tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/treaty-of-waitangi-26336/articlesTreaty of Waitangi – The Conversation2024-03-11T00:59:19Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254432024-03-11T00:59:19Z2024-03-11T00:59:19ZTaking the Treaty out of child protection law risks making NZ a global outlier<p>Australia, Canada and New Zealand share similar colonial stories. Historically, New Zealand has been the most interested of the three in thinking about how the universal human rights of equality, dignity and culture might gradually challenge the colonial order.</p>
<p>Australia hasn’t traditionally taken such issues as seriously, as the defeat of last year’s <a href="https://csrm.cass.anu.edu.au/research/publications/detailed-analysis-2023-voice-parliament-referendum-and-related-social-and">Voice to Parliament</a> referendum suggested. It struggles to address the consequences of its <a href="https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/stolen-generations">stolen generations</a> practices, while Canada struggles with the consequences of its <a href="https://nctr.ca/education/teaching-resources/residential-school-history/">residential schools</a> legacy. </p>
<p>Both nations’ policies were intended to “<a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47547227">breed out</a>” the original inhabitants of those lands. New Zealand used “<a href="https://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/Chapter%201%20Ranginui%20Walker.pdf">native schools</a>”, among other measures of assimilation.</p>
<p>Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) offers an alternative non-colonial vision, however. While always contested, it has sometimes made New Zealand a leader in Indigenous-state relations.</p>
<p>But in the past month, modest policy developments in Australia, and a significant constitutional development in Canada, have highlighted the extent to which New Zealand is becoming an outlier in international Indigenous policy thinking.</p>
<h2>Amending the Oranga Tamariki Act</h2>
<p>As part of their <a href="https://www.interest.co.nz/sites/default/files/2023-11/National_ACT_Agreement.pdf">coalition agreement</a>, the National and ACT parties will remove section 7AA from child protection agency Oranga Tamariki’s <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1989/0024/latest/whole.html">governing legislation</a>. </p>
<p>The section came into force in 2019, allowing “strategic partnerships” with iwi (tribes) and other Māori organisations to improve child care and protection. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/care-and-protection-or-containment-and-punishment-how-state-care-fails-nzs-most-vulnerable-young-people-224629">Care and protection, or containment and punishment? How state care fails NZ's most vulnerable young people</a>
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<p>In part, it was a response to successive <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/news/tribunal-releases-report-on-oranga-tamariki/">independent reports</a> finding fault with Oranga Tamariki’s ability to care effectively for children at risk, especially Māori children. Last month, the <a href="https://www.ombudsman.parliament.nz/resources/children-care-complaints-ombudsman-2019-2023">Ombudsman reported</a> 109 “formal deficiencies” in the agency’s work between 2019 and 2023.</p>
<p>Some might argue section 7AA still gave the state too much power, especially when the agency continues to do such a poor job. But without the section, Māori will again be left without recourse within the act to challenge that state power.</p>
<h2>Australia and Canada change course</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, the Australian government has this year <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/next-steps-closing-gap-delivering-remote-jobs#:%7E:text=Quotes%20attributable%20to%20Prime%20Minister,hope%2C%20and%20ideas%20for%20change.">announced it will establish</a> a National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People. According to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese:</p>
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<p>Indigenous children are almost eleven times more likely to be in out-of-home care than non-Indigenous children. The National Commissioner will focus on working with First Nations people on evidence-based programs and policies to turn those figures around.</p>
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<p>It’s a simple ambition that won’t change overall power relationships. And it doesn’t have the far-reaching implications of the <a href="https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2024/40061-eng.aspx">Supreme Court of Canada</a> finding Indigenous peoples have an “inherent right of self-government, which includes jurisdiction in relation to child and family matters”.</p>
<p>But the notion that evidence counts, and that Indigenous people have a say in what constitutes that evidence, provides a sharp contrast with the current New Zealand government’s plan to remove reference to the Treaty from the Oranga Tamariki Act.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/do-the-principles-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-really-give-maori-too-much-power-or-not-enough-224728">Do the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi really give Māori too much power – or not enough?</a>
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<h2>NZ as outlier</h2>
<p>In Australia, some of the evidence Albanese referred to can be found in <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/12_2021/dess5016-national-framework-protecting-childrenaccessible.pdf">Safe & Supported: the national framework for protecting Australia’s children</a>. Developed by the federal and state governments, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representatives and the non-government sector, it sets out various policies and priorities.</p>
<p>These cover the primary role of families, communities and cultures in effective care, holistic support services, and addressing the causes of abuse and neglect. Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act aimed to foster the same things.</p>
<p>Like Australia and New Zealand, Canada retains its colonial outlook. But its acknowledgement of the right of self-government – with reference to the United Nations <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a> – shows New Zealand is increasingly out of step on Indigenous policy.</p>
<p>Canada says its <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/F-11.73/index.html">Act Respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis Children, Youth and Families</a> aims to contribute to the “implementation” of the UN declaration by offering a pathway to just and effective policy.</p>
<p>The province of Québec objected to this federal law on the basis it weakened its own powers. However, Canada’s Supreme Court found against Québec. The national <a href="https://afn.ca/all-news/bulletins/afn-bulletin-february12-2024-supreme-court-of-canada-ruling-on-an-act-respecting-first-nations-inuit-and-metis-children-youth-and-families/">Assembly of First Nations</a> said this paves the way to rebuild their role, as the people who preceded the modern state, in caring for children at risk.</p>
<h2>Right to self-determination</h2>
<p>The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007. Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States were initially the only UN members to vote against it (11 abstained).</p>
<p>Over time, however, all four countries have come to agree with the rest of the world that the declaration didn’t create any new or special rights. It simply recognised that human rights belong to Indigenous peoples as much as to anybody else. </p>
<p>When New Zealand changed its position in 2010, then National Party leader and prime minister <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/national-govt-support-un-rights-declaration">John Key said</a>: </p>
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<p>My objective is to build better relationships between Māori and the Crown, and I believe that supporting the declaration is a small but significant step in that direction.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-state-removal-of-maori-children-from-their-families-is-a-wound-that-wont-heal-but-there-is-a-way-forward-140243">The state removal of Māori children from their families is a wound that won't heal – but there is a way forward</a>
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<p>Yet in 2023, <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nzfirst/pages/4462/attachments/original/1700784896/National___NZF_Coalition_Agreement_signed_-_24_Nov_2023.pdf?1700784896">National’s coalition agreement</a> with NZ First confirmed the previous government’s <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/125621081/willie-jackson-announces-more-undrip-consultation-confirms-that-he-puapua-is-not-the-plan">rejection</a> of the 2019 <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018795469/what-is-he-puapua">He Puapua</a> report on how New Zealand might implement the UN declaration.</p>
<p>Importantly, the declaration is not binding on member countries. But its essential premise is that Indigenous peoples have the same right to self-determination as others.</p>
<p>By repealing section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act, and removing the requirement that Maori agencies are involved in decision making, the presumption that child care and protection policy should work equally well for Māori people is diminished.</p>
<p>This also weakens New Zealand’s commitment to the UN declaration’s insistence that Indigenous peoples have:</p>
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<p>the collective right to live in freedom, peace and security as distinct peoples and shall not be subjected to […] violence […] including forcibly removing children of the group to another group.</p>
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<p>Repealing section 7AA sets back New Zealand’s efforts to uphold those rights, at a time when similar countries are taking steps in the opposite direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While the New Zealand government removes reference to the Treaty in the Oranga Tamariki Act, Canada and even Australia are taking steps in the opposite direction on Indigenous children’s rights.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2247282024-02-29T23:41:42Z2024-02-29T23:41:42ZDo the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi really give Māori too much power – or not enough?<p>This week parliament acted urgently to disestablish the Māori Health Authority. The hurry was to circumvent an urgent Waitangi Tribunal hearing on whether the proposal breached te Tiriti o Waitangi (Treaty of Waitangi) and its principles.</p>
<p>Te Pāti Maori’s co-leader, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350193412/bills-disestablish-maori-health-authority-smokefree-be-passed-under-urgency">Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, said</a>: “The government’s use and abuse of urgency has created a dictatorship in what should be a Tiriti-led democratic state.”</p>
<p>We have heard a lot about the Treaty “principles” since last year’s election.</p>
<p>But just what these principles are, and how they should be interpreted in law, remain open to contest – including by those who argue the principles actually limit some of the political rights that fairly belong to Māori people.</p>
<h2>No rigid rule book</h2>
<p>When parliament established the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975, <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1975/0114/107.0/DLM435368.html">one of its jobs</a> was to “provide for the observance, and confirmation, of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”.</p>
<p>There isn’t a definitive and permanent list of principles. They have evolved as new problems and possibilities arise, and as different ideas develop about what governments should and shouldn’t do. Te Tiriti, in other words, can’t be a rigid rule book.</p>
<p>But the Treaty’s articles are clear: </p>
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<li>governments should always be allowed to govern (article 1)</li>
<li>the powers of government are qualified by Māori political communities (<a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=iwi">iwi</a> and <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=hapu">hapu</a>) exercising authority and responsibility over their own affairs (article 2)</li>
<li>and government is contextualised by Māori people being New Zealand citizens whose political rights and capacities may be expressed with equal <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=tikanga">tikanga</a> (custom, values, protocol) (article 3).</li>
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<p>Perhaps the real question, then, is how to bring these articles into effect. The Waitangi Tribunal, parliament and courts developed the principles over time as interpretative guides. They <a href="https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/o-matou-mohiotanga/crownmaori-relations/he-tirohanga-o-kawa-ki-te-tiriti-o-waitangi">include</a> partnership, participation, mutual benefit, good faith, reciprocity, <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?&keywords=rangatiratanga">rangatiratanga</a> (independent authoity) and <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=kawanatanga">kāwanatanga</a> (government).</p>
<p>In 1992 the <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/WT-Principles-of-the-Treaty-of-Waitangi-as-expressed-by-the-Courts-and-the-Waitangi-Tribunal.pdf">Court of Appeal said</a>:</p>
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<p>It is the principles of the Treaty which are to be applied, not the literal words […] The differences between the [English and Māori] texts and shades of meaning are less important than the spirit.</p>
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<p>But the “spirit” of te Tiriti, too, is vague and open to contest.</p>
<h2>The Māori text prevails</h2>
<p>The English text of te Tiriti says Māori gave away their sovereignty to the British Crown. The Māori text says they only gave away rights of government. But both texts were clear: Māori authority over their own affairs wasn’t surrendered, and government wasn’t an unconstrained power allowing other people to do harm to Māori.</p>
<p>It’s also significant that only <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/making-the-treaty/signing-the-treaty">39 people</a> signed the English-language agreement (they didn’t read English and had it explained to them in Māori). More than 500 signed the Māori text. The former chief justice Sian Elias said, “<a href="https://natlib.govt.nz/he-tohu/korero/interview-with-dame-sian-elias">it can’t be disputed that the Treaty is actually the Māori text</a>”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-idea-of-sovereignty-is-central-to-the-treaty-debate-why-is-it-so-hard-to-define-220201">The idea of ‘sovereignty’ is central to the Treaty debate – why is it so hard to define?</a>
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<p>The <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nzfirst/pages/4462/attachments/original/1700784896/National___NZF_Coalition_Agreement_signed_-_24_Nov_2023.pdf?1700784896">New Zealand First party argues</a> the principles often appear in legislation without clear explanation of their relevance or what they’re intended to achieve. It says they should be clarified or removed.</p>
<p>The ACT party <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/stopdivision">goes further</a> and says the principles are often interpreted to give Māori greater political voice than other New Zealanders. It says the Treaty promised equality, and this should be enshrined in law – through rewritten principles that would limit Māori influence.</p>
<h2>Equal political voice</h2>
<p>There’s a counterargument, however, that says Māori influence is limited enough already. And it’s the principles that constrain Māori authority over their own affairs and give Māori citizens less than their fair influence over public decisions. </p>
<p>The idea that Māori are the Crown’s partners, rather than shareholders in its authority, seriously weakens Māori influence.</p>
<p>Participation, on the other hand, should strengthen it, and was one of the Treaty principles the Māori Health Authority was established to support. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/02/fears-for-maori-rights-as-new-zealand-government-reviews-waitangi-treaty">Abolishing the authority</a> overrides that principle. But it also takes decision-making about Māori health away from Māori experts. </p>
<p>This may undermine effective health policy. But it also undermines te Tiriti’s articles themselves. These include the idea that government is for everybody and everybody should share decision-making authority; and the idea that Māori people use their own institutions to make decisions about their own wellbeing.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the question is: if some people can’t contribute to policy-making in ways that make sense for them, then do they really have equal opportunities for political voice?</p>
<h2>The problem with ‘race’</h2>
<p>The picture is further confused by reference to “race”. In 1987, the <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/WT-Principles-of-the-Treaty-of-Waitangi-as-expressed-by-the-Courts-and-the-Waitangi-Tribunal.pdf">Court of Appeal said</a> the “Treaty signified a partnership between races”. It said partnership – a significant Treaty principle – should help the parties find a “true path to progress for both races”.</p>
<p>But te Tiriti doesn’t use the word “race”, or anything similar. It recognised hapu as political communities, and established kawanatanga as a new political body.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-redefining-the-treaty-principles-would-undermine-real-political-equality-in-nz-218511">Why redefining the Treaty principles would undermine real political equality in NZ</a>
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<p>So, whether we just focus on the Treaty articles, or find it useful to have principles to help with interpretation, we need to work out what hapu do and what government does, and how they relate to one another.</p>
<p>We don’t need to know what different “races” should do. Race is simply a “<a href="https://bioanth.org/about/position-statements/aapa-statement-race-and-racism-2019/">classification system</a>” colonial powers use to place themselves above the colonised in a hierarchy of human worth.</p>
<p>Instead, people are born into cultures formed by place, family and language – what Māori call “<a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?&keywords=whakapapa">whakapapa</a>”. Te Tiriti gave settlers a place and a form of government to secure their belonging. It also said Māori continue to belong on their own terms.</p>
<p>There can’t be equality without acceptance of these ideas of who belongs, and how.</p>
<h2>A simpler solution</h2>
<p>Citizenship tells us who “owns” the state. If partnership implies the Crown represents only non-Māori, it puts Māori people on the outside. It says government really belongs to “us”, and “you” don’t participate in “our” affairs.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4172-2">liberal democratic argument</a>, however, is that the state is “owned” equally by each and every citizen. Māori citizens are as much shareholders in the authority of the state as anybody else. They should be able to say the powers, authority and responsibilities of the state work equally well for them.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/waitangi-2024-how-the-treaty-strengthens-democracy-and-provides-a-check-on-unbridled-power-221723">Waitangi 2024: how the Treaty strengthens democracy and provides a check on unbridled power</a>
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<p>People think and reason through culture. Colonial experiences influence what people expect politics to achieve. This is why it’s fair to insist that Māori citizenship is exercised with equal tikanga.</p>
<p>The Treaty principles can be critiqued from many perspectives. They change because they are only interpretive guides that can be accepted, rejected, challenged and developed.</p>
<p>So, rather than refer to these principles in legislation, and leave them for courts and the Waitangi Tribunal to define, maybe there’s a simpler solution. </p>
<p>Each act of parliament could simply state: “This Act will be interpreted and administered to maintain and develop rangatiratanga, and otherwise work equally well for Māori as for other citizens.”</p>
<p>The principle of equality would be established. And it would be for Māori citizens to determine what “equally well” means for them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rather than leave the Treaty principles to parliament and the courts to define, why not embed the essence of the Treaty articles themselves in all laws?Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2234472024-02-14T19:22:32Z2024-02-14T19:22:32ZMāori political systems are the oldest in Aotearoa – it’s time university politics courses reflected this<p>Many of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiKM0XXZPXQ">speakers</a> at Kingi Tūheitia’s <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/18-01-2024/what-you-need-to-know-about-te-hui-aa-motu-the-national-unity-hui">Hui a Motu in Tūrangawaewae</a> last month talked of their desire for a flourishing Aotearoa. A place where Māori knowledge and leadership is embraced and where the universal benefits of te Tiriti o Waitangi are understood. </p>
<p>But it is clear from our current discourse on the Treaty that we are falling short of this goal. </p>
<p>Hui speakers spoke of the importance of knowing New Zealand’s history. And they discussed steps already being taken by communities across the country in support of a nation of peace and respectful political relationships.</p>
<p>Other speakers questioned how politicians could be querying the terms of te Tiriti o Waitangi when so many discussions on the topic have already taken place. These discussions are happening in community centres, marae, universities, councils and in the courts.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://ajie.atsis.uq.edu.au/ajie/article/view/649">our recent research</a> on political programmes at universities nationwide shows a lack of knowledge about how these systems have come to shape our country. It’s a gap that is fuelling the misinformation. </p>
<h2>A gap in Treaty knowledge</h2>
<p>A 2023 <a href="https://tikatangata.org.nz/news/revealing-poll-shows-people-see-te-tiriti-o-waitangi-as-partnership">survey</a> commissioned by the Human Rights Commission found that while 58% of New Zealanders believe they are informed about the Treaty, 32% believed they weren’t. Concerningly, 32% had not read any summary or version of the Treaty at all. </p>
<p>New Zealand politicians have also, at times, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/131798518/national-party-mp-under-fire-for-treaty-comments">shown a poor understanding</a> of the Treaty. </p>
<p>With the current debate over the treaty being fuelled by the Act Party’s <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/508579/act-launches-treaty-principles-bill-information-campaign">Treaty Principles Bill</a>, it is important to reflect on the role and responsibilities of universities as the critic, conscience and educators of society.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/waitangi-2024-how-the-treaty-strengthens-democracy-and-provides-a-check-on-unbridled-power-221723">Waitangi 2024: how the Treaty strengthens democracy and provides a check on unbridled power</a>
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<p>As teachers of te Tiriti o Waitangi and Māori politics, we have found students keen to learn about, and be part of, a vibrant Aotearoa which upholds its Treaty and embraces working together to benefit us all. </p>
<p>But we have also found these students have little prior exposure to these topics, and have unhelpful views formed by snippets from social media.</p>
<p>However, there is a noticeable shift in some disciplines.</p>
<p>After a recent decision by the <a href="https://nzcle.org.nz/">New Zealand Council of Legal Education</a>, all university law students enrolling in a legal degree from 2025 onwards must be equipped with an understanding of <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=tikanga">tikanga Māori</a> (incorporating practices and values from Māori knowledge) as a source of law in Aotearoa New Zealand. </p>
<p>This mandate follows <a href="https://johnwalton.co.nz/musings/ellis-appeal---the-place-of-tikanga-in-the-common-law">decisions by the Supreme Court</a> of New Zealand recognising the foundational importance of tikanga Māori in the law. The Law Commission has also produced a <a href="https://www.lawcom.govt.nz/our-work/tikanga-maori">study paper</a> examining tikanga in New Zealand’s legal landscape.</p>
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<h2>Politics students and the treaty</h2>
<p>But can the same be said for students of politics? </p>
<p>Our research looked at how well politics programmes around Aotearoa might be equipping students for the landscape of an Aotearoa of peace and respectful political relationships.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we found there is still quite some way to go. </p>
<p>Our review showed there continues to be very little engagement by the discipline with Māori politics. In fact, we found only around 1% of content taught in politics programmes appeared to be focused on Māori politics. And only around 1% of lecturers teaching in politics programmes were Māori. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-kohanga-reo-generation-and-how-could-they-change-maori-and-mainstream-politics-215694">Who are the 'kōhanga reo generation' and how could they change Māori and mainstream politics?</a>
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<p>The same result also appeared in our review of New Zealand’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/rpnz20">Political Science</a> journal, where we found only around 1% of the articles published could be considered <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/2439">kaupapa Māori</a> (written by Māori about Māori politics).</p>
