The digital laws losing their Treaty obligations
On Friday, Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith confirmed which Treaty obligations the government intends to change or remove across nineteen pieces of legislation. The announcement was framed as a tidying exercise, a feather duster pass across inconsistent language. Just a quick look at which laws are on the list and it's clear someone had already donned a hazmat suit and reached for the scrub daddy.
Two pieces of legislation are directly relevant to how this country builds and governs its digital infrastructure. The Data and Statistics Act 2022 appears twice in the announcement. Sections of the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Act 2023 are also included. Both will have their Treaty obligations reduced to the lowest available standard: "take into account."
This is the weakest of the options the government identified in its review. "Give effect to" requires action. "Have regard to" requires genuine consideration. "Take into account" means something closer to: ok, noted.
The Data and Statistics Act is the legislation that governs how the government collects, manages and uses data across the public sector. It explicitly recognises Māori interests in data and requires Māori involvement in planning and decision-making. That recognition wasn't decorative. Māori data sovereignty is a live and contested space. Questions about what data is collected, by whom, for what purposes, and under what protections are not abstract. They determine whether whānau Māori are reflected in, consulted on and have confidence in the systems that increasingly shape access to services, benefits, employment and healthcare.
The stakes of that shift are higher now than they were when the Act was passed. In June 2025, Cabinet endorsed the Government Statistician's decision to move to an admin-data-first census. From 2030, population statistics will be derived primarily from administrative datasets held across government agencies rather than from a traditional survey. Stats NZ's own regulatory impact statement acknowledged that the preferred census approach would result in reductions in data accuracy and coverage that would disproportionately affect Māori and Pacific populations.The Data and Statistics (Census) Amendment Bill passed its first reading in March 2026.
The Treaty obligation in the Data and Statistics Act was one of the mechanisms designed to ensure Māori had meaningful input into how those datasets were built and governed. Weakening it now, as this transition gets underway, means the new census will be built on a foundation with reduced obligation to get that right. The decisions that follow, about who is counted, which communities are considered served and where resources go, will reflect that.
The Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Act is the legislation underpinning the government's digital identity programme. It is the foundation for digital driver licences, digitally verifiable credentials and the Government App currently in development. Ministers and officials have spoken extensively about building a digital identity system that works for all New Zealanders. Just last August, the Minister for Digitising Government challenged industry to make that vision real, describing digital identity as a transformative opportunity the country was finally ready to act on.
That vision now rests on legislation where Māori interests are to be "taken into account."
DECA has been tracking the systematic removal of digital inclusion and equity obligations from government digital transformation documents for some time. The Service Modernisation Roadmap V1, published in 2024, included a commitment from the Government Chief Data Steward to build public trust and confidence in government's use of data through a focus on ethics and Māori data governance. That item does not appear in Roadmap V2, published in November 2025. The government's Digital Inclusion programme, which provided the policy architecture for community-level digital equity work, was closed in March 2023. The research infrastructure it supported has not been replaced.
What Friday's announcement adds is a legal dimension to that pattern. It is one thing to deprioritise digital inclusion in policy documents. Those can be rewritten. Statutory obligations are harder to restore once removed.
Trust is not a feature you can add later. Neither is representation or inclusive design. There is no patch for a system that was never legally required to work for both Treaty partners. Removing Treaty obligations doesn't just affect Māori. It removes one of the few formal mechanisms that required our government to attempt digital equity.
Sources
NZ Herald, 15 May 2026: Govt agrees to change or scrap Treaty of Waitangi references in 19 laws
RNZ, 15 May 2026: Government targets 19 pieces of legislation for Waitangi Treaty amendments
Te Ao Māori News, 15 May 2026: Exclusive: Unredacted Cabinet papers reveal hidden scope of Government's Treaty rewrite
Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Act 2023
Stats NZ, 2025: Regulatory Impact Statement: Modernising the census
Stats NZ: Modernising New Zealand's data system
Beehive, 12 August 2025: Digital Identity NZ Trust Hui Taumata — Minister Collins speech
Service Modernisation Roadmap V1, August 2024
Service Modernisation Roadmap V2, November 2025
DIA Digital Inclusion programme: digital.govt.nz
