because, unlike other recent New Zealand negotiations, the text was not be shared with us, even on a confidential basis, until the deal was signed.”

“Despite that, we sought every possible opportunity to influence the outcome. We genuinely hoped to generate a new dynamic in trade negotiations to achieve mutual benefits beyond market access for agricultural exports, embrace Indigenous values, and genuinely empower Māori and Adivasi. In retrospect, that was naiive. Like all previous agreements this negotiation was driven by the Crown’s political and commercial objectives.”

Whaea Donna Kerridge was one of two Ngā Toki Whakarururanga representatives who participated in a dialogue with Indian Government negotiators in Queenstown in September 2025, but were shut out of the negotiations themselves.

“Despite these obstacles, we gave the Crown a number of proposals that would build on areas of common interest between Māori and India and to develop innovative approaches that could be a win-win for everyone, such as food and seed sovereignty, data sovereignty, traditional knowledge, ayurveda and rongoā, and intellectual property rights.”

The final text shows these are, at best, reflected in an unenforceable, unresourced and discretionary chapter on community and culture that requires support from both parties. There is no provision for Māori involvement in those committees or their decisions.

On Te Tiriti o Waitangi itself, Kaihautū member and technical adviser Aroha Mead describes the outcome as “a backward step from incremental advances towards Tiriti compliance in recent agreements”.

There are only two passing references to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and no effective protection for measures to comply with Te Tiriti o Waitangi that might be challenged as inconsistent with the agreement.

Aroha Mead expressed “deep disappointment that a new Tiriti protection co-designed with the Crown to provide effective protection of Māori rights, interests and responsibilities and endorsed by other Māori entities, has been rejected. Instead, the flawed Treaty Exception dating back to 2001 has been retained. The only other reference to Te Tiriti o Waitangi is in the weak and unenforceable cooperation chapter.”

“The Crown’s promise to facilitate $34 billion of investment in India, when our communities face poverty, homelessness and the ravages of a climate crisis, with virtually no support from the Crown, is a further abdication of its Tiriti responsibilities.”

The final text also shows the much-heralded export gains for Māori, and other, exporters through tariff reductions are contingent on India’s acceptance that New Zealand has met impossible commitments to invest USD20 billion in India over 15 years, as well as action plans to transfer knowhow and technologies to Indian producers of apples, kiwifruit and honey that will enable them to compete with New Zealand exporters.

This Tiriti o Waitangi Assessment will be presented as a submission to the select committee. However, the Cabinet has retreated from the recent practice of including Ngā Toki Whakarururanga’s Tiriti assessment as an annex to the Crown’s National Interest Analysis of FTAs that are tabled in Parliament. This decision deprives Parliament and the public of an independent review of the Crown’s compliance with its Tiriti o Waitangi obligations.

Finally, as a Māori entity that is committed to fundamental values and ethics of whanaungatanga, manaakitanga and rangatiratanga, governed by tikanga, Ngā Toki Whakarururanga is appalled by and condemnd the racism that has been directed towards the peoples of India, their culture and aspirations in relation to this agreement by Māori and non-Māori alike.

“Racism anywhere is anathema to all that Ngā Toki Whakarururanga stands for, but especially when it comes from our own, and it harms us all.”, says Dr Jessica Hutchings, another member of Ngā Kaihautū who shares Māori and Gujarati whakapapa. “We call for a respectful, informed and ethical debate around the implications for Aotearoa New Zealand and India of this FTA.”

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