<p>Although there is Māori political content taught in other parts of universities, largely through Māori Studies courses, it is concerning that students studying politics in New Zealand receive very little exposure to Māori politics. </p>
<p>Aotearoa has a unique political experience, one founded and shaped by Māori through iwi and hapū politics, and more recently by the British Crown through <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea-otago/02-02-2021/why-te-tiriti-should-place-a-limit-on-the-supremacy-of-parliament">imposed colonial political structures</a>. As such, all aspects of politics in Aotearoa must be understood as we continue to work together in making inclusive political systems that benefit all.</p>
<h2>Catching up with the rest of the country</h2>
<p>Expanding on what is taught across the political science discipline aligns with the commitments that universities have made to being Tiriti-led educational environments. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-massey/">Massey University</a> describes itself as a “Tiriti o Waitangi-led institution”. And in 2021 the University of Canterbury created a <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/126463329/university-of-canterbury-now-new-zealands-first-treaty-university">treaty partnership office</a> and committed to a “genuine partnership with mana whenua” and strengthening Māori leadership. </p>
<p>Students have come to expect a university education that upholds te Tiriti and actively promotes critical engagement with mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge).</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/history-and-myth-why-the-treaty-of-waitangi-remains-such-a-bloody-difficult-subject-202038">History and myth: why the Treaty of Waitangi remains such a ‘bloody difficult subject’</a>
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<p>In the past two months, thousands of people from across Aotearoa have demonstrated their commitment to te Tiriti o Waitangi by supporting and attending Māori-led political events. </p>
<p>The Kīngitanga Hui a Motu, the yearly political debates at Ratana, and <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/508521/waitangi-day-2024-thousands-of-visitors-one-clear-message">large turnouts to Waitangi day celebrations</a> illustrate the diversity and vibrancy of Māori politics. </p>
<p>Iwi and hapū politics are the longest enduring political systems in Aotearoa. It is time for politics programmes in New Zealand universities to recognise this to create a more collaborative and flourishing Aotearoa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223447/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Bargh receives funding from the 'Adaptive Governance and policy', Biological Heritage, National Science Challenge. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie Te One does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Just 1% of politics education in New Zealand is focused on the Māori dimension, new research has found. How can the country discuss Te Tiriti o Waitangi when very few understand it?Maria Bargh, Professor, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonAnnie Te One, Lecturer in Māori Studies, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219732024-02-01T19:05:21Z2024-02-01T19:05:21ZWaitangi Day 2024: 5 myths and misconceptions that confuse the Treaty debate<p>When it comes to grappling with the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty-of-waitangi">Treaty of Waitangi</a>/Te Tiriti o Waitangi, one of the commonest responses is that it’s a matter of interpretation. It seems to be a perfectly fair reaction, except that historical interpretation generally requires adherence to rules of evidence.</p>
<p>It is not a licence to make any claims whatsoever about the Treaty, and then to assert their truth by appealing to the authority of personal interpretation.</p>
<p>Yet since the 1970s we’ve been faced with the paradoxical situation of a growing body of Treaty scholarship that has led to less consensus about its meaning and purpose.</p>
<p>It is therefore worthwhile to investigate some of the more common misconceptions about the Treaty that have accrued over recent decades. This will not lead to a definitive interpretation of the Treaty. But it might remove a few obstacles currently in the way of understanding it better.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/history-and-myth-why-the-treaty-of-waitangi-remains-such-a-bloody-difficult-subject-202038">History and myth: why the Treaty of Waitangi remains such a ‘bloody difficult subject’</a>
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<h2>1. The Treaty or Te Tiriti?</h2>
<p>A common view persists that the English and Māori versions of the Treaty are fundamentally at odds with each other, especially over the central issue of sovereignty.</p>
<p>But research over the past two decades on <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/WT-Part-2-Report-on-stage-1-of-the-Te-Paparahi-o-Te-Raki-inquiry.pdf">British colonial policy prior to 1840</a> has revealed that Britain wanted a treaty to enable it to extend its jurisdiction to its subjects living in New Zealand. </p>
<p>It had no intention to govern Māori or usurp Māori sovereignty. On this critical point, the two versions are essentially in agreement.</p>
<h2>2. The Treaty is not a contract</h2>
<p>The principle of <em>contra proferentem</em> – appropriated from contract law – refers to ambiguous provisions that can be interpreted in a way that works against the drafter of the contract.</p>
<p>However, there are several problems in applying this principle to the Treaty. Firstly, treaties are <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/byrint11&div=8&id=&page=">different legal instruments from contracts</a>. This explains why there are correspondingly few examples of this principle being used in international law for interpreting treaties.</p>
<p>Secondly, as there are no major material differences between the English and Māori versions of the Treaty when it comes to Māori retaining sovereignty, there is no need to apply such a principle.</p>
<p>And thirdly, under international law, treaties are not to be interpreted in an adversarial manner, but in good faith (the principle of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2203309"><em>pacta sunt servanda</em></a>). Thus, rather than the parties fighting over the Treaty’s meaning, the requirement is for them to work <em>with</em> rather than against each other.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-to-live-with-the-messy-complicated-history-of-how-aotearoa-new-zealand-was-colonised-172219">Learning to live with the 'messy, complicated history' of how Aotearoa New Zealand was colonised</a>
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<h2>3. Relationships evolve over time</h2>
<p>No rangatira (chief) ceded sovereignty over their own people through the Treaty. Nor was that Britain’s intention – hence Britain’s recognition in August 1839 of hapū (kinship group) sovereignty and the guarantee in the Treaty that rangatiratanga (the powers of the chiefs) would be protected.</p>
<p>Britain simply wanted jurisdiction over its own subjects in the colony. This is what is known as an “originalist” interpretation – one that follows the Treaty’s meaning as it was understood in 1840.</p>
<p>This has several limitations: it precludes the emergence of Treaty principles; it wrongly presumes that all involved at the time of the Treaty’s signing had an identical view on its meaning; and, crucially, it ignores all subsequent historical developments.</p>
<p>Treaty relationships evolve over time in numerous ways. Originalist interpretations fail to take that into account.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-significance-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-110982">Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
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</em>
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<h2>4. Questions of motive</h2>
<p>British motives for the Treaty were made explicit in 1839, yet in the following 185 years false motives have entered into the historical bloodstream, where they have continued circulating.</p>
<p>What Britain wanted was the right to apply its laws to its people living in New Zealand. It also intended to “civilise” Māori (through creating the short-lived Office of Protector of Aborigines) and protect Māori land from unethical purchases (the pre-emption provision in Article Two of the Treaty).</p>
<p>And Britain wanted to afford Māori the same rights as British subjects in cases where one group’s actions impinged on the other’s (as in the 1842 <a href="https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/te-kaharoa/index.php/tekaharoa/article/view/61/58">Maketū case</a>, involving the conviction for murder and execution of a young Māori man).</p>
<p>The Treaty was not a response to a <a href="https://h-france.net/rude/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/vol5_11_Jennings_Marists_Colonial_Policy_final.pdf">French threat to New Zealand</a>. And it was not an attempt to conquer Māori, nor to deceive them through subterfuge.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-pebble-in-the-shoe-to-future-power-broker-the-rise-and-rise-of-te-pati-maori-212089">From 'pebble in the shoe' to future power broker – the rise and rise of te Pāti Māori</a>
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<h2>5. Myths of a ‘real’ Treaty and 4th article</h2>
<p>Over the past two decades, some have alleged there is a “real” Treaty – the so-called “<a href="https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/stout-centre/research-and-publications2/research-units/towru/publications/The-Littlewood-Treaty.pdf">Littlewood Treaty</a>” – that has been concealed because it contains a different set of provisions. Such conspiratorial claims are easily dispelled.</p>
<p>The text of the Littlewood Treaty is known and it is merely a handwritten copy of the actual Treaty. And, most obviously, it cannot be regarded as a treaty on the basis that no one signed it.</p>
<p>Another popular myth is that there is a fourth article of the Treaty, which purportedly guarantees religious freedom. This article <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/meaning-of-the-treaty/">does not appear</a> in either the Māori or English texts of the Treaty, and there is no evidence the signatories regarded it as a provision of the agreement. It is a suggestion that emerged in the 1990s, but lacks any evidential or legal basis.</p>
<p>Finally, there is the argument that the Treaty <a href="https://theconversation.com/waitangi-2024-how-the-treaty-strengthens-democracy-and-provides-a-check-on-unbridled-power-221723">supports the democratic process</a>. In fact, the Treaty ushered in a non-representative regime in the colony. It was the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/proclamation-of-1852-constitution-act">1852 New Zealand Constitution Act</a> that gave the country a democratic government – a statute that incidentally made no reference to the Treaty’s provisions.</p>
<p>This list is not exhaustive. But in dispensing with areas of poor interpretation, we can improve the chances of a more informed and productive discussion about the Treaty.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-idea-of-sovereignty-is-central-to-the-treaty-debate-why-is-it-so-hard-to-define-220201">The idea of ‘sovereignty’ is central to the Treaty debate – why is it so hard to define?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Moon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Decades of Treaty scholarship have failed to arrive at a consensus about its meaning and purpose. Dispensing with various mistaken interpretations would improve the chances of productive discussion.Paul Moon, Professor of History, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2202012024-01-30T17:42:17Z2024-01-30T17:42:17ZThe idea of ‘sovereignty’ is central to the Treaty debate – why is it so hard to define?<p>The coalition government’s approach to <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-the-treaty-of-waitangi/print">Te Tiriti o Waitangi</a> (Treaty of Waitangi) will inevitably set the scene for Waitangi Day next week, with the ACT Party’s <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/defining-the-treaty-principles">Treaty Principles Bill</a> already generating protest and <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350157533/three-headed-taniwha-government-enemy-maori-ratana-criticism-should-give-pm">ill will</a>. </p>
<p>But ACT’s initiative, even if ill-conceived, could still open up a widened debate that is long overdue.</p>
<p>The current Treaty “<a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/WT-Principles-of-the-Treaty-of-Waitangi-as-expressed-by-the-Courts-and-the-Waitangi-Tribunal.pdf">principles</a>” were devised by the <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/">Waitangi Tribunal</a> and the courts, and are based on interpretations of both English and Māori texts. ACT’s draft bill would rewrite the principles according to the English text only – or, at best, on a shallow reading of the Māori. </p>
<p>On the other far side of the debate, Māori “decolonialists” would simply abandon the principles, and advocate a return to their interpretation of the Māori text of Te Tiriti.</p>
<p>The decolonialists are correct on two key points: the Māori text is the original text and has the standing in international law; and the principles derived from both texts are problematic. </p>
<p>However, the decolonialists say Māori did not cede sovereignty in Te Tiriti, only the right for the Crown to govern non-Māori. They then revert back to a poorly defined Treaty principle in calling for an “equal partnership” that would constitutionally entrench a Māori parliament deep in the political process. </p>
<p>I argue against such a major constitutional change. If Māori did not explicitly cede sovereignty in 1840, neither did they fully retain it. Sovereignty is already being shared. </p>
<p>Because te Tiriti was between the Crown and <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/tribal-organisation/page-1">iwi and hapū</a>, demands for their greater self-determination can and are being addressed within our current constitution.</p>
<h2>Complete government forever</h2>
<p>Like ACT’s bill, the decolonial interpretation of Te Tiriti is both shallow and partial. It relies on a narrow legalistic interpretation of the concept of sovereignty, albeit one that is shared by <a href="https://www.crownlaw.govt.nz/">Crown Law</a> and much of the legal establishment. </p>
<p>The alleged lack of cession of sovereignty has been widely recognised by historians and legal experts for many years. Yet the late <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/6k2/kawharu-ian-hugh">Hugh Kawharu</a>’s authoritative translation of the key text of Te Tiriti says: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The chiefs […] give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>To a commonsense reader, “complete government for ever” might seem to mean “sovereignty”. However, as Kawhuru pointed out, at the time Māori had no experience or cultural understanding of the concept.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, “complete government” was not without meaning to Māori. Many had knowledge of the government of New South Wales, and some had even visited Britain. Māori accepted the Crown would govern settlers under British law.</p>
<p>Māori also accepted the Crown would “protect” them. In <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/translation-of-te-reo-maori-text/">Kawhuru’s translation</a>, that protection was for “the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages, and treasures”, and over “all ordinary people of New Zealand”, who would have “the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England”.</p>
<p>Kawharu also noted that “chieftainship” was based on limited authority and is best understood as “trusteeship”. By implication, then, chieftainship did not mean sovereignty. This idea was simply not in the Māori conceptual toolbox at the time.</p>
<p>An Indigenous people had agreed that an immigrant people could come to their land and be governed, not by Indigenous authorities, but by an immigrant government. </p>
<p>The Indigenous people also agreed that the immigrant government had a duty of protection over them: not just over the authority of their chiefs, but also over the “ordinary people”. </p>
<p>Such protection would require action to prevent tribal warfare and end slavery. It stretches credibility to interpret these agreements as meaning Māori signatories of Te Tiriti retained “absolute sovereignty”.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-significance-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-110982">Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Secular sovereignty</h2>
<p>Why is interpretation of Te Tiriti so subject to debate? One answer is that we are confused by misunderstanding of the concept of “sovereignty”. </p>
<p>It is a word and idea with big connotations. Traditionally it was drawn from the power of monarchies, the authority of which was said to be derived from God. The Crown was held by a single person. </p>
<p>In Māori terms it has been retrospectively interpreted as “<a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=mana">mana</a>”, another concept with big emotional resonance. In 2013, when arguing the <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/13-11-2019/an-insiders-guide-to-the-ngapuhi-settlement">Ngāpui claim</a> at the Waitangi Tribunal, Crown Law defined sovereignty as meaning “absolute and undivided power to make law”. </p>
<p>But this legal interpretation is incomplete. Making law is but one part of sovereignty, and not necessarily the most important one.</p>
<p>Secular understanding of the concept of sovereignty emerged after disastrous civil wars in England and France, and devastating wars throughout Europe. </p>
<p>In England, a king was executed and a republic temporarily established. There was much fear, uncertainty and insecurity. Secular sovereignty is rooted in a belief in the need for a government that can preserve peace and order and thus protect its citizens. </p>
<p>That government must also be able to defend its borders and protect against foreign incursion. There can be little doubt Māori ceded those protective aspects of sovereignty to the Crown in 1840.</p>
<p>However, in Article Two of Te Tiriti, Māori retained the continuation of chiefly authority over their peoples. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571539/original/file-20240125-17-upvr3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="fragment of Te Tiriti" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571539/original/file-20240125-17-upvr3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571539/original/file-20240125-17-upvr3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571539/original/file-20240125-17-upvr3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571539/original/file-20240125-17-upvr3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571539/original/file-20240125-17-upvr3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571539/original/file-20240125-17-upvr3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571539/original/file-20240125-17-upvr3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A fragment of Te Tiriti signed at Waitangi in 1840.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sovereignty of the people</h2>
<p>Some legal historians now argue that at the time of the signing of Te Tiriti in 1840, the British Colonial Office understood British sovereignty to be consistent with a pluralistic recognition of persisting Indigenous political and legal authorities. In other words, sovereignty could be shared. </p>
<p>But an abstract, absolute and undivided legal understanding of sovereignty was soon imposed, and Te Tiriti ignored.</p>
<p>Yet during the 20th century the tide turned. Changes in the meaning of sovereignty under democratic government have recovered its pluralist interpretation. Meanwhile, governments’ protective powers have also grown. They have acquired responsibilities to protect people’s health and welfare in ways few would have anticipated in 1840. </p>
<p>Lawyers continue to describe parliament as sovereign or “supreme” and to speak of “the Crown” as a legal entity. In political terms, the Crown is a useful fiction that sums up a much more complex set of phenomena. It is a symbol of sovereignty, not its reality. </p>
<p>In a democracy, sovereignty is sourced in “the people”. Like everyone else, Māori vote in elections and elect MPs and are therefore part of the Crown: the sovereign people. </p>
<p>The authority of “the people” is transferred to representatives who make decisions for them. Those representatives transfer authority to a cabinet and prime minister. Further authority is transferred into the public service – and beyond it. </p>
<hr>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/maori-atheism-on-the-rise-the-legacy-of-colonisation-is-driving-a-decline-in-traditional-christian-beliefs-214701">Māori atheism on the rise: the legacy of colonisation is driving a decline in traditional Christian beliefs</a>
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<p>The key to understanding sovereignty is simply this: there is no one consistent “particular place” where decisions with the force of sovereignty are always made. </p>
<p>Between elections, parliament may be supreme in terms of lawmaking, but parliament is subject to election every three years. In a democracy the people are the source of sovereignty but delegate its power to others. And the extent of popular sovereignty may be limited in particular ways by constitutions or treaties – like Te Tiriti o Waitangi.</p>
<p>Sovereignty is effective where, at any one place or time, a binding decision is made within an entire system of government. Sovereignty cannot be divided, because such division would inevitably result in conflict that would often fail to be resolved. </p>
<p>However, sovereignty can be passed around and shared. Sovereignty is not only found in a prime minister’s office or in cabinet. Sovereignty is found in many places, at different times: or at the same time in many places, when multiple choices are being made by different actors about various different things. </p>
<p>So long as those choices are recognised as decisive at that time, and on that matter, there is no paralysis or divided authority. Although, of course, they may be challenged later by other arms of government, such as in the courts.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-indigenous-reconciliation-efforts-show-having-a-treaty-isnt-enough-49890">New Zealand's indigenous reconciliation efforts show having a treaty isn't enough</a>
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<h2>Te Tiriti and the constitution</h2>
<p>Sovereignty is found in the legislation passed by parliament, but also in the way the courts interpret that legislation. It is found in the decisions made by the police to prosecute or not prosecute, and in the ways the police choose to use their powers, because the police are not subject to direct ministerial control. </p>
<p>It is found in the policy and administrative decisions made throughout the machinery of government within the framework of legislation, and in non-governmental organisations that have been delegated to run government programmes. </p>
<p>It is found where any private individual or organisation can use powers made effective by legislation and delegations of authority, such as the ability of a private company to issue a parking fine. </p>
<p>Sovereignty lies behind the ways in which individuals and groups can claim ownership and control of resources, as it is “the Crown” that recognises and protects property rights.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-to-live-with-the-messy-complicated-history-of-how-aotearoa-new-zealand-was-colonised-172219">Learning to live with the 'messy, complicated history' of how Aotearoa New Zealand was colonised</a>
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<hr>
<p>Some claim that elections based on popular sovereignty and majority rule ignore the rights of minorities. But others argue that in a representative democracy minority rule is a bigger problem than majority rule. </p>
<p>Majority votes in elections are modified and constrained by deliberation in parliament, including public submissions that can bring minority concerns to the table, as well as the influential lobbying of special interests.</p>
<p>The interpretation and application of law may be challenged in the courts, where interpretations of Te Tiriti o Waitangi may also be brought to bear.</p>
<p>The institutions of government in Aotearoa New Zealand have evolved since 1840 and in the process have been fundamentally transformed. Because we do not have a formal constitution, our institutions have adapted to changing needs and demands. </p>
<p>If we can more clearly accept, define and clarify its constraints on popular sovereignty, Te Tiriti’s promise that Māori iwi and hapū should govern themselves as much as is possible can be addressed under our existing constitution, and can be accommodated within its liberal democratic principles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Vowles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If Māori did not explicitly cede sovereignty in 1840, neither did they fully retain it. If sovereignty is already being shared, where does Te Tiriti o Waitangi sit within our unwritten constitution?Jack Vowles, Professor of Political Science, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2217232024-01-23T17:50:38Z2024-01-23T17:50:38ZWaitangi 2024: how the Treaty strengthens democracy and provides a check on unbridled power<p>The ACT Party’s election promise of a referendum to redefine and enshrine the “principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi is likely to dominate debate at this year’s <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/23/why-ratana-is-an-important-date-on-the-political-calendar/">Rātana</a> and Waitangi Day events. </p>
<p>ACT’s <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nzfirst/pages/4462/attachments/original/1700784896/National___NZF_Coalition_Agreement_signed_-_24_Nov_2023.pdf">coalition agreement</a> with the National Party commits the government to supporting a Treaty Principles Bill for select committee consideration. The bill may not make it into law, but the idea is raising considerable alarm.</p>
<p>Leaked <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/507090/government-confirms-leaked-document-was-a-ministry-treaty-principles-bill-memo">draft advice</a> to Cabinet from the Ministry of Justice says the principles should be defined in legislation because “their importance requires there be certainty and clarity about their meaning”. The advice also says ACT’s proposal will:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>change the nature of the principles from reflecting a relationship akin to a partnership between the Crown and Māori to reflecting the relationship the Crown has with all citizens of New Zealand. This is not supported by either the spirit of the Treaty or the text of the Treaty.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Setting aside arguments that the notion of “partnership” diminishes self-determination, the 10,000 people attending a <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/507161/in-photos-hui-aa-iwi-at-tuurangawaewae-marae">meeting</a> last weekend called by <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/27167/king-tuheitia">King Tūheitia</a> were motivated by the prospect of the Treaty being diminished.</p>
<h2>Do we need Treaty principles?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/o-matou-mohiotanga/crownmaori-relations/he-tirohanga-o-kawa-ki-te-tiriti-o-waitangi">Treaty principles</a> were developed and elaborated by parliaments, courts and the Waitangi Tribunal over more than 50 years to guide policy implementation and mediate tensions between the Māori and English texts of the document.</p>
<p>The Māori text, which more than 500 rangatira (chiefs) signed, conferred the right to establish government on the British Crown. The English text conferred absolute sovereignty; 39 rangatira signed this text after having it explained in Māori, a language that has <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/read-the-Treaty/differences-between-the-texts">no concept of sovereignty</a> as a political and legal authority to be given away.</p>
<p>Because the English text wasn’t widely signed, there is a view that it holds no influential standing, and that perhaps there isn’t a tension to mediate. Former chief justice <a href="https://natlib.govt.nz/he-tohu/korero/interview-with-dame-sian-elias">Sian Elias has said</a> “it can’t be disputed that the Treaty is actually the Māori text”.</p>
<p>On Saturday, <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/20/be-maori-kiingi-tuuheitia-gives-closing-speech-at-national-hui/">Tūheitia said</a>: “There’s no principles, the Treaty is written, that’s it.” This view is supported by arguments that the principles are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14687968211047902">reductionist</a> and take attention away from the substance of <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/translation-of-te-reo-maori-text/">Te Tiriti’s articles</a>: the Crown may establish government; Māori may retain authority over their own affairs and enjoy citizenship of the state in ways that reflect equal tikanga (cultural values).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-redefining-the-treaty-principles-would-undermine-real-political-equality-in-nz-218511">Why redefining the Treaty principles would undermine real political equality in NZ</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Democratic or undemocratic?</h2>
<p>The ACT Party says this is undemocratic because it gives Māori a privileged voice in public decision making. Of the previous government, <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/defining-the-treaty-principles">ACT has said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Labour is trying to make New Zealand an unequal society on purpose. It believes there are two types of New Zealanders. Tangata Whenua, who are here by right, and Tangata Tiriti who are lucky to be here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Liberal democracy was not the form of government Britain established in 1840. There’s even an <a href="https://nwo.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/MatikeMaiAotearoa25Jan16.pdf">argument</a> that state government doesn’t concern Māori. The Crown exercises government only over “<a href="https://nwo.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/MatikeMaiAotearoa25Jan16.pdf">its people</a>” – settlers and their descendants. Māori political authority is found in tino rangatiratanga and through shared decision making on matters of common interest.</p>
<p>Tino rangatiratanga <a href="https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/2292/65738/2021%20Mutu%20Mana%20Sovereignty%20for%20Routledge%20Handbook%20of%20Critical%20Indigenous%20Studies.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">has been defined</a> as “the exercise of ultimate and paramount power and authority”. In practice, like all power, this is relative and relational to the power of others, and constrained by circumstances beyond human control.</p>
<p>But the power of others has to be fair and reasonable, and rangatiratanga requires freedom from arbitrary interference by the state. That way, authority and responsibility may be exercised, and independence upheld, in relation to Māori people’s own affairs and resources.</p>
<h2>Assertions of rangatiratanga</h2>
<p>Social integration – especially through intermarriage, economic interdependence and economies of scale – makes a rigid “them and us” binary an unlikely path to a better life for anybody.</p>
<p>However, rangatiratanga might be found in Tūheitia’s advice about the best form of protest against rewriting the Treaty principles to diminish the Treaty itself:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Be who we are, live our values, speak our reo (language), care for our mokopuna (children), our awa (rivers), our maunga (mountains), just be Māori. Māori all day, every day.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-kingitanga-movement-160-years-of-maori-monarchy-102029">The kīngitanga movement: 160 years of Māori monarchy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As the government <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nationalparty/pages/18466/attachments/original/1700778597/NZFirst_Agreement_2.pdf?1700778597">introduces measures</a> to reduce the use of te reo Māori in public life, repeal child care and protection legislation that promotes Māori leadership and responsibility, and repeal <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-repeal-three-waters-legislation">water management legislation</a> that ensures Māori participation, Tūheitia’s words are all assertions of rangatiratanga.</p>
<p>Those government policies sit alongside the proposed Treaty Principles Bill to diminish Māori opportunities to be Māori in public life. For the ACT Party, this is necessary to protect democratic equality.</p>
<p>In effect, the proposed bill says that to be equal, Māori people can’t contribute to public decisions with reference to their own culture. As anthropologist <a href="https://newsroom.co.nz/2023/12/15/anne-salmond-on-the-treaty-debate-maori-and-pakeha-think-differently/">Anne Salmond has written</a>, this means the state cannot admit there are “reasonable people who reason differently”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putting-te-tiriti-at-the-centre-of-aotearoa-new-zealands-public-policy-can-strengthen-democracy-heres-how-180305">Putting te Tiriti at the centre of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public policy can strengthen democracy – here's how</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Liberal democracy and freedom</h2>
<p>Equality through sameness is a false equality that liberal democracy is well-equipped to contest. Liberal democracy did not emerge to suppress difference. It is concerned with much more than counting votes to see who wins on election day.</p>
<p>Liberal democracy is a political system intended to manage fair and reasonable differences in an orderly way. This means it doesn’t concentrate power in one place. It’s not a select few exercising sovereignty as the absolute and indivisible power to tell everybody else what to do.</p>
<p>This is because one of its ultimate purposes is to protect people’s freedom – the freedom to be Māori as much as the freedom to be <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=pakeha">Pakeha</a>. If we want it to, democracy may help all and not just some of us to protect our freedom through our different ways of reasoning.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-parties-two-deals-one-government-the-stress-points-within-new-zealands-coalition-of-many-colours-217673">Three parties, two deals, one government: the stress points within New Zealand's 'coalition of many colours'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Freedom is protected by checks and balances on power. Parliament checks the powers of government. Citizens, including Māori citizens with equality of <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=tikanga">tikanga</a>, check the powers of parliament.</p>
<p>One of the ways this happens is through the distribution of power from the centre – to local governments, school boards and non-governmental providers of public services. This includes Māori health providers whose work was intended to be supported by the Māori Health Authority, which the government also intends to disestablish.</p>
<p>The rights of hapū (kinship groups), as the political communities whose representatives signed Te Tiriti, mean that rangatiratanga, too, checks and balances the concentration of power in the hands of a few.</p>
<p>Checking and balancing the powers of government requires the contribution of all and not just some citizens. When they do so in their own ways, and according to their own modes of reasoning, citizens contribute to democratic contest – not as a divisive activity, but to protect the common good from the accumulation of power for some people’s use in the domination of others.</p>
<p>Te Tiriti supports this democratic process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill assumes Māori have been granted special privileges. But it can equally be argued the Treaty prevents the undemocratic concentration of power in the hands of a few.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2185112023-11-27T01:50:03Z2023-11-27T01:50:03ZWhy redefining the Treaty principles would undermine real political equality in NZ<p>All three parties in New Zealand’s new coalition government went into the election promising to diminish various Māori-based policies or programs. But it was the ACT Party that went furthest, <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/act_proposes_referendum_on_co_governance">calling for a referendum</a> to redefine the “<a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/WT-Principles-of-the-Treaty-of-Waitangi-as-expressed-by-the-Courts-and-the-Waitangi-Tribunal.pdf">principles</a>” of <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/the-treaty-in-brief">te Tiriti o Waitangi</a>/Treaty of Waitangi.</p>
<p>The referendum didn’t make it into the <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nationalparty/pages/18466/attachments/original/1700778592/National_ACT_Agreement.pdf?1700778592">coalition agreement</a>, but National and New Zealand First
have agreed to a Treaty Principles Bill going to a select committee for further consideration.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/nationalparty/pages/18466/attachments/original/1700778597/NZFirst_Agreement_2.pdf?1700778597">NZ First</a> negotiated a review of all legislation referring to the Treaty principles and to “replace all such references with specific words relating to the relevance and application of the Treaty, or repeal the references”.</p>
<p>These proposals are significant because they would reverse a decades-long bipartisan trend towards increasing the Treaty/te Tiriti’s influence in public life. </p>
<h2>The Treaty and its principles</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561722/original/file-20231127-23-bl6p5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561722/original/file-20231127-23-bl6p5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561722/original/file-20231127-23-bl6p5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561722/original/file-20231127-23-bl6p5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561722/original/file-20231127-23-bl6p5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561722/original/file-20231127-23-bl6p5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1412&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561722/original/file-20231127-23-bl6p5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561722/original/file-20231127-23-bl6p5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1412&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A fragement of one copy of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Archives New Zealand via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the past 50 years, the treaty/tiriti principles have been developed by parliament, the courts and the Waitangi Tribunal. The principles include partnership, reciprocity, mutual benefit, active protection of Māori interests, and redress for past wrongs. </p>
<p>ACT argues that these principles give people “different political rights based on birth”, meaning Māori have a bigger say in political decisions, and that this affronts political equality.</p>
<p>Others have argued the principles <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14687968211047902">overshadow the substance</a> of te Tiriti, meaning Māori have less say, and that this is actually where inequality lies. This in turn explains why, for example, <a href="https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2022-12/ap22-02.pdf">Māori die</a> an average six to seven years younger than other people.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-parties-two-deals-one-government-the-stress-points-within-new-zealands-coalition-of-many-colours-217673">Three parties, two deals, one government: the stress points within New Zealand's 'coalition of many colours'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/translation-of-te-reo-maori-text/">te Tiriti</a> was presented to Māori chiefs (rangatira) in 1840 by the Anglican missionary Henry Williams, he <a href="https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/8768416/20188postpub.pdf">stressed</a> the protection of Maori authority over their own affairs was a serious and unbreakable promise. </p>
<p>Most importantly for the current debate, people were given reasons to believe the government would not interfere with a Māori right to <em>be</em> Māori. </p>
<p>Specifically, the British Crown would establish a government (Article 1 of te Tiriti). Māori would enjoy tino rangatiratanga over their own affairs (Article 2) – the inherent authority to make decisions, not the government’s gift to take away as it pleased. </p>
<p>Māori would also enjoy the rights and privileges of British subjects (Article 3), and there would be “equality of tikanga” (cultural equality). By now, “subjecthood” has come to mean New Zealand citizenship, and the concept continues to evolve. </p>
<h2>Political equality requires cultural equality</h2>
<p>ACT’s alternative principles do not use the language developed to deal with te Tiriti’s/the Treaty’s meaning over the past 50 years. They state:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>All citizens of New Zealand have the same political rights and duties.</p></li>
<li><p>All political authority comes from the people by democratic means including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot.</p></li>
<li><p>New Zealand is a multi-ethnic liberal democracy where discrimination based on ethnicity is illegal.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>These could be interpreted to support the idea that cultural equality means Māori people are allowed to <em>be</em> Maori when they participate in public life. But ACT’s election campaign rhetoric, and the coalition government agreements, suggest the opposite intent.</p>
<p>The plan to abolish the <a href="https://www.futureofhealth.govt.nz/maori-health-authority/">Māori Health Authority</a> is an example. It was established in 2022 to ensure Māori experts could make decisions about funding and providing Māori primary health services. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putting-te-tiriti-at-the-centre-of-aotearoa-new-zealands-public-policy-can-strengthen-democracy-heres-how-180305">Putting te Tiriti at the centre of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public policy can strengthen democracy – here's how</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This was based on findings by both <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/news/report-on-stage-one-of-health-services-and-outcomes-released/">Waitangi Tribunal</a> and parliamentary <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/committees-press-releases/the-m%C4%81ori-affairs-committee-completes-its-inquiry-into-health-inequities-for-m%C4%81ori/">select committee inquiries</a> that health policies were failing Māori – partly because there was no sufficient mechanism for Māori to systematically contribute to decisions about services and delivery.</p>
<p>Health services will remain universally available. But it’s not clear they are intended to work equally well for everybody, given the government has provided no alternative to address the policy void the Māori Health Authority was intended to fill.</p>
<p>In other words, there’s no space for specific Māori leadership in making decisions about what works and why, and what should be funded as Māori primary health services. Māori culture won’t count in decision making. </p>
<p>Diminishing that cultural perspective means democratic equality is, in effect, conditional on not bringing a Māori perspective to public life.</p>
<h2>Policy that works equally well for Maori</h2>
<p>Equality means every citizen should expect a policy to work for them as well is it works for anybody else. Te Tiriti may help achieve that. But without it, there may be a gap between the language of equality and the policy intent.</p>
<p>For example, the government plans to repeal the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1989/0024/latest/whole.html">Treaty section</a> of the law governing Oranga Tamariki, the state’s child care and protection agency. This section says te Tiriti requires Oranga Tamariki to recognise the cultural backgrounds of Māori children in its care. </p>
<p>Oranga Tamariki must also recognise it’s also the job of Māori families, iwi, hapu and other agencies to support Maori children who need care and protection.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-are-the-kohanga-reo-generation-and-how-could-they-change-maori-and-mainstream-politics-215694">Who are the 'kōhanga reo generation' and how could they change Māori and mainstream politics?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There’s nothing in this section to support ACT’s election campaign statement that the previous government’s Treaty policies contributed to an “unequal society [where] there are two types of New Zealanders. Tangata Whenua, who are here by right, and Tangata Tiriti who are lucky to be here”. </p>
<p>This section says no more than that Māori people should expect state care and protection policies to work for them. Yet it is the only section of any legislation the government is explicitly committed to repealing. </p>
<p>To avoid doubt, and affirm the substantive equality of all people, the government could simply replace references to the Treaty with the words: “This Act will be applied to work equally well for Māori as for all other citizens.” After all, if this is not the intent of any law, then equality <em>per se</em> is not its intent either.</p>
<h2>Political authority and people</h2>
<p>ACT’s second proposed principle states that “all political authority comes from the people”. But as I argue in my recent book <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4172-2">Sharing the Sovereign</a>, that means <em>all</em> people must be able to express that authority in ways that are personally meaningful. </p>
<p>People’s actual experience of the democratic system must give them reasons to believe it works as well for them as for anyone else. Those reasons cannot arise –for anyone – in a cultural void. </p>
<p>We all think and reason about what governments should do, and what they should leave for others, through a cultural lens. If some people may only participate in public life through a cultural lens someone else has imposed, then they are not among the people from whom “all political authority comes”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218511/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ACT Party claims revisiting the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi is about political equality. But removing a Māori cultural dimension to New Zealand’s democracy would have an opposite effect.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2136512023-09-20T01:17:57Z2023-09-20T01:17:57ZRacism and democracy: why claims of ‘division by race’ in the NZ election and Voice referendum need challenging<p>It’s a coincidence that New Zealand elects a new parliament on October 14, the same day Australians decide whether (at the <a href="https://ulurustatement.org/the-statement/view-the-statement/">request of Indigenous people</a>) they will entrench in the constitution an Aboriginal and Torres Islander Voice to Parliament. But there is one striking parallel between the two campaigns.</p>
<p>On both sides of the Tasman, some people are claiming Indigenous policies risk their nation being divided along racial lines.</p>
<p>In Australia, opposition leader <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-22/peter-dutton-says-indigenous-voice-will-re-racialise-the-country/102378700">Peter Dutton argues</a> the Voice “will permanently divide us by race” and “re-racialise” the constitution. He doesn’t mention that the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution">constitution</a> has always allowed governments to discriminate against people of some races. </p>
<p>In New Zealand, the libertarian ACT (Association of Consumers and Taxpayers) party – which <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/494809/latest-political-polling-campaign-finances-social-media-targeting-and-more">according to the polls</a> is likely to be needed by the National Party to form a government – is campaigning with the slogan “End division by race”.</p>
<p>ACT <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/tags/issue_treaty_of_waitangi">particularly opposes</a> a distinctive Māori voice in public decision making through the co-governance of natural resources and the <a href="https://www.futureofhealth.govt.nz/maori-health-authority/">Māori Health Authority</a>, established this year to allow Māori health experts to make decisions about the funding of Māori primary health services.</p>
<p>The party is calling for a referendum to redefine the <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/translation-of-te-reo-maori-text/">Treaty of Waitangi</a> and reduce its influence. </p>
<p>But the treaty itself doesn’t mention race. It was an agreement about how British government could be established without compromising Māori authority over their own people and resources. Importantly, it protected <a href="https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/pq/article/view/8019">cultural equality</a> – which is what co-governance and the Maori Health Authority try to achieve.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1506868226567081989"}"></div></p>
<h2>Cultural equality</h2>
<p>In my book, <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-99-0581-2">Indigeneity, Culture and the UN Sustainable Development Goals</a>, I examine how bringing culture and the experience of colonisation into policy discussions makes a big contribution to what works.</p>
<p>But arguments against these distinctive ways of including Indigenous cultural perspectives and experiences in public policy have often been couched in prejudice, in New Zealand and Australia. </p>
<p>When Labour MP Willow-Jean Prime used the occasional Māori word at a recent campaign debate, for example, there were <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/election-2023/497932/raucous-northland-debate-crowd-rails-at-covid-te-reo-maori-mentions">angry shouts</a> from some in the crowd. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/colonial-ideas-have-kept-nz-and-australia-in-a-rut-of-policy-failure-we-need-policy-by-indigenous-people-for-the-people-188583">Colonial ideas have kept NZ and Australia in a rut of policy failure. We need policy by Indigenous people, for the people</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The implicit message was not simply that some might prefer to exercise their democratic right to vote for somebody else. It was that Prime was not accepted there as a Māori person using her own language.</p>
<p>Elsewhere, billboards for te Pāti Māori (the Māori Party) have been <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/496433/te-pati-maori-election-billboards-targeted-in-frightening-attacks">vandalised</a> in what the party said “feels like a targeted campaign”. </p>
<p>And ACT leader David Seymour joked in a radio interview about his pledge to abolish the Ministry for Pacific Peoples: “In my fantasy, we’d send a guy called Guy Fawkes in there and it’d be all over, but we’ll probably have to have a more formal approach than that.”</p>
<p>Deputy Prime Minister <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/david-seymour-slammed-over-guy-fawkes-comment-on-ministry-for-pacific-peoples/FVSTLMS4QJENXD4Y7FMR2AMHPU/">Carmel Sepuloni said</a> his “remarks are in line with his history of race-baiting and creating divisions, particularly concerning Pasifika and Māori communities”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-voice-to-parliament-explained-212100">The Voice to Parliament explained</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Democracy and racism</h2>
<p>Sepuloni’s response didn’t excite much backlash. But in Australia recently, Indigenous academic Marcia Langton was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-14/marcia-langton-racism-voice-bunburying/102857530">harshly criticised</a> by Dutton and some <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/morning-shows/its-done-karl-unloads-on-voice-campaign/news-story/c272eac3ced2bbc0abaa7288aac8e888">news media</a> for suggesting racism was influencing the campaign against the Voice to Parliament. At a community meeting in Western Australia, Langton said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Every time the No cases raise their arguments, if you start pulling it apart you get down to base racism, I’m sorry to say that’s where it lands, or sheer stupidity.</p>
<p>If you look at any reputable fact-checker, every one of them says the No case is substantially false, they are lying to you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1702939513444815344"}"></div></p>
<p>The comments were <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/marcia-langton-to-seek-legal-advice-over-peter-dutton-instagram-post/ol186pot6">misreported by some</a> to suggest she was saying “no” voters were always and everywhere motivated by racism, rather than that some of the No side’s arguments were inherently racist.</p>
<p>The implication is that racism can’t be discussed, let alone called out, and even that racist arguments can be a fair and reasonable contribution to public debate. In turn, this makes it harder to discuss its impact at a structural level.</p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/16/lidia-thorpe-calls-for-referendum-called-off-indigenous-voice-to-parliament-no-campaign">we know</a> from <a href="https://redbridgegroup.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Voice-Poll-September-Week-One-2023.pdf">opinion polls</a> some people have reasons for voting “no” to the Voice that can’t be called racist. Some think it won’t make a big enough difference for Indigenous people, or that it doesn’t challenge the colonial power of the state sufficiently. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-the-voice-to-parliament-would-not-force-people-to-give-up-their-private-land-212784">No, the Voice to Parliament would not force people to give up their private land</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Democratically, it’s fair to argue about whether the Voice to Parliament is a good response to policy problems. Just as it’s fair to say that a Ministry for Pacific Peoples isn’t the best way to ensure government policies work equitably for Pacific people. </p>
<p>But all people still have a right to influence policy making in ways that work. We all think in ways that reflect our culture and experience. Saying that’s fair for some but not others is to say that Indigenous perspectives and experiences shouldn’t be allowed to contribute to policy decisions.</p>
<p>Interestingly, former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, who opposes the Voice, still recognised the importance of meaningful Indigenous perspectives when he spoke about the <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-42891">National Agreement on Closing the Gap</a> in 2020:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We perpetuated an ingrained way of thinking, passed down over two centuries and more, and it was the belief that we knew better than our Indigenous peoples. We don’t.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Giving everyone a ‘fair go’</h2>
<p>In New Zealand, the Māori Health Authority, which the <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/national-party-plans-to-scrap-te-aka-whai-ora-under-fire/JKGZTARPJFDHPNZ2XL4GYM7HRM/">National party</a> also says it will abolish, was established precisely to counter <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/health-minister-andrew-littles-address-first-joint-meeting-boards-te-whatu-ora-health-new">health policies that didn’t work</a> because Māori people weren’t sufficiently involved in making them. </p>
<p>It followed a <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/news/report-on-stage-one-of-health-services-and-outcomes-released/">Waitangi Tribunal</a> report that found poor Māori health outcomes could be partly explained by the system not allowing Māori knowledge of what works and why to properly influence decision making. </p>
<p>As one of the authority’s advocates explained it, “We would prefer to be the designers of our own destiny.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/7-rules-for-a-respectful-and-worthwhile-voice-referendum-212974">7 rules for a respectful and worthwhile Voice referendum</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The broader policy implication is that inclusion matters. Liberal democracy exists because we all think differently. We bring different experiences, values and aspirations to our ideas about what governments should and shouldn’t do.</p>
<p>There is no objective truth in the business of government. Democracy developed to manage these differences. Sometimes, however, dominant populations use the democratic system to protect their self-interest rather than accommodate the rights and interests of others. </p>
<p>But democracy can also manage differences through what’s known as “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Nancy-Fraser-and-Participatory-Parity-Reframing-Social-Justice-in-South/Bozalek-Holscher-Zembylas/p/book/9780367505394">participatory parity</a>”. According to the political theorist Nancy Fraser, citizenship means all citizens are entitled to “parity of esteem”. In other words, a “fair go”, which <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=IJxT6pxjO7YC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=Recognition%3F:+A+Political-Philosophical+Exchange&ots=YRHNWtxLqT&sig=SQtIqKCuhr-7Ko57U2vSArwGct4#v=onepage&q=Recognition%3F%3A%20A%20Political-Philosophical%20Exchange&f=false">Fraser says</a> requires two conditions:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>First, the distribution of material resources must be such as to ensure participants’ independence and “voice” [and] the second condition requires that institutional patterns of cultural value express equal respect for all participants and ensure equal opportunity for achieving social parity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Participatory parity means everybody should be able to participate in public decisions knowing they have the same chance of influencing the decision as anybody else. </p>
<p>Thinking about what politics should achieve from an Indigenous cultural perspective or through an Indigenous language shouldn’t be a disadvantage. Otherwise, Indigenous people lose independence, voice and equal respect.</p>
<p>Racism – which is to discriminate on the basis of culture, racial or ethnic origin – means democracy can’t give everybody a fair go. So when people like Marcia Langton point out its influence, they contribute to a fairer and more democratic society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213651/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Arguments against including Indigenous cultural perspectives and experiences in public policy have spilled over into prejudice and racism on both sides of the Tasman. That harms democracy.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2117282023-08-21T20:18:18Z2023-08-21T20:18:18ZA retiring NZ MP has suggested joining Australia – we should at least think about it (before saying no)<p>Big policy ideas usually don’t come up in parliamentary valedictory speeches – they’re for saying goodbye and thank you. So departing Labour MP Jamie Strange was the exception last week when he <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/document/HansS_20230815_052860000/strange-jamie">made a case</a> for New Zealand and Australia becoming one country.</p>
<p>The main problem, he joked, would be integrating the Australian cricket team. But he talked up the potential economic benefits, and the option does remain open under sections 6 and 121 of the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/constitution">Australian Constitution</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, New Zealand did seriously consider joining the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Records_of_the_Australasian_Federal_Conventions_of_the_1890s">Australian federation</a> in the 1890s. After all, it had <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/language/urdu/en/podcast-episode/was-new-zealand-ever-administered-as-part-of-new-south-wales/2fiosb9f9">been administered</a> as part of the colony of New South Wales for about a year after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.</p>
<p>And the relationship was already close. <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/271105/222-years-of-maori-in-australia">Māori traders</a> began visiting Sydney from the 1790s. Settlers moved back and forth across the Tasman from the earliest contact.</p>
<p>Quite how such a union might be forged in the 21st century, however, raises some interesting questions about how similar – or dissimilar – the two countries have since become.</p>
<h2>A simplified relationship</h2>
<p>Political union would simplify the relationship: trade would be more efficient, social and cultural ties might be strengthened, passports wouldn’t be needed and banking would be easier.</p>
<p>Indeed, an Australian parliamentary committee <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/CanterLawRw/2010/2.pdf">recommended political union</a> in 2006, but the New Zealand prime minister at the time, Helen Clark, rejected the idea. The then opposition leader, Don Brash, said it should at least be considered, but found little support. </p>
<p>The committee’s second preference was for a common currency to make trans-Tasman business easier. </p>
<p>But close relationships don’t require political union. Australia and New Zealand hold regular ministerial meetings, share various regulatory standards, and there is military and intelligence cooperation.</p>
<p>There are also important policy differences – such as over the <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2023/07/nanaia-mahuta-shuts-door-on-nz-joining-aukus-after-united-states-antony-blinken-says-it-s-very-much-open.html">AUKUS security pact</a> and New Zealand’s nuclear-free policy. Union wouldn’t mean the two countries coming together as equals. New Zealand members of an Australian government would influence those policies, but they wouldn’t determine them. </p>
<h2>From nation to state</h2>
<p>Current constitutional arrangements would mean New Zealand simply became a state of the existing Commonwealth of Australia. It would elect members to the federal parliament, but it would no longer have an independent voice in international forums.</p>
<p>Under the Australian Constitution, the New Zealand state parliament would be responsible for schooling, hospitals and transport, among the reserve powers of the Australian states. </p>
<p>Foreign policy, defence, monetary policy, higher education, pharmaceutical and GP funding would be among the responsibilities transferred to Canberra. A better cricket team might not be compensation enough. </p>
<p>But thinking seriously about the idea would also require both countries to consider how they might forge a different commonwealth together. And that would require an assessment of underlying national values that rarely troubles political discourse in either country.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-australia-could-learn-from-new-zealand-about-indigenous-representation-201761">What Australia could learn from New Zealand about Indigenous representation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The Voice and the Treaty</h2>
<p>Nowhere would this be more evident than in the respective debates about whether democracy should be properly inclusive of Indigenous peoples.</p>
<p>In Australia, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/ng-interactive/2023/aug/14/indigenous-voice-to-parliament-poll-results-polling-latest-opinion-polls-referendum-tracker-newspoll-essential-yougov-news-by-state-australia">opinion polls</a> are showing the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander <a href="https://voice.gov.au/">Voice to Parliament</a> doesn’t have the support it needs to pass a referendum later this year. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-voice-isnt-apartheid-or-a-veto-over-parliament-this-misinformation-is-undermining-democratic-debate-205474">tone of that debate</a> also shows just how differently Australia and New Zealand think about such issues.</p>
<p>In my book <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4172-2">Sharing the Sovereign</a>, I argued that while the guaranteed <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-house/audio/2018658559/maori-seats-what-are-they">Māori seats</a> in parliament (introduced in 1867) and the role of the Treaty of Waitangi are sharply contested in New Zealand, their influence is gradually increasing.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-voice-isnt-apartheid-or-a-veto-over-parliament-this-misinformation-is-undermining-democratic-debate-205474">The Voice isn't apartheid or a veto over parliament – this misinformation is undermining democratic debate</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Political resistance to the ACT Party’s policy of marginalising the Treaty in public life is likely to be intense if it forms part of the government after the election in October. But even then, the idea that Māori people have a voice in government is largely accepted.</p>
<p>Australia’s <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/address-chifley-research-conference">prime minister argues</a> that the Voice is a matter of justice because “it is common courtesy to consult people when you’re taking a decision that affects them”. The inference being that while First Nations people can have “their” say, “we” are still in charge.</p>
<p>As Wiradjuri scholar <a href="https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/2372-new-indigenous-middle-class-finds-place-in-modern-economy">Stan Grant observed</a> about the country he grew up in: “we lived in Australia, and Australia was for other people”.</p>
<h2>Culture and public life</h2>
<p>Based on population, New Zealand would be entitled to about one-sixth of the seats in the Australian House of Representatives. Like the other states it would elect 12 senators. There is no guaranteed Indigenous representation in either house and Australia would no doubt struggle to accept Māori representation. At best, there might be two or three Māori seats in the lower house.</p>
<p>In reality, the Māori presence in public life gives New Zealand a cultural certainty and security that is not so evident in Australia. </p>
<p>And the Treaty of Waitangi extends that place to all migrants. Samoan, Tongan, Chinese and Dutch MPs (among others) occasionally speak their languages in parliament as statements of identity and belonging. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-claims-barnaby-joyce-as-one-of-its-own-in-new-dramatic-citizenship-turmoil-82463">New Zealand claims Barnaby Joyce as one of its own, in new dramatic citizenship turmoil</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Meanwhile, section 44(1) of the Australian Constitution says people who hold dual or multiple citizenships are not eligible for election to parliament. Although <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/2021-census-nearly-half-australians-have-parent-born-overseas">more than half</a> the Australian population was either born overseas or has a parent born elsewhere, this <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jul/25/the-47th-parliament-is-the-most-diverse-ever-but-still-doesnt-reflect-australia">multicultural demographic</a> is not represented in its parliament.</p>
<p>Indeed, then-deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce was <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Electoral_Matters/Inquiry_into_matters_relating_to_Section_44_of_the_Constitution/Report_1/section?id=committees%2Freportjnt%2F024156%2F25931">forced to leave parliament</a> in 2017 after it was discovered he held New Zealand citizenship. He was one of many forced out in similar circumstances – a citizen of a “foreign power” only by descent but apparently therefore a threat to national security.</p>
<p>Cultural <em>insecurity</em> seems the more likely explanation. In an article on the section 44 scandal, I pointed out the absurdity by describing myself as “a citizen of Australia, Ireland and New Zealand who supports the All Blacks, drinks Guinness and looks forward to fighting for Tamworth when Dunedin invades”.</p>
<p>Australia and New Zealand may well be similar enough for political union to be an idea worth considering, but rejecting – if only to help us each to understand ourselves better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211728/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Outgoing New Zealand MP Jamie Strange used his valedictory speech to propose a trans-Tasman political union. Wondering how that might work reveals just how different the two countries really are.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2020382023-05-11T20:09:12Z2023-05-11T20:09:12ZHistory and myth: why the Treaty of Waitangi remains such a ‘bloody difficult subject’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524531/original/file-20230504-25-tkulgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6620%2C2060&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Artist's impression of the signing of te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Treaty of Waitangi, the influential historian Ruth Ross (1920-1982) remarked in 1972, is “a bloody difficult subject”. She should have known – she devoted most of her working life to trying to make sense of it, especially the text in te reo Māori. </p>
<p>That difficulty persists to this day.</p>
<p>Discussion and debate in New Zealand about te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi has been dominated for decades by two kinds of discourse: history (or rather what is thought to be history) and the law.</p>
<p>Much of what has been taken for history about te Tiriti/the Treaty has been produced by those who have worked outside the universities in Aotearoa New Zealand. History is a discipline that doesn’t present many strong barriers to those who wish to participate in the conversations and controversies it can stir up.</p>
<p>Anyone, whether academically trained or not, can presume to do history, discuss and debate it. This has increasingly become the case as the practice of history has been democratised in recent times.</p>
<p>It’s also the case, as I point out in my new book, <a href="https://aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/a-bloody-difficult-subject-ruth-ross-te-tiriti-o-waitangi-and-the-making-of-history/">‘A Bloody Difficult Subject’: Ruth Ross, te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Making of History</a>, that only some of the story about te Tiriti/the Treaty that has had the most impact on public life in New Zealand has been produced in accordance with the scholarly protocols of the discipline of history.</p>
<p>This is because it takes the form of <em>foundational</em> history. This is a kind of historical work in which authors claim that a particular event or text – in this case the making of the Treaty/te Tiriti or the texts of te Tiriti and the Treaty – comprises principles, whether moral or legal, that created the very foundations of the nation.</p>
<h2>Foundational histories</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524292/original/file-20230504-28-vtwqou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524292/original/file-20230504-28-vtwqou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524292/original/file-20230504-28-vtwqou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524292/original/file-20230504-28-vtwqou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524292/original/file-20230504-28-vtwqou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524292/original/file-20230504-28-vtwqou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524292/original/file-20230504-28-vtwqou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524292/original/file-20230504-28-vtwqou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The story that has been told basically goes like this: the foundations of the New Zealand nation state – and the basis of its sovereignty – lie in the historic agreement between Māori and Pākehā that was made in 1840. </p>
<p>It amounts to a moral and legal contract between the two parties, both of whom entered into it with a sound enough knowledge of most of its terms, even though it was written in two languages (te reo Māori and English).</p>
<p>It claims that in this agreement Māori ceded sovereignty to the British Crown, but only on the basis that the Crown undertook to protect the chiefs’ <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?&keywords=rangatiratanga">rangatiratanga</a> and their people’s rights of possession to all their lands and other treasures (taonga).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-significance-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-110982">Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>It acknowledges that these terms were repeatedly breached by the New Zealand state (also known as the British Crown) in the years after the Treaty/te Tiriti was made, and recognises that this inflicted enormous losses on Māori. </p>
<p>But it also asserts that the suffering they consequently suffered can be repaired (and the legitimacy of the nation redeemed) by the New Zealand state undertaking to honour the principles of te Tiriti/the Treaty.</p>
<p>This story about the Treaty/te Tiriti is an alluring one and it’s become very popular and powerful among many New Zealanders, both Māori and Pākehā – despite the fact that it amounts to a myth (or, as I will suggest later, <em>because</em> it does).</p>
<h2>Founding myths</h2>
<p>In everyday parlance, “myth” refers to a statement that is widely considered to be false. In using the word to describe foundational histories of te Tiriti/the Treaty I don’t exclude this connotation, but I have something more ambiguous in mind.</p>
<p>Most myths have a genuine link to a genuine past. Indeed, to be considered plausible, historical accounts must be able to show they have, at the very least, a partial relationship to past reality, and thus what is regarded as historically truthful. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealands-indigenous-reconciliation-efforts-show-having-a-treaty-isnt-enough-49890">New Zealand's indigenous reconciliation efforts show having a treaty isn't enough</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In this case, there can be little doubt the British Crown had a moral purpose in choosing to make a treaty with the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand, namely to protect them against the ravages it had good reason to fear British colonisation would cause.</p>
<p>Likewise, there can be no doubt the Crown sought to make a treaty with the chiefs as though they were sovereign. Similarly, the Crown undoubtedly accepted Māori had some rights of possession in regard to land.</p>
<p>Yet the mythical account that foundational histories have provided of te Tiriti/the Treaty is one dimensional. They wrench from the past single traits such as the British Crown’s moral purpose and then proceed to portray them as though they’re the very essence and sum total of past reality. As a result, the story they tell about the historical agreement is egregiously incomplete.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524533/original/file-20230504-1161-ejrzrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524533/original/file-20230504-1161-ejrzrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524533/original/file-20230504-1161-ejrzrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524533/original/file-20230504-1161-ejrzrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524533/original/file-20230504-1161-ejrzrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524533/original/file-20230504-1161-ejrzrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524533/original/file-20230504-1161-ejrzrj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Incomplete histories: a fragment of one copy of the Treaty of Waitangi.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Text and meaning</h2>
<p>These myths achieve their effect not so much by falsifying the past as by distortion, oversimplification and omission of historical material that does not serve their creators’ purpose or runs counter to it. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>They skirt around the historical fact that the British Crown often laid claim to sovereignty in New Zealand in the early 1840s on grounds <em>other than</em> the Treaty. These include the notorious legal doctrine of discovery that was the basis upon which the British Crown claimed much of the continent now known as Australia.</p></li>
<li><p>They play down the fact that the British Crown didn’t regard Māori as fully sovereign and that it believed the chiefs needed to cede the limited sovereignty they had so the Crown could provide the protection it reckoned Māori needed.</p></li>
<li><p>They ignore the fact that the British Crown did not define the precise nature of Māori rights of possession in land that it undertook to guarantee in te Tiriti/the Treaty, and that it also limited those rights by stipulating in the agreement that Māori could only sell land to the Crown.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>However, the most problematic aspect of foundational histories, historically speaking, does not lie in any of these inconvenient historical truths. It lies in two other things:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>It assumes or pretends that a single interpretation can be given of what te Tiriti/the Treaty meant in the past or means in the present, thereby ignoring that any text has multivalent meanings, and especially one that’s in two languages.</p></li>
<li><p>It assumes or claims that the party that offered the Treaty – the British Crown – conceived of the Treaty as a statement of principles that was to provide the foundations of the New Zealand nation, even though there’s little if any historical evidence to suggest the Crown’s agents saw it in this way.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-should-be-wary-of-scare-stories-comparing-the-voice-with-new-zealands-waitangi-tribunal-204676">Australians should be wary of scare stories comparing the Voice with New Zealand’s Waitangi Tribunal</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>History and the law</h2>
<p>The problematic nature of foundational history as a means of enabling New Zealanders to understand the historic agreement made in 1840 has become all the greater in recent decades. </p>
<p>Most professional historians who have researched and written about te Tiriti/the Treaty have ceded their interpretive authority to what has become the dominant idiom in the interpretation of the Treaty – the law – which has told a story about the Treaty that mirrors that narrated by foundational history.</p>
<p>They have done this in several ways. They have sought to tell a story about te Tiriti/the Treaty that is <em>useful</em> to the law-makers, rather than just ensuring the stories they might tell will be <em>relevant</em> in some way to a consideration of the Treaty/te Tiriti in the New Zealand firmament, and the losses Māori have suffered since colonisation began.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/waitangi-day-2023-why-article-3-of-the-treaty-deserves-more-attention-in-the-age-of-co-governance-198976">Waitangi Day 2023: why Article 3 of the Treaty deserves more attention in the age of 'co-governance'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>They have misunderstood the nature of the story that lawyers have tended to tell about te Tiriti/the Treaty, treating it as though it amounts to history, even though the lawyers have made no such claim for their storytelling. </p>
<p>It might be argued that their confusion is understandable: when a professional historian hears, reads or sees a story about the past they are hard-wired to think the storyteller is making a <em>historical</em> claim about that past (in this case the Treaty/te Tiriti) – as distinct, say, from a legal, political or philosophical claim.</p>
<p>But this is nonetheless a mistake, rather like reading a work of historical fiction as though it’s a scholarly history. In the context of te Tiriti/the Treaty, a lawyer is primarily concerned with the present-day addressing and redressing of historical processes. Whereas a professional historian is, or should be, mainly interested in a disinterested retrieving and recounting of the past as it really was.</p>
<p>Further, historians have accepted the way lawyers have treated the Treaty as an act or event that’s first and foremost legal in nature, and especially constitutional, rather than considering it as an historical act or event that was principally political and diplomatic in character.</p>
<p>In doing all these things, professional historians have no doubt had the best of intentions. But there can also be little doubt they have crossed the razor-thin line that should separate historical scholarship from political or legal advocacy.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524534/original/file-20230504-17-m2aiin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524534/original/file-20230504-17-m2aiin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524534/original/file-20230504-17-m2aiin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524534/original/file-20230504-17-m2aiin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524534/original/file-20230504-17-m2aiin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524534/original/file-20230504-17-m2aiin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/524534/original/file-20230504-17-m2aiin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Every February 6, New Zealanders commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi at the Treaty Grounds in Waitangi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘A bloody difficult subject’</h2>
<p>As a result of what they have done, numerous professional historians have lent a degree of historical legitimacy to the story the law has been telling about te Tiriti/the Treaty that it wouldn’t otherwise have, and which it doesn’t warrant.</p>
<p>In effect, they’ve overreached themselves.</p>
<p>If they had practised their craft strictly in keeping with their discipline’s conventions, they would have found it impossible to produce the kind of mythical account of the Treaty/te Tiriti that they have provided by writing foundational history.</p>
<p>They would also have told a very different story about the historic agreement. This is not idle speculation but a matter of fact. As I discuss in one of the closing chapters of my book, there are several historians who have done just this.</p>
<p>Among the most important have been legal historians. Often trained in both the law and history, they dedicate themselves to trying to recover the past as it happened, rather than providing accounts of the kind the law requires in order to address contemporary problems.</p>
<p>These historians demonstrate that the law <em>did</em> play an important role in the making of te Tiriti/the Treaty, but not in the fashion imagined by lawyers. It was not so much the <em>source</em> of legal principles that determined the terms of te Tiriti/the Treaty, as it was a <em>resource</em> that was deployed in a highly pragmatic fashion by a large range of British players, who were seeking to advance a variety of political, economic and cultural goals that were momentary in nature.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/learning-to-live-with-the-messy-complicated-history-of-how-aotearoa-new-zealand-was-colonised-172219">Learning to live with the 'messy, complicated history' of how Aotearoa New Zealand was colonised</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Horizons past and present</h2>
<p>What role, then, is the discipline of history best suited to play regarding te Tiriti/the Treaty and its place in contemporary public life in New Zealand?</p>
<p>By seeking to tell more truthful histories, historians might provoke New Zealanders to consider whether there are not intellectually sounder bases than the Treaty/te Tiriti for the political project it stands for.</p>
<p>Such histories could also provide – and indeed have provided – accounts that show how differently te Tiriti/the Treaty has been interpreted and understood over time, changing as the present has changed. In performing such a task, historians can demonstrate, in the words of an American historian, “how the horizon of the present is not the horizon of all that is in the world”.</p>
<p>In other words, the discipline of history’s primary intellectual justification probably lies in it being able to reveal that, once upon a time, there were ways of seeing things that are different to those that dominate in contemporary society. Works of history should surprise, even astound readers, by retrieving those ways of seeing and acting that are no longer known by most people.</p>
<p>In this sense, good history is a comparative exercise, drawing attention to differences <em>and</em> similarities between the past and the present. This could enable us to ask whether, in seeking to redress Māori loss and suffering, something is to be gained by broadening our horizons to include some of those that have largely disappeared from sight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202038/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bain Munro Attwood has received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The story some histories tell about the 1840 agreement between Māori and the British Crown may be popular and even comforting. But they are also incomplete – and even unhelpful.Bain Munro Attwood, Professor of History, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2046762023-05-01T02:00:03Z2023-05-01T02:00:03ZAustralians should be wary of scare stories comparing the Voice with New Zealand’s Waitangi Tribunal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523533/original/file-20230501-4343-38yupq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=74%2C1721%2C3012%2C2503&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fragment of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Australian Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/131876087/australian-politician-jacinta-price-claims-waitangi-tribunal-holds-veto-power-over-new-zealand-government">recent claim</a> that New Zealand’s Waitangi Tribunal has veto powers over parliament was met with surprise in New Zealand, especially by the members of the tribunal itself. That’s because it is just plain wrong.</p>
<p>As the debate around the Voice to Parliament ramps up, we can probably expect similar claims to be made ahead of this year’s referendum. But the issue is so important to Australia’s future that such misinformation should not go unchallenged.</p>
<p>From an Australian perspective, New Zealand may appear ahead of the game in recognising Indigenous voices constitutionally. But that has certainly not extended to granting a parliamentary power of veto to Māori.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/">Waitangi Tribunal</a> was originally established as a commission of inquiry in 1975, given the power only to make recommendations to government. And so it remains. The Crown alone appoints tribunal members and many are non-Māori.</p>
<p>As with all commissions of inquiry, it’s up to the government of the day to make a political decision about whether or not to implement those recommendations. </p>
<h2>Deceptive and wrong</h2>
<p>Price’s claim echoed a February <a href="https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/the-new-zealand-maori-voice-to-parliament-and-what-we-can-expect-from-australia">article and paper</a> published by the Institute of Public Affairs, aimed at influencing the Voice referendum. Titled “The New Zealand Māori voice to Parliament and what we can expect from Australia”, it was written by the director of the institute’s legal rights program, John Storey.</p>
<p>The paper makes a number of assertions: the Waitangi Tribunal has a veto over the New Zealand parliament’s power to pass certain legislation; the Waitangi Tribunal was established to hear land claims but its brief has expanded to include all aspects of public policy; and the Waitangi Tribunal “shows the Voice will create new Indigenous rights”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-australia-could-learn-from-new-zealand-about-indigenous-representation-201761">What Australia could learn from New Zealand about Indigenous representation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The last of the statements is deceptive and the others are completely wrong. The Waitangi Tribunal’s jurisdiction was largely set in stone by the New Zealand parliament in 1975 when it was established. </p>
<p>Far from investigating land claims, it initially wasn’t able to examine any claims dating from before 1975. Parliament changed the tribunal’s jurisdiction in 1985, giving it retrospective powers back to 1840 (when the <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-the-treaty-of-waitangi">Treaty of Waitangi/te Tiriti o Waitangi</a> was signed).</p>
<p>The tribunal then started hearing land claims. But in its first decade, it focused on fisheries, planning issues, the loss of Māori language, government decisions being made at the time and general issues of public policy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523536/original/file-20230501-1209-q6y0pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523536/original/file-20230501-1209-q6y0pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523536/original/file-20230501-1209-q6y0pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523536/original/file-20230501-1209-q6y0pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523536/original/file-20230501-1209-q6y0pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523536/original/file-20230501-1209-q6y0pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523536/original/file-20230501-1209-q6y0pk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Honouring the Treaty: New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins at the 2023 Waitangi Day commemorations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Historic grievances</h2>
<p>Over the past 38 years, the tribunal has focused on what are called “historical Treaty claims”, covering the period 1840 to 1992. In 1992 a <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1992/0121/latest/DLM281433.html">major settlement</a> of fishing claims began an era of negotiation and settlement of these claims, quite separate from the tribunal itself. </p>
<p>With the majority of significant historic claims now settled or in negotiation, that aspect of the tribunal’s work is coming to an end. It has returned to hearing claims about social issues and other more contemporary issues. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/solicitor-general-confirms-voice-model-is-legally-sound-will-not-fetter-or-impede-parliament-204266">Solicitor-general confirms Voice model is legally sound, will not 'fetter or impede' parliament</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Far from expanding its jurisdiction, the tribunal’s powers have been steadily reduced in recent decades. In 1993, it lost the power to make recommendations involving private land – that is, land not owned by the Crown. In 2008 it lost the power to investigate new historical claims, as the government looked to close off new claims that could undermine current settlements. </p>
<p>There is one area where the tribunal was given the power to force the Crown to return land. The 1984-1990 Labour government set a policy to rid itself of what were seen as surplus Crown assets. A deal was struck between Māori claimants and the Crown to allow the tribunal to make binding recommendations to return land in very special cases. </p>
<p>This compromise was not created by the tribunal but through ambiguity in legislation, which was resolved in favour of Māori claimants in the Court of Appeal. The ability to return land has almost never been used and is being progressively repealed across the country as Treaty settlements are implemented in legislation.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1651634101139681282"}"></div></p>
<h2>Wide political support</h2>
<p>Storey quotes a number of tribunal reports, which make findings about the Crown’s responsibilities, as if these findings are binding on the Crown or even on parliament. This is not the case. The Waitangi Tribunal investigates claims that the Crown has acted contrary to the “<a href="https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/publications-and-resources/waitangi-tribunal-reports/ngatiwai-mandate-inquiry/chapter-3/">principles of the Treaty</a>”. </p>
<p>The Waitangi Tribunal establishes what those principles are, but they are binding on neither the courts nor parliament. Having made findings, the tribunal makes recommendations – not to parliament, as Storey suggests, but to ministers of the Crown. Some recommendations are implemented, others are not. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-significance-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-110982">Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Where there is a dispute between the Crown and Māori, the tribunal has often recommended negotiation rather than make specific recommendations for redress.</p>
<p>Storey has <a href="https://ipa.org.au/ipa-today/new-zealand-shows-us-how-the-voice-will-work">elsewhere referred</a> to the tribunal as a “so-called advisory, now binding, Māori Voice to Parliament” that has “decreed” certain things. In the longer paper he does admit the “tribunal cannot dictate the exact form any redress offered by government must take”. But he then falls back on the notion of a “moral veto” – that its status is so elevated that parliament is forced, however reluctantly, to do its bidding.</p>
<p>Yet not only does the Crown ignore tribunal recommendations as it chooses, it refuses even to be bound by the tribunal’s expert findings on history in negotiating settlements.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-actually-is-a-treaty-what-could-it-mean-for-indigenous-people-200261">What actually is a treaty? What could it mean for Indigenous people?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Waitangi Tribunal will remain a permanent commission of inquiry because there is wide political support for its work. Nor can be it held solely responsible for increasing Māori assertiveness or political engagement with government, even if this was in any way a bad thing. </p>
<p>A larger social shift has taken place in Aotearoa New Zealand over the past few decades. No fiat from the Waitangi Tribunal has eliminated the cultural misappropriation of Māori faces and imagery – something Storey warns could mean “tea towels with a depiction of Uluru/Ayers Rock, or boomerang fridge magnets, would become problematic”.</p>
<p>The Waitangi Tribunal has often done no more than make Māori histories, Māori perspectives and Māori values accessible to a non-Māori majority. It has certainly had no power to control where debates on Indigenous issues fall.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204676/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Belgrave was Research Manager for the Waitangi Tribunal, 1990-1993, and was commissioned at various times until 2006 to undertake historical research for the Tribunal.</span></em></p>Far from expanding its jurisdiction or having a veto over parliament, the powers of New Zealand’s Waitangi Tribunal have been steadily reduced in recent decades.Michael Belgrave, Professor of History, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2020372023-03-20T19:23:54Z2023-03-20T19:23:54ZNZ universities are not normal Crown institutions – they shouldn’t be ‘Tiriti-led’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516247/original/file-20230320-28-gb9640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C22%2C5084%2C3363&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As part of its <a href="https://www.otago.ac.nz/otago0241079.pdf">aspiration</a> to be “Tiriti-led”, the University of Otago has embarked on a <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/atea/15-03-2023/the-process-to-rebrand-our-oldest-university">consultation process</a> to re-brand. The proposed change involves a new logo and a new, deeply symbolic Māori name: Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. </p>
<p>Universities occasionally change logos, names and marketing strategies. All New Zealand institutions have added te reo Māori to their original titles, often opting for a literal translation – “Te Whare Wānanga” – to describe their status as a university. But Otago is taking it a step further. </p>
<p>Metaphorically, “whakaihu” refers to the university’s place as the country’s oldest university, as well as its Māori students often being the first to graduate from their whanau and communities. And it symbolically includes everyone on the “<a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search/?keywords=waka">waka</a>”.</p>
<p>That is exactly what a university is supposed to be, of course – a place for everyone. A place where people are free to think and develop ideas, even contested or unpopular ones. As the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2020/0038/latest/LMS170676.html">Education and Training Act 2020</a> says, universities must operate as the “critic and conscience of society”. </p>
<p>But being “Tiriti-led” is not as straightforward. It throws into sharp relief where universities sit in relation to the Crown under te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi. This, in turn, raises quite fundamental questions about what a university is in the first place.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1635823270414147585"}"></div></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-significance-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-110982">Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is te Tiriti, what is a university?</h2>
<p>Essentially, <a href="https://www.archives.govt.nz/discover-our-stories/the-treaty-of-waitangi">te Tiriti o Waitangi</a> was the Māori language agreement in 1840 between Māori hapu and the British Crown which set out the terms of British settlement. Britain could establish government over its own people, hapu would retain authority over their own affairs. </p>
<p>Māori would enjoy the “rights and privileges” of British subjects, a legal status which continues to evolve as New Zealand citizenship. The Treaty of Waitangi is an English language version of the agreement with different and less favourable emphases for Māori.</p>
<p>By wanting to become “Tiriti-led”, <a href="https://www.otago.ac.nz/otago0241079.pdf">Otago has decided</a> it is part of the Crown party to this agreement. This makes Kai Tahu, as mana whenua (people of the land), the university’s “principal Tiriti partner”. </p>
<p>By contrast, when <a href="https://www.massey.ac.nz/about/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-massey/strategy-and-charter/">Massey University says</a> it’s Tiriti-led, it doesn’t explicitly say it’s part of the Crown. Auckland University of Technology’s <a href="https://www.aut.ac.nz/about/auts-leadership/welcome-from-the-vice-chancellor">vice-chancellor</a> has said his university is Tiriti-led, but there’s no definition to be easily found on the public record. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/colonial-ideas-have-kept-nz-and-australia-in-a-rut-of-policy-failure-we-need-policy-by-indigenous-people-for-the-people-188583">Colonial ideas have kept NZ and Australia in a rut of policy failure. We need policy by Indigenous people, for the people</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Styling a relationship in this way is significant – but not necessarily in ways that keep faith with te Tiriti o Waitangi, or with the essential purposes of a university.</p>
<p>Universities are owned and principally funded by the Crown. But their obligation to independent scholarship means they can’t be part of the Crown in the <em>same</em> way as a government department. Universities don’t take direction from ministers in the same way, and their staff are not public servants. They are not part of the executive branch of government.</p>
<p>Together with their students and graduates, <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0048/1.0/whole.html">academics <em>are</em> the university</a> – a community of scholars obliged to contribute to the discovery and sharing of knowledge, but not obliged to serve the government of the day.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516252/original/file-20230320-14-r3wi40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516252/original/file-20230320-14-r3wi40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516252/original/file-20230320-14-r3wi40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516252/original/file-20230320-14-r3wi40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516252/original/file-20230320-14-r3wi40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516252/original/file-20230320-14-r3wi40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516252/original/file-20230320-14-r3wi40.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the same waka but on different sides of the partnership: Prime Minister Chris Hipkins at Waitangi this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Us and them</h2>
<p>Parliament and the executive (government ministers) together decide what te Tiriti means to the Crown side of the relationship. Public servants offer advice, but ultimately take ministers’ instructions on giving effect to whatever is the Crown’s Tiriti policy. </p>
<p>Academics, however, can take a different view. They’re not bound by what the Crown side of the agreement thinks. And, as developments in te Tiriti policy show, academic independence makes a difference.</p>
<p>In 1877, New Zealand’s <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/the-chief-justice-declares-that-the-treaty-of-waitangi-is-worthless-and-a-simple-nullity">Supreme Court found</a> the Treaty was legally a “simple nullity” because it had not been incorporated into domestic law. It wasn’t the public servant’s role to object, at least not in public. That kind of intellectual freedom belongs elsewhere. Explicitly, it’s one of the reasons universities exist. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putting-te-tiriti-at-the-centre-of-aotearoa-new-zealands-public-policy-can-strengthen-democracy-heres-how-180305">Putting te Tiriti at the centre of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public policy can strengthen democracy – here's how</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Academics – Māori and others – have contributed significantly to developments in te Tiriti policy since 1877, especially in more recent years. Their contributions have often contested prevailing political thought. Universities have given Māori academics – and through them, Māori communities – the kind of voice unavailable to public servants working for the Crown partner. </p>
<p>Partnership is one of the “<a href="https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/o-matou-mohiotanga/crownmaori-relations/he-tirohanga-o-kawa-ki-te-tiriti-o-waitangi">Treaty principles</a>”, developed legally and politically as an interpretive guide to the agreement. But partnership creates a “them” and “us” binary. </p>
<p>In my book, <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4172-2">Sharing the Sovereign: recognition, treaties and the state</a>, I show how this binary encourages people to think of the Crown as exclusively Pākehā. Any institution that is not solely Māori is an institution that belongs to “them”. </p>
<p>This reinforces Māori separation from the university as an institution that should belongs to all of us – and to each of us in our own ways.</p>
<h2>Academics are not public servants</h2>
<p>If an institution represents one side of a partnership, that institution cannot be a “place for everyone”. A Māori student or staff member should be able to say, “I belong here as much as anybody else, with the same rights, opportunities and obligations to contribute to the institution’s culture, values and purpose.”</p>
<p>That includes the right to study and teach te Tiriti with an independence that is not available to public servants.</p>
<p>In 2020, I helped develop “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1468796819896466">Critical Tiriti Analysis</a>”, a policy evaluation method that could be used to assess public policy consistency with te Tiriti. While anecdotally it seems now to be widely used across the public service, it’s not something likely to have been written by a public servant. The Crown is a cautious Tiriti partner. </p>
<p>Thoroughness and objectivity – but not political caution – guide academic contributions to policy debate. Such contributions are different in style and purpose from the kind of policy making that it is the duty of the public service to undertake. </p>
<p>Universities are not the Crown in the same sense, and this is why they are not Tiriti partners.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Otago University has followed Massey in aspiring to be a “Tiriti-led” institution. But this implies being on the Crown side of the partnership – which is not where a university should be.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1989762023-02-03T00:31:36Z2023-02-03T00:31:36ZWaitangi Day 2023: why Article 3 of the Treaty deserves more attention in the age of ‘co-governance’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507977/original/file-20230202-13499-md4bol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C12%2C4268%2C2811&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The heated (and often confused) debate about “<a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/08/11/explainer-what-is-co-governance/">co-governance</a>” in Aotearoa New Zealand inevitably leads back to its source, <a href="https://www.archives.govt.nz/discover-our-stories/the-treaty-of-waitangi">Te Tiriti o Waitangi</a>. But, as its long-contested meanings demonstrate, very little in the Treaty of Waitangi is straightforward.</p>
<p>Two versions of the 1840 document were written, one <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/read-the-treaty/english-text">in English</a> and one in <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/read-the-treaty/maori-text">te reo</a> Māori. About 540 Māori, including 13 women, had put their names or <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/4170">moko</a> to the document. All but 39 <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/making-the-treaty/signing-the-treaty#:%7E:text=Gathering%20signatures%20from%20around%20the,Waitangi%20on%206%20February%201840.">signed the Māori text</a>.</p>
<p>But the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/read-the-Treaty/differences-between-the-texts">differences in the translations</a> were so significant that there has been debate ever since about what much of this agreement actually meant, especially Articles 1 and 2.</p>
<p>Article 3, on the other hand, attracts less controversy – which is interesting, because it was and is critical to debates such as the one swirling around co-governance. In effect, Article 3 acted as a mechanism by which the <a href="https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68338112/Maori%20Electoral%20Option%201994.pdf">fundamental rights and privileges</a> of British citizenship would be afforded Māori.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507978/original/file-20230202-16618-7ntl8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507978/original/file-20230202-16618-7ntl8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507978/original/file-20230202-16618-7ntl8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507978/original/file-20230202-16618-7ntl8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507978/original/file-20230202-16618-7ntl8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507978/original/file-20230202-16618-7ntl8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507978/original/file-20230202-16618-7ntl8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507978/original/file-20230202-16618-7ntl8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Hobson, circa 1840.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the English language version, the Crown promises the Queen’s “royal protection and imparts to them all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects”. In te reo, the Crown gave an assurance that Māori would have the Queen’s protection and all rights accorded to British subjects.</p>
<p>The promise of these rights and privileges, coupled with Articles 1 and 2, conferred a fundamental commitment of a <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Publications/WT-Principles-of-the-Treaty-of-Waitangi-as-expressed-by-the-Courts-and-the-Waitangi-Tribunal.pdf">partnership</a>, in which the two sides could be expected to act reasonably, honourably and in good faith towards each other.</p>
<p>Although there were many British laws, practices and principles in existence by this time, four particularly stand out.</p>
<h2>Participation</h2>
<p>The ideal was that laws reflected the community (or a portion of it at least) and were made with the participation and consent of citizens. This was a long-standing principle, in that law and governance could not be something arbitrary or controlled absolutely by one person.</p>
<p>There had been efforts to control royal abuses of power since the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/originsofparliament/birthofparliament/overview/magnacarta/">Magna Carta</a> in 1215 and the establishment of a “common council of the kingdom”, by which high-ranking community leaders could be summoned to discuss important matters.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-growing-number-of-non-maori-new-zealanders-are-embracing-learning-te-reo-but-theres-more-to-it-than-language-198154">A growing number of non-Māori New Zealanders are embracing learning te reo – but there's more to it than language</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Later, the 1688 <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/1/2/introduction">Bill of Rights</a> required free and frequent parliaments which would contain the right of free speech within them (parliamentary privilege in today’s terms). This meant representatives could speak without fear. Monarchs could no longer suspend laws on a whim, levy taxes at their pleasure, or maintain a standing army during peacetime without the permission of parliament.</p>
<p>The anomaly that only about 5% of British citizens (wealthy and entitled men) could actually vote for members of parliament was not resolved until <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/houseofcommons/reformacts/overview/reformact1832/">legal reform</a> in the early 1830s. This began the expansion of the political franchise and the widening of control over parliament.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507979/original/file-20230202-19461-cm8k8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507979/original/file-20230202-19461-cm8k8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507979/original/file-20230202-19461-cm8k8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507979/original/file-20230202-19461-cm8k8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507979/original/file-20230202-19461-cm8k8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507979/original/file-20230202-19461-cm8k8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507979/original/file-20230202-19461-cm8k8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The British Houses of Parliament in the 1800s, source of the laws underpinning the articles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Individual rights</h2>
<p>All were deemed equal in the eyes of the law, and the delivery of justice with integrity could be expected. Clause 39 of the Magna Carta stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clause 40 added: “To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.” The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/aep/Cha2/31/2">Habeas Corpus Act</a> of 1679 required a court to examine the lawfulness of a prisoner’s detention, thus preventing unlawful or arbitrary imprisonment.</p>
<p>The Bill of Rights prohibited excessive penalties, cruel and unusual punishment, and the imposition of fines or penalties before convictions. It also guaranteed the right for all citizens to petition, where they could complain or seek help from the authorities, without fear of punishment.</p>
<h2>Tolerance and a free press</h2>
<p>After the Reformation, religious tolerance among British subjects took centuries to develop. The 1701 Toleration Act allowed some <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/religion/overview/catholicsnonconformists-/#:%7E:text=Toleration%20for%20nonconformists&text=In%201689%2C%20after%20much%20debate,of%20the%20oath%20of%20allegiance.">tolerance</a> of the public practising of different religions, although the monarch could never be Catholic. But it was not until 1829 that <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/2015-parliament-in-the-making/get-involved1/2015-banners-exhibition/rachel-gadsden/1829-catholic-emancipation-act-gallery/#:%7E:text=In%20the%201828%20County%20Clare,Irish%20peasants%20entitled%20to%20vote.">Catholics</a> – and some other faiths – could even be elected to parliament in Britain.</p>
<p>The importance of tolerance can be seen in the <a href="https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/discover-collections/read-watch-play/maori/treaty-waitangi/treaty-close/content-treaty-waitangi">oral promise</a> made by Governor William Hobson at the time of the signing the Treaty: all established religious faiths would be tolerated in New Zealand, “and also Māori custom shall be alike protected by him”. Although an oral commitment, to many signatories it was just as binding as the written words.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/putting-te-tiriti-at-the-centre-of-aotearoa-new-zealands-public-policy-can-strengthen-democracy-heres-how-180305">Putting te Tiriti at the centre of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public policy can strengthen democracy – here's how</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Public debate and the role of a free press was another important privilege. Although British laws governing libel, blasphemy and sedition were continued after 1688, there was a clear trend toward expanding liberty, allowing both booksellers and newspapers to proliferate. </p>
<p>This helped build the modern belief in the “fourth estate”, and that the media would act as a positive influence on decision makers.</p>
<h2>Forward together</h2>
<p>Despite the fine sounding language of Article 3 and all the expectations that went with it, the reality was that for many decades after 1840, the promised rights and privileges did not arrive for everyone.</p>
<p>The governor, followed by the early stages of representative government, ruled with a near absolute power that crushed dissent. The law itself was often used to target the rights and privileges of Māori, with some of the darkest examples occurring during and after the New Zealand Wars/Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa.</p>
<p><a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/inquiries/district-inquiries/te-paparahi-o-te-raki-northland">Equality</a> for most was largely a chimera, tolerance was elusive, and the press did not act as a brake on atrocious decision making.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-crown-is-maori-too-citizenship-sovereignty-and-the-treaty-of-waitangi-111168">The Crown is Māori too - citizenship, sovereignty and the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Thankfully, the world is different today. Positive change has happened through successive generations of Māori defending the rights guaranteed in 1840, the Waitangi Tribunal, and the critical questioning of early and contemporary government policies by Māori, politicians, community leaders, media and scholars. </p>
<p>There have been official apologies, compensation and redress, although only a portion of what was alienated has been returned.</p>
<p>As we move forward and look for new ways to work together to achieve equal and equitable partnership based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, it is important to remember the relevance of Article 3 and what it continues to offer in a modern context.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Article 3 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi gave Māori the fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed under British law. Understanding it is critical to modern debates over ‘co-governance’ and partnership.Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoClaire Breen, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoValmaine Toki, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1960312023-01-08T19:00:02Z2023-01-08T19:00:02ZCan customary harvesting of NZ’s native species be sustainable? Archaeology and palaeo-ecology provide some answers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501721/original/file-20221218-12-qnifpf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C79%2C5296%2C2150&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Tessa Palmer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Aotearoa’s wilderness areas are the jewel in our ecotourism crown. But conservation laws may soon be in for a radical shake-up. </p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://www.doc.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/our-work/options-development-group/options-development-group-report-march-2022.pdf">proposals</a> would, among other things, allow Māori to resume traditional harvesting practices (mahinga kai) on conservation land. </p>
<p>This has <a href="https://northandsouth.co.nz/2022/07/14/the-fate-of-our-national-parks/">elicited heated emotions</a> from some conservationists, who fear that biodiversity protection will be compromised, as well as from proponents of mahinga kai, who have been alienated from their traditional lands and customs for more than 130 years. </p>
<p>What does this all mean for our native species?</p>
<h2>The times are a-changing</h2>
<p>Article Two of <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/">Te Tiriti o Waitangi</a> guaranteed Māori authority over natural resources. But, with government-administered and <a href="https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/tau-fined-over-wood-pigeons">legally enforced</a> “no take” policies covering most conservation land and native species, it is little wonder that many Māori feel alienated from their traditional lands and practices. </p>
<p>Article Four of the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1987/0065/latest/DLM103610.html">Conservation Act 1987</a> states the government must give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti. In 2022, in response to these disparities, the Department of Conservation released a <a href="https://www.doc.govt.nz/globalassets/documents/our-work/options-development-group/options-development-group-report-march-2022.pdf">report</a> calling for an overhaul of Aotearoa’s conservation laws to have Māori at their heart. This was a move away from “preservation and protection” to “maintenance, enhancement and sustainable use”. </p>
<p>The report received a lukewarm reception from the government. But it is likely only a matter of time before many of these changes begin to be implemented.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fishing-with-elders-builds-these-childrens-oji-cree-language-cultural-knowledge-and-writing-138915">Fishing with Elders builds these children’s Oji-Cree language, cultural knowledge and writing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There are many precedents. Indigenous peoples in many countries lawfully practice <a href="https://theconversation.com/traditional-hunting-gets-headlines-but-is-not-the-big-threat-to-turtles-and-dugongs-69038">traditional harvesting</a> of some protected species. <a href="https://www.mpi.govt.nz/fishing-aquaculture/maori-customary-fishing/customary-fisheries-management-areas-rules-and-maps/">Customary management areas</a> in Aotearoa, such as mātaitai reserves and taiāpure, demonstrate that community and Indigenous leadership can be effective at managing resources. </p>
<p>In many instances, communities may be more motivated to support conservation measures if species can also be used as a resource, such as the harvesting of tītī (sooty shearwaters).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people with harvested tītī (sooty shearwaters) hung up to dry." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501826/original/file-20221219-18-vgeae8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501826/original/file-20221219-18-vgeae8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501826/original/file-20221219-18-vgeae8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501826/original/file-20221219-18-vgeae8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501826/original/file-20221219-18-vgeae8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501826/original/file-20221219-18-vgeae8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501826/original/file-20221219-18-vgeae8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Māori in Foveaux Strait have practiced traditional harvesting of tītī (sooty shearwaters) for hundreds of years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hocken Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How do we ensure any harvesting is sustainable in this fast-changing world? Mātauranga (knowledge) and tikanga (custom) Māori, developed over centuries, can provide many of these answers. Combined with scientific methods and data, these bodies of knowledge create a powerful base from which managers can make robust and evidence-based decisions about harvest practices. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-hunters-are-protecting-animals-land-and-waterways-118652">Indigenous hunters are protecting animals, land and waterways</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The past is the key to the present</h2>
<p>Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua – I walk backwards into the future, with my eyes fixed on my past.</p>
<p>Palaeo-ecology, archaeology and matāuranga Māori share the philosophy that we can learn from the past. All three allow us to reconstruct how past ecosystems functioned, how people and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/chapter-epub/10.1002/9781394169764.ch18">species adapted to harvest pressures</a> and climate change, and how we can use this information moving forward.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An archaeological midden with a pile of shells and other animal remains" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500547/original/file-20221212-24-u7oobq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500547/original/file-20221212-24-u7oobq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500547/original/file-20221212-24-u7oobq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500547/original/file-20221212-24-u7oobq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500547/original/file-20221212-24-u7oobq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500547/original/file-20221212-24-u7oobq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500547/original/file-20221212-24-u7oobq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Archaeological middens contain the remains of animals and trace changes in areas of food gathering.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Justin Maxwell</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Palaeo-ecology and archaeology draw on many tools: </p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ourchangingworld/audio/20171239/waitaha-penguin-out,-yellow-eyed-penguin-in">radiocarbon-dating</a> anchors archaeological and fossil remains in time</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://newzealandecology.org/nzje/3306.pdf">stable dietary isotopes</a> help determine diet and where animals fitted into the food chain</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-did-ancient-moa-survive-the-ice-age-and-what-can-they-teach-us-about-modern-climate-change-183350">ancient DNA</a> is used to determine how and when genetic diversity and population sizes changed through time</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jbi.14092">statistical modelling</a> can show how abundance and distributions of plants and animals have changed, and may continue to change in the future. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>This information can paint a picture of how past ecosystems responded to human impacts as well as predicting how future impacts may affect species and populations.</p>
<h2>To harvest or not to harvest?</h2>
<p>Globally, waves of human settlement generally correlated with the rapid extinction of local species. Hunting rates that would have been sustainable for closely related species still culminated in the flightless <a href="https://hakaimagazine.com/news/from-healthy-to-extinct-in-350-years/">great auk’s extinction</a>. </p>
<p>Many of Aotearoa’s plants and animals are slow to reproduce. Ancient DNA <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ourchangingworld/audio/201808840/hunted-to-extinction-the-chatham-island-sea-lion">analysis and modelling</a> have shown even very low levels of human harvesting resulted in the rapid decline and extinction of numerous New Zealand sea lion lineages. Less than one sea lion killed per person per year, despite a small human population at the time, was enough to seal their fate. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="New Zealand sea lion on a beach" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500549/original/file-20221212-25-g5huck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500549/original/file-20221212-25-g5huck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500549/original/file-20221212-25-g5huck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500549/original/file-20221212-25-g5huck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500549/original/file-20221212-25-g5huck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500549/original/file-20221212-25-g5huck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500549/original/file-20221212-25-g5huck.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While sealions have been harvested in the past, modelling shows slow-reproducing species cannot be taken sustainably.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia/Hase</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other charismatic, slow-breeding animals that would be similarly vulnerable to even low levels of harvest, even if we managed to restore their populations to moderately “healthy” levels, include <a href="https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/kakapo">kākāpō</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1055790318306274">tawaki</a> (<a href="https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/fiordland-crested-penguin">Fiordland crested penguin</a>), <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jbi.12991">hoiho</a> (<a href="https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/yellow-eyed-penguin">yellow-eyed penguin</a>) and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mec.13338">matapo</a> (<a href="https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/stewart-island-shag">Otago shag</a>).</p>
<p>Conversely, several locally abundant species, such as <a href="https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/weka">weka</a>, <a href="https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/new-zealand-pigeon">kererū</a> and <a href="https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/black-swan">kakīānau</a> (black swan) could probably be <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pan3.10196">sustainably harvested</a> in some areas as long as careful guidelines are in place. The archaeological record shows some of these species were regularly hunted for hundreds of years with little evidence of population decline. </p>
<h2>Looking to the future</h2>
<p>No-one is proposing free-for-all harvesting. Poorly managed and unregulated harvest would be a terrible set-back to recent restoration and conservation efforts. But conservation and mahinga kai principles are not mutually exclusive. Both stand to benefit from ecosystem restoration. </p>
<p>Palaeo-ecological tools and insights from archaeology can help inform ecosystem restoration projects by establishing which <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2015.2879">species or lineages</a> were present in a region. They can also facilitate translocations without <a href="https://newzealandecology.org/nzje/3425.pdf">unexpected ecological consequences</a> or failure due to lack of <a href="https://theconversation.com/tuatara-are-returning-to-the-mainland-but-feeding-the-hungry-reptiles-could-be-more-difficult-than-expected-191164">suitable habitat or food</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Weka" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500548/original/file-20221212-338-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500548/original/file-20221212-338-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500548/original/file-20221212-338-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500548/original/file-20221212-338-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500548/original/file-20221212-338-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500548/original/file-20221212-338-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500548/original/file-20221212-338-rbisur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Weka are an important mahinga kai species. But they are also a predator and can affect other taonga species.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia/Bernard Spragg</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Modern ecosystems in Aotearoa are highly degraded and not comparable to those of centuries ago. They are vulnerable to a range of <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/environment/the-sixth-mass-extinction-is-happening-now-and-it-doesnt-look-good-for-us">old and new threats</a>, including invasive predators, habitat loss or modification, and climate change.</p>
<p>An open-ended ethical question driving much of the controversy is whether endangered species should ever be intentionally killed.</p>
<p>Some endangered species might eventually sustain a harvest of, at most, only one or two individuals per year. Such exceedingly limited harvest may be enough to preserve some of the tikanga and mātauranga associated with mahinga kai.</p>
<p>In Te Tiriti, Māori were guaranteed the right to manage and use natural resources. Integrating traditional management practices with a range of scientific tools could enable communities to make evidence-based decisions around what constitutes “sustainable” harvesting. Mahinga kai, science and conservation need not be at odds with one another: they all have a future in Aotearoa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196031/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nic Rawlence receives funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Walter receives funding from Royal Society of New Zealand</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerry Walton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An overhaul of Aotearoa’s conservation laws could allow Māori to resume traditional harvesting practices of some native species.Nic Rawlence, Senior Lecturer in Ancient DNA, University of OtagoKerry Walton, Researcher, University of OtagoRichard Walter, Professor of Archaeology, University of OtagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1954352022-12-01T01:58:23Z2022-12-01T01:58:23ZA new law offers better protection for indigenous plants of significance to Māori, but no requirement to share profits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498351/original/file-20221130-18-yjbbq9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C321%2C6689%2C4013&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Fabrizio Guarisco</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>New Zealand law has generally treated agriculture, biodiversity conservation and the protection of Indigenous knowledge (mātauranga Māori) as separate areas. </p>
<p>This changed last month when parliament passed a major reform of the <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/bills-and-laws/bills-proposed-laws/document/BILL_111271/plant-variety-rights-bill">law covering plant variety rights</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Red kiwifruit" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498094/original/file-20221129-15856-giip2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498094/original/file-20221129-15856-giip2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498094/original/file-20221129-15856-giip2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498094/original/file-20221129-15856-giip2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498094/original/file-20221129-15856-giip2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498094/original/file-20221129-15856-giip2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498094/original/file-20221129-15856-giip2f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The red kiwifruit is protected under intellectual property rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Tommy Atthi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Plant Variety Rights (PVR) are a form of intellectual property designed to encourage innovation in plant breeding and to reward breeders for these efforts. In Aotearoa, popular examples of plants protected under the PVR system include the red kiwifruit and Honeycrisp apples. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2021/0035/latest/LMS352239.html">reform</a> continues to offer this kind of intellectual property to plant breeders, but the law now also extends new protections for the guardian (kaitiaki) relationships Māori have with taonga plant species, as well as for mātauranga Māori. But it stops short of requiring that any benefits from the commercial use of these plants be shared.</p>
<h2>What are taonga plants?</h2>
<p>The new act defines taonga plants as those Māori have special relationships with, either because they are indigenous to Aotearoa or because they are believed to have been brought to the country before European settlement from other parts of the Pacific region. </p>
<p>Iwi, hapū and whānau have kaitiaki relationships with many plant species, grounded in reciprocal and mutual obligations. Māori consider taonga plants as tūpuna (ancestors) and kaitiaki have direct whakapapa (genealogical) connections to them. Mātauranga Māori forms the basis of these kaitiaki relationships, encompassing inter-generational knowledge about how to care for and sustainably use these plants. </p>
<p>For example, Ngāi Tahu has long used taramea (<em>Aciphylla</em> or speargrass) as a fragrance. Historically, taramea resin was extracted through cuttings or fire, processed and preserved, and rubbed on the hair and body. Taramea was also a valuable item in trade between Ngāi Tahu and northern tribes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Close-up of the native speargrass taramea." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498348/original/file-20221130-22-vyt845.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498348/original/file-20221130-22-vyt845.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498348/original/file-20221130-22-vyt845.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498348/original/file-20221130-22-vyt845.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498348/original/file-20221130-22-vyt845.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498348/original/file-20221130-22-vyt845.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498348/original/file-20221130-22-vyt845.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The native speargrass taramea is a traditional source of fragrance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Molly NZ</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The protection of taonga plants, kaitiaki relationships and mātauranga Māori is required under the Treaty of Waitangi, which was signed between the British Crown and Māori rangatira (chiefs) in 1840 and guarantees Māori will retain rangatiratanga (chieftainship) over their taonga. </p>
<p>Throughout the 20th century, it was clear this promise was not being upheld. After the original Plant Variety Rights Act was passed in 1987, claimants representing various iwi and hapū brought a legal action (<a href="https://www.wai262.nz/">Wai 262</a>) before the Waitangi Tribunal, alleging the Crown had failed to respect Māori rangatiratanga over indigenous biodiversity. </p>
<p>After 20 years of weighing evidence, the tribunal published a <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/news/ko-aotearoa-tenei-report-on-the-wai-262-claim-released/">report</a> in 2011, recommending a “<a href="https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/a-matou-whakaarotau/te-ao-maori/wai-262-te-pae-tawhiti">whole-of-government</a>” approach to protect taonga flora and fauna, and mātauranga Māori. This law reform is the most significant legal development to date.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-plants-and-animals-have-long-been-used-without-indigenous-consent-now-queensland-has-taken-a-stand-144813">Australia's plants and animals have long been used without Indigenous consent. Now Queensland has taken a stand</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Preventing misappropriation</h2>
<p>Legal issues aside, it is important to protect taonga plants and mātauranga Māori for ethical reasons. For years, kaitiaki relationships have been threatened as non-Māori have benefited from the use of indigenous plants and knowledge. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Detail of a flowering kōwhai." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498349/original/file-20221130-24-6ja2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498349/original/file-20221130-24-6ja2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498349/original/file-20221130-24-6ja2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498349/original/file-20221130-24-6ja2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498349/original/file-20221130-24-6ja2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498349/original/file-20221130-24-6ja2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498349/original/file-20221130-24-6ja2gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kōwhai varieties are sold commercially through nurseries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/patjo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nurseries and other non-Māori entities have claimed intellectual property rights over improved varieties of taonga species. Examples include harakeke (flax; <em>Phormium tenax</em>), kāpuka (broadleaf; <em>Griselinia littoralis</em>), korokio (wire-netting bush; <em>Corokia cotoneaster</em>), kōwhai (<em>Sophora microphylla</em>), and tī rākau/tī kōuka (cabbage tree; <em>Cordyline australis</em>). </p>
<p>In most (maybe all) cases, kaitiaki do not receive any direct financial or other benefits from the commercialisation and sale of taonga plants where plant variety rights are owned by non-Māori organisations.</p>
<h2>Protection under the new act</h2>
<p>The reformed act contains several new protections. When plant breeders apply for plant variety rights for taonga plants, they now need to meet certain requirements. </p>
<p>For example, if the breeder is aware that a kaitiaki relationship with the plant has been asserted, the breeder must engage directly with the kaitiaki.</p>
<p>If the kaitiaki finds that granting plant variety rights for the breeder’s variety would have adverse effects on the kaitiaki relationship, the breeder and kaitiaki must agree on how to mitigate these effects.</p>
<p>The law also creates a new Māori plant varieties committee, which holds the power to make binding decisions to nullify or cancel or impose conditions on any grants of plant variety rights for taonga species that may have adverse effects on kaitiaki relationships.</p>
<p>The new protections are commendable, but there are some gaps in the law. </p>
<h2>No shared benefits from commercial use</h2>
<p>The PVR Act allows plant breeders to bring legal actions against those who infringe their intellectual property rights. But the law does not contain similar enforcement mechanisms where mātauranga Māori is misappropriated. </p>
<p>The act does not require plant breeders who obtain PVR for varieties of taonga plants to share any benefits they receive from commercial uses of these plants with kaitiaki.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/returning-the-three-sisters-corn-beans-and-squash-to-native-american-farms-nourishes-people-land-and-cultures-149230">Returning the 'three sisters' – corn, beans and squash – to Native American farms nourishes people, land and cultures</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Another issue is that the new law adopts the narrow, species-based approach common to intellectual property laws for plant varieties worldwide. The powers of the Māori plant varieties committee only apply to taonga plant species. Kaitiaki have no say over whether exotic plant varieties are introduced into Aotearoa and protected with PVR, which fails to take into account the effects non-taonga plants could have on the whenua (land) and taiao (environment) should they become invasive.</p>
<p>Overall, the reformed PVR Act is an important step in addressing the recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal on how the Crown should protect taonga plants and mātauranga Māori. But there is still much work to do to ensure that tangata whenua may exercise rangatiratanga over their taonga. </p>
<p>Time will tell whether other <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/new-funding-protecting-and-enabling-m%C4%81tauranga-m%C4%81ori">proposed changes</a> – such as the development of a stand-alone intellectual property framework for mātauranga Māori and the creation of a bioprospecting regime – are sufficient to fulfil the promises of Te Tiriti.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is generously supported by the University of Canterbury Vision Mātauranga Development Fund. </span></em></p>Plant breeders must now engage with kaitiaki if special relationships with a plant have been asserted. But Māori have no say on the introduction of exotic plants that could become invasive.David Jefferson, Lecturer, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1799332022-09-08T23:31:12Z2022-09-08T23:31:12ZFrom evolving colony to bicultural nation, Queen Elizabeth II walked a long road with Aotearoa New Zealand<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483621/original/file-20220908-12-l4bcjm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C0%2C1794%2C1129&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The death of Queen Elizabeth II brings to an end a long, complex and remarkable chapter in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand’s evolution from colony to independent, bicultural and multicultural nation. </p>
<p>Throughout that period, however, New Zealanders have generally admired and even loved the monarch herself, even if the institution she represented lay at the centre of a vexed, often traumatic, reckoning with the colonial past.</p>
<p>If there was a highpoint in New Zealand royalism, it was witnessed during the first visit by the young Queen and Duke of Edinburgh between December 23 1953 and January 30 1954. An estimated three in every four people turned out to see the royal couple in what historian Jock Phillips has called “the most elaborate and most whole-hearted public occasion in New Zealand history”. </p>
<p>After decades of economic depression and war, Elizabeth’s June 1953 coronation heralded an optimistic postwar atmosphere. Following the conquest of Mount Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay – claimed as a jewel in the new Queen’s crown – the royal tour was the perfect moment for New Zealand to celebrate. </p>
<p>The Queen’s presence also fulfilled the long anticipated wish that a reigning British monarch would visit. War, then bad health, had previously dashed hopes for a tour by George VI. </p>
<p>Elizabeth II made a huge impression. She appeared as a youthful, radiant, even magical queen, one dedicated to serving her people. She charmed an older generation and embedded herself in the memories of the children who lined up to see her. They would all grow up to be, one way or another, “royal watchers”, aware of her reign and its milestones, keeping up with the lives of her children, their spouses and her grandchildren. </p>
<p>And then, less than 40 hours after her arrival, the young Queen’s leadership was put to the test when 151 people died in the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/the-tangiwai-railway-disaster">Tangiwai rail disaster</a> on Christmas Eve. She visited survivors and included words of comfort in her speeches, cementing her connection to the grieving, and to the country. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483619/original/file-20220908-23-s3i724.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483619/original/file-20220908-23-s3i724.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483619/original/file-20220908-23-s3i724.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483619/original/file-20220908-23-s3i724.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483619/original/file-20220908-23-s3i724.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483619/original/file-20220908-23-s3i724.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483619/original/file-20220908-23-s3i724.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Duke of Edinburgh places a wreath at the mass funeral in Wellington for victims of the Christmas Eve rail disaster at Tangiwai.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The female crown</h2>
<p>Remarkably, it was not until 2011 that females became equal to males in the rules of British royal succession. Queens only came to power in the absence of a male heir. And yet, this historical sexism also endowed queens with an exceptional quality – strong mother figures presiding over their subjects. </p>
<p>Indeed, in the past two centuries of the British monarchy, it is Queen Victoria (who reigned for almost 64 years) and Queen Elizabeth II (reigning for 70 years) who stand out as not just the longest-serving, but also most significant monarchs. Both played a crucial part in New Zealand’s history. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/queen-elizabeth-ii-the-end-of-the-new-elizabethan-age-157897">Queen Elizabeth II: the end of the 'new Elizabethan age'</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>In my work as a historian I have argued that the politically conservative “female imperialism”, emblemised in the reigns of Victoria and Elizabeth, encouraged women to support the British Empire and Commonwealth. In turn, it helped raise women’s status in society. </p>
<p>For example, both queens inspired women to “take up their mantle” and work for empire and nation: often in maternal roles with children as teachers and nurses. The female crown encouraged citizenship based on British values, offering school prizes and support for migrants. </p>
<p>The young Elizabeth’s volunteer work during the second world war set an example for youth, as did her longtime role as patron of the Girl Guides. The gender-power of the Queen was already on display during the 1952-53 tour when she visited servicewomen, nurses and mothers with new babies, and was given presents for her own children. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483615/original/file-20220908-9663-2fb46j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483615/original/file-20220908-9663-2fb46j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483615/original/file-20220908-9663-2fb46j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483615/original/file-20220908-9663-2fb46j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483615/original/file-20220908-9663-2fb46j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483615/original/file-20220908-9663-2fb46j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483615/original/file-20220908-9663-2fb46j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Queen talks with Māori guide Rangi during the visit to the village of Whakarewarewa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Celebrity status</h2>
<p>Over the past 70 years, the Queen also became something of a modern celebrity, a fixture in women’s magazines, on radio, television and now social media. As well as turning out to see her in person during her ten visits, New Zealanders “took her into their homes” with press clippings, souvenir pictures and keepsakes. </p>
<p>During that first tour, the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly pronounced upon the Queen’s role in the enduring relationship with Britain:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An even stronger link will be consolidated and spiritual stimulus given to life by the influence of one who is an inspiration to all. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>She was described as “enchanting”, with her “exquisite complexion, her eyes like sapphires […] and her beautiful mobile mouth as she talked and smiled”. In 1963 she was “lovely” with “the breathtaking brilliance of [her] peacock silk outfit against the broad canvas of sea and sky”. </p>
<p>In 1970 she was “a fairytale Queen – a glittering image such as children visualise when they think of the word Queen”. In 1977, “The Queen is perfection”. On a 1986 visit she was reportedly closer and more familiar than ever, but at nearly 60 her “movements are inclined to be slower, her smile reflects more understanding than youthful sparkle […] and there were times when she looked as if she would rather kick off her shoes and have a cup of tea”. </p>
<p>By the 1980s, the glamour baton had passed to the next generation, notably the hugely popular Diana, Princess of Wales. Proving that royalty was not immune from modern life, three of the Queen’s four children divorced, most publicly and scandalously. Ironically (perhaps absurdly), there were accusations the Queen was out of touch with the times. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483616/original/file-20220908-42287-6xdmsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483616/original/file-20220908-42287-6xdmsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483616/original/file-20220908-42287-6xdmsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483616/original/file-20220908-42287-6xdmsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483616/original/file-20220908-42287-6xdmsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483616/original/file-20220908-42287-6xdmsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483616/original/file-20220908-42287-6xdmsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Elizabeth and Christchurch mayor Hamish Hay during her 1977 visit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Relationship with a colony</h2>
<p>As power devolved around the Commonwealth during the Queen’s reign, the relationship with New Zealand inevitably changed too. Notions of a settler colony of Anglo-Celtic descendants emulating a “superior” British imperial economy, politics and culture – with a distant monarch as head of state – became outmoded. </p>
<p>Most importantly, the colonisation and assimilation of Indigenous peoples were challenged. </p>
<p>As historian Michael Dawson has shown, Māori involvement was minimal at the 1950 Commonwealth Games in Auckland. There was no Māori welcome or presence in the opening or closing ceremonies, with only a musical performance as athletes and officials arrived in the country. </p>
<p>It was left to King Korokī and Te Puea Herangi to hold their own welcome for athletes at Ngāruawāhia. The prime minister of the day, Sidney Holland, attended and considered the event an excellent example of good race relations. But rather than Māori being partners in the planning of the first royal tour, they were largely expected to fit in, mostly providing entertainment. </p>
<p>In the original tour plans, Arawa were expected to represent all Māori during a lunch stop. Only when they asked for more time were plans changed. Meanwhile, the Kīngitanga had to lobby hard for the Queen to visit Ngāruawāhia. This eventually happened, with the Queen and Duke spontaneously deciding to spend more time there than had been allocated. </p>
<p>Importantly, through the Queen’s reign, the Crown’s role in redressing the past became an essential part of New Zealand’s post-colonial development. After much agitation, the Waitangi Tribunal was set up in 1975 to investigate Crown breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. </p>
<p>In 1987, Māori became an official language. Rather than assimilating into a devolved settler state, decolonisation came to mean <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/3436">mana motuhake</a> for Māori. </p>
<p>By the 1974 Commonwealth Games – the “friendly games” – in Christchurch, Māori “were centrally incorporated” into the festivities, including a leading role in the opening ceremony. By the 1990 games in Auckland, also the 150th anniversary of signing of the Treaty, emerging biculturalism was evident in the medals incorporating Māori design. </p>
<h2>Abandoning Britain?</h2>
<p>In late 20th century New Zealand there were simmering republican sentiments. At the same time, because of the regenerating Iwi-Crown relationship under the Treaty, there was a reluctance to move away from Britain constitutionally. </p>
<p>Ironically, it was Britain going its own way – most notably by joining the EEC in 1973 – that moved the issue along. Symbolically, the number and length of temporary working visas for New Zealanders were cut back, despite an “OE” in the “mother country” being still viewed as a rite of passage. </p>
<p>There were other reasons republicanism was not a priority for the state. The shift towards a laissez-faire, free-market economic ideology shifted the ground; the move to a new electoral system in the 1990s underscored New Zealand’s growing independence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-would-king-charles-mean-for-the-monarchy-australia-and-the-republican-movement-182662">What would King Charles mean for the monarchy, Australia and the republican movement?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But through those decades of change, the popularity of the Queen provided a constant. If there was a moment when the republican break might have happened, it was missed. New Zealand has been more reticent than Australia, where a referendum on becoming a republic was only narrowly defeated in 1999. </p>
<p>New Zealand has also retired and then later reinstated the royal honours system. Attempts to change the flag and remove the Union Jack from its corner came to nothing in a 2016 referendum.</p>
<p>And New Zealand still doesn’t have its own constitution outlining its fundamental laws of government. Rather, we rely on a conglomerate constitution, messily located in 45 acts of parliament. And of course, the head of state remains a hereditary monarch who lives half a world away. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483618/original/file-20220908-9198-a7czet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483618/original/file-20220908-9198-a7czet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483618/original/file-20220908-9198-a7czet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483618/original/file-20220908-9198-a7czet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483618/original/file-20220908-9198-a7czet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483618/original/file-20220908-9198-a7czet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483618/original/file-20220908-9198-a7czet.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Queen during a walkabout at the America’s Cup Village in Auckland, part of her Jubilee tour in 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Aotearoa after Elizabeth</h2>
<p>The Queen’s death presents another opportunity for New Zealand to reassess its nationhood – and perhaps be creative. </p>
<p>King Charles and the Queen Consort Camilla simply don’t have the appeal of Elizabeth II. But postcolonial Britain and the modern, diverse Commonwealth still have much to offer an increasingly multicultural New Zealand. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/prince-charles-the-conventions-that-will-stop-him-from-meddling-as-king-106722">Prince Charles: the conventions that will stop him from meddling as King</a>
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<hr>
<p>Most importantly, it is time for a broad conversation about how the various dymamics of contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand – liberal and egalitarian traditions, Pākeha settler notions of governance, Te Ao Māori, and the special Iwi-Crown connection – might work together in the future. </p>
<p>After all, Māori signed the Treaty with Queen Victoria at least in part as protection from the behaviour of unruly settlers. Does 21st-century New Zealand still need a monarch to protect against settler colonialism? </p>
<p>Whatever the answer, any move away from the Crown needs to honour the history of which Elizabeth II has been such a significant part.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Pickles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over the 70 years of her reign, Queen Elizabeth II has been part of Aotearoa New Zealand’s living history, touching everything from the role of women to the Treaty of Waitangi.Katie Pickles, Professor of History, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1885832022-08-18T20:05:28Z2022-08-18T20:05:28ZColonial ideas have kept NZ and Australia in a rut of policy failure. We need policy by Indigenous people, for the people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479557/original/file-20220817-11-jvcwcd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=311%2C5%2C3377%2C1988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Crisis is a word often used in politics and the media – the COVID crisis, the housing crisis, the cost of living crisis, and so on. The term usually refers to single events at odds with common ideas of what’s acceptable, fair or good. </p>
<p>But in New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere, Indigenous policy can be portrayed as a different kind of crisis altogether. Indeed, it can often just seem like one crisis after another, one policy failure after another: poor health, poor education, all kinds of poor statistics. A kind of permanent crisis. </p>
<p>Policy success, on the other hand, often doesn’t fit the crisis narrative: <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/unemployment-rate-at-3-3-percent">record low Māori unemployment</a>, for instance, or the Māori economy being worth NZ$70 billion and <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2022/07/m-ori-economy-thriving-growth-largely-driven-by-increasing-number-of-m-ori-women-owning-own-business-new-report-finds.html">forecast to grow 5% annually</a>.</p>
<p>It may be that crisis makes better headlines. But we also need to ask why, and what the deeper implications might be for Indigenous peoples and policy in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479506/original/file-20220816-2693-nkukmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479506/original/file-20220816-2693-nkukmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479506/original/file-20220816-2693-nkukmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479506/original/file-20220816-2693-nkukmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479506/original/file-20220816-2693-nkukmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479506/original/file-20220816-2693-nkukmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479506/original/file-20220816-2693-nkukmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sharing the sovereign? The Australian Aboriginal flag and Australian national flag fly above Sydney harbour bridge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span>
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<h2>Colonialism as crisis</h2>
<p>Last month I published a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00323187.2022.2099915?src=&journalCode=rpnz20">journal article</a> titled “The crisis of policy failure or the moral crisis of an idea: colonial politics in contemporary Australia and New Zealand”. In it I argue that when public services don’t work well for Indigenous peoples, the explanation does not just come down to isolated examples of policy failure. </p>
<p>The solution is not that governments simply get better at making policy. Instead, colonialism itself is what I call “the moral crisis of an idea”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-recognition-is-more-than-a-voice-to-government-its-a-matter-of-political-equality-154057">Indigenous recognition is more than a Voice to Government - it's a matter of political equality</a>
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<p>Earlier this year, former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison said that <a href="https://nacchocommunique.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/prime-minister-ctg-report-speech.pdf">Indigenous policy usually fails</a> because:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Governments] perpetuated an ingrained way of thinking, passed down over two centuries and more, and it was the belief that we knew better than our Indigenous peoples. We don’t. We also thought we understood their problems better than they did. We don’t. They live them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Morrison was describing a problem with the way the system ordinarily works. Yet a crisis is supposed to be something out of the ordinary, something that needs fixing. How, then, do we fix an idea?</p>
<h2>Listening, reflection and justification</h2>
<p>Colonialism presumes a moral hierarchy of human worth. It presumes Indigenous people shouldn’t have the same influence over public decision making as others (for example, ensuring a hospital or school works in their favour).</p>
<p>Addressing this problem is the point of the <a href="https://www.teakawhaiora.nz/">Māori Health Authority</a>, established in New Zealand last month, and the <a href="https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/overall-strategies-and-policies/ka-hikitia-ka-hapaitia/ka-hikitia-ka-hapaitia-the-maori-education-strategy/">Māori Education Strategy</a> released in 2020.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-exclusion-and-tokenism-how-maori-and-pacific-science-graduates-are-still-marginalised-at-university-188052">Racism, exclusion and tokenism: how Māori and Pacific science graduates are still marginalised at university</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>The democratic theorist John Dryzek says there is a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/abs/deliberative-global-governance/0600340BE65DF74F44E0F1938ABD610F">crisis of communication</a> in modern democracy. This is because people understate the importance of listening, reflection and justification in public decision making.</p>
<p>Colonialism, however, doesn’t require listening, reflection or justification. Its essential idea is that some people just aren’t as entitled as others to a meaningful say in public policy.</p>
<p>Entrenching listening, reflection and justification in the workings of democratic politics would support different and non-colonial aspirations. This is something I have called “sharing the sovereign” in my <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4172-2">2021 book</a> of the same name.</p>
<h2>Sharing the sovereign</h2>
<p>Sharing the sovereign means recognising many sites of decision-making authority. This is the point of the treaties being considered in Victoria, the Northern Territory and Queensland. It’s also the point of <a href="https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/discover-collections/read-watch-play/maori/treaty-waitangi/treaty-close/full-text-te-tiriti-o">Te Tiriti o Waitangi</a>/the Treaty of Waitangi in Aotearoa New Zealand.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479507/original/file-20220816-18424-o373py.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479507/original/file-20220816-18424-o373py.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479507/original/file-20220816-18424-o373py.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479507/original/file-20220816-18424-o373py.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479507/original/file-20220816-18424-o373py.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479507/original/file-20220816-18424-o373py.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479507/original/file-20220816-18424-o373py.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479507/original/file-20220816-18424-o373py.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Te Tiriti affirmed the Māori right to authority (rangatiratanga) over their own affairs. It also conferred on Māori the rights and privileges of British subjects, which continue to evolve as New Zealand citizenship. This was the right to influence the affairs of the new state – the right to be part of the new state in a meaningful way.</p>
<p>Successive <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/publications-and-resources/waitangi-tribunal-reports/">Waitangi Tribunal</a> reports show that crisis in Māori policy occurs when these two simple ideas of independent authority and meaningful participation in the state are absent.</p>
<p>In Australia, the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00323187.2022.2099915?src=&journalCode=rpnz20">Victorian Treaty Assembly says</a>: “Treaty is a chance to address [the] future together as equals”. The idea of an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/video/2022/jul/30/if-not-now-when-albanese-reveals-wording-of-referendum-question-on-indigenous-voice-video">Indigenous voice to parliament</a>, which the new Australian government is supporting, is also a step towards sharing the sovereign among all citizens.</p>
<p>In Aotearoa New Zealand, sharing the sovereign would mean the Crown is not, in the <a href="https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/the-crown-isnt-just-pakeha-it-is-also-maori/">words of the first Maori judge of the Supreme Court</a>, Justice Joe Williams, “Pakeha, English-speaking, and distinct from Māori”. </p>
<p>Political equality then becomes possible because the sovereign is not an ethnically exclusive entity. It’s not an all-powerful authority over which Indigenous people should not expect any real influence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-colonialism-be-reversed-the-uns-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples-provides-some-answers-147017">Can colonialism be reversed? The UN's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides some answers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Colonialism under permanent scrutiny</h2>
<p>Equality through inclusivity is fundamentally different from colonialism and its inherent moral crisis. Equality and inclusivity make different assumptions about what the state is and to whom it belongs.</p>
<p>However, normalising public institutions to work for Indigenous peoples as well as they work for anyone else is still a contested idea. In 2019, for example, the New Zealand cabinet instructed public servants on the questions they should consider when advising ministers on Treaty/Tiriti policy. </p>
<p>On one hand, cabinet affirmed Māori influence in the policy process. On the other, it didn’t consider the possibility that governments might sometimes stand aside entirely in the making of effective and fair public policy. So, cabinet didn’t require advisers to ask <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14687968211047902">questions such as</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Why is the government presuming to make this decision?</p></li>
<li><p>And why does the decision not belong (partly or entirely) to the sphere of <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=tino+rangatiratanga">tino rangatiratanga</a> (self-determination, sovereignty)?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Asking these kinds of questions involves sharing the sovereign. They presume listening, reflection and justification to put colonialism, as the moral crisis of an idea, under permanent scrutiny.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188583/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When public services don’t work for Indigenous peoples, it’s more than just a case of policy failure. As long as colonial assumptions are embedded in the system, there can never be real progress.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1856932022-07-05T18:57:00Z2022-07-05T18:57:00ZNation-building or nature-destroying? Why it’s time NZ faced up to the environmental damage of its colonial past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472412/original/file-20220704-21-4ydueh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1078%2C818&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.127150">National Library of New Zealand</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ways in which New Zealand remembers European colonisation have changed markedly in recent years. Critics have been chipping away at the public image of <a href="https://theconversation.com/my-ancestors-met-cook-in-aotearoa-250-years-ago-for-us-its-time-to-reinterpret-a-painful-history-128771">Captain James Cook</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2021/nov/02/new-zealands-children-will-all-soon-study-the-countrys-brutal-history-its-not-before-time">the New Zealand Wars</a> have been included in the new compulsory history curriculum, and <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/300573834/street-name-in-hamilton-changed-from-von-tempsky-to-putikitiki">streets honouring colonial figures</a> have been renamed.</p>
<p>However, while New Zealand is slowly recognising the historical injustices suffered by Māori, the same reappraisal hasn’t extended to the natural environment. The dramatic transformation of “wild untamed nature” into “productive land” by European settlers in the 1800s continues to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572221078974">widely celebrated</a> as a testament to Kiwi ingenuity and hard work.</p>
<p>My soon-to-be published <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361730368_Collective_memory_of_environmental_change_and_connectedness_with_nature_Survey_evidence_from_Aotearoa_New_Zealand">research</a>, based on a survey of 1,100 people, suggests this narrative could be partly responsible for New Zealanders’ apparent <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/08-09-2021/does-new-zealand-care-less-about-climate-change-than-other-countries">complacency on climate change</a> compared to other countries. </p>
<p>Essentially, it appears those who <em>refuse</em> the “taming of nature” narrative – and instead recognise the 19th century as a period of environmental destruction – are more likely to have what psychologists call an “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494413000029?casa_token=qReyrEO7LoIAAAAA:iMdWMvupOtHNTdrVt9qK7s-ipwz6YUtlQlvjaO0hVobKGqlqpa7ZfByQVYhNPZ2MUn889kD4">environmental self-identity</a>”. </p>
<p>The findings further suggest that changing individual behaviour as a strategy to tackle environmental threats (as recommended in the <a href="https://www.climatecommission.govt.nz/our-work/advice-to-government-topic/inaia-tonu-nei-a-low-emissions-future-for-aotearoa/">Climate Commission’s 2021 report</a>) might mean addressing how we communicate the history of environmental change in schools, museums and at public heritage sites. </p>
<p>In particular, this might mean framing what happened in the 1800s as more about loss than achievement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472406/original/file-20220704-27-bkfd4h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C652%2C498&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472406/original/file-20220704-27-bkfd4h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472406/original/file-20220704-27-bkfd4h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472406/original/file-20220704-27-bkfd4h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472406/original/file-20220704-27-bkfd4h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472406/original/file-20220704-27-bkfd4h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472406/original/file-20220704-27-bkfd4h.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Taming nature’: clearing bush in the Coromandel, late 19th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unknown photographer, via Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A story of progress or decline?</h2>
<p>Prior to human settlement, Aotearoa New Zealand had been isolated from other landmasses for around 60 million years. The result was the evolution of a unique ecosystem that was highly vulnerable to disturbances.</p>
<p>Māori arrived around 1300 and brought with them invasive mammals: the Polynesian dog (kurī) and the Pacific rat (kiore). Through widespread burning, Māori – either intentionally or accidentally – <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/human-effects-on-the-environment/page-2">destroyed large areas of forest</a> in drier eastern parts of Te Wai Pounamu (South Island) and Te Ika a Māui (North Island). </p>
<p>Moreover, archaeological research suggests a number of bird species were hunted to extinction, including <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/moa">moa</a> and <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/13666/north-island-adzebill">adzebill</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-farming-proposal-to-reduce-carbon-emissions-involves-a-lot-of-trust-and-a-lot-of-uncertainty-185121">A new farming proposal to reduce carbon emissions involves a lot of trust – and a lot of uncertainty</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>European settlers began arriving in large numbers after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. On the back of (often dubious) purchase deals, the introduction of private property laws and forceful confiscation, vast areas of <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/te-tango-whenua-maori-land-alienation">Māori land ended up in European hands</a>. </p>
<p>What followed was a classic example of what’s been called “<a href="https://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Ecological_Imperialism.html?id=5KKNCgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">ecological imperialism</a>”. Much of the remaining forest was transformed into grassland for sheep and cattle. Acclimatisation societies introduced other familiar animals and plants from Europe. </p>
<p>Purposefully and accidentally introduced species – such as stoats and ship rats – wreaked havoc on the native wildlife. Within a few decades of European colonisation, several birds went extinct, including the <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/13671/huia">huia</a>, the <a href="https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/2675">piopio</a> and the <a href="https://nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/laughing-owl">laughing owl</a>. European capitalism also had a devastating impact on <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/sealing">seal</a> and <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/whaling">whale</a> populations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472413/original/file-20220704-27-eczqyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472413/original/file-20220704-27-eczqyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472413/original/file-20220704-27-eczqyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472413/original/file-20220704-27-eczqyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472413/original/file-20220704-27-eczqyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472413/original/file-20220704-27-eczqyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472413/original/file-20220704-27-eczqyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Veneration of the pioneers: a mural by artist Mandy Patmore depicts bushmen at their camp with the Waitakere Ranges in the background.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A “usable past”</h2>
<p>Despite the long history of environmental change, it is the transformation of the landscape in the 1800s that occupies the most prominent place in New Zealand’s collective memory, relative to other periods. The reason is fairly simple: the era provides what memory scholars call a “usable past” – usable because it helps to construct a distinctive New Zealand identity in the present. </p>
<p>Similar to historical events such as the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and the Gallipoli campaign, the “taming of nature” in the 1800s is remembered as an experience that forged the nation. European settlers – in particular the bushmen who cleared the forest to make way for farms and pastures – are portrayed as the prototypical New Zealander. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uncovering-the-stories-my-family-forgot-about-a-past-still-haunting-aotearoa-new-zealand-183912">Uncovering the stories my family forgot, about a past still haunting Aotearoa New Zealand</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Their hard work and “number eight wire” ingenuity still define popular versions of the national character today. And media continue to portray the countryside as the “real” New Zealand, including in <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/rural-media/page-3">advertisements</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1527476420966756">television shows</a>.</p>
<p>It should be stressed this is largely a narrative of the European settler majority. For Māori communities, the transformation of the landscape under European colonialism is more a story of decline than progress. Māori memories of environmental change in the 1800s are intertwined with memories of colonial violence and dispossession.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472408/original/file-20220704-14-yiotss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472408/original/file-20220704-14-yiotss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472408/original/file-20220704-14-yiotss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472408/original/file-20220704-14-yiotss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472408/original/file-20220704-14-yiotss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472408/original/file-20220704-14-yiotss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472408/original/file-20220704-14-yiotss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most New Zealand farms were once dense bush that was cleared by burning and logging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Memory shapes environmental attitudes</h2>
<p>My survey sought to explore whether different interpretations of New Zealand’s environmental history shape people’s attitudes towards nature, and whether those interpretations make it more or less likely that people see themselves as someone who acts in an “environmentally friendly” way – the environmental self-identity mentioned earlier. </p>
<p>A key finding is that those respondents who pinpointed the 1800s – rather than Māori settlement or the second half of the 20th century – as the most destructive period of environmental change were most likely to describe themselves as environmentally friendly. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/plastic-free-july-recycling-is-the-ambulance-at-the-bottom-of-the-cliff-its-time-to-teach-kids-to-demand-real-change-from-the-worst-plastic-producers-185573">Plastic Free July: recycling is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. It's time to teach kids to demand real change from the worst plastic producers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For Māori respondents, this is perhaps not entirely surprising. An awareness of injustices suffered in the 1800s <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2016-34983-001">tends to go hand in hand</a> with a strong spiritual connection with the land and a sense of responsibility towards nature.</p>
<p>More significant is that European New Zealanders who recognise the environmentally destructive role of 19th-century settlers were more likely to identify themselves as environmentally friendly than those who point to other periods in history.</p>
<p>It appears those European New Zealanders who acknowledge the environmental destruction caused by their ancestors feel a greater responsibility to fix these mistakes in the present.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-should-celebrate-its-remarkable-prehistoric-past-with-national-fossil-emblems-have-your-say-184942">New Zealand should celebrate its remarkable prehistoric past with national fossil emblems – have your say!</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How we remember the past matters</h2>
<p>To encourage more pro-environmental behaviours, the survey results suggest New Zealand needs to move away from narratives that glorify environmental change of the early colonial era as an expression of national character. </p>
<p>Such interpretations of history reinforce ideas that get in the way of achieving a sustainable future. They promote a strongly utilitarian perspective on our relationship with the environment. Nature is reduced to a commodity to be exploited in the pursuit of human interests.</p>
<p>New Zealand has taken the first steps to work through its violent political past, but this process also needs to include colonialism’s devastating effects on the environment. </p>
<p>Rather than remembering the transformation of the landscape by European settlers as a nation-defining moment, public history should encourage an examination of human complicity in the destruction of nature. Hopefully, this can help transform such understanding into present-day environmental action.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olli Hellmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Nineteenth-century European settlement is often depicted as a triumphal ‘taming of nature’. But does that collective memory impede more honest appraisals of the environmental risks we face today?Olli Hellmann, Senior Lecturer in Political Science and International Relations, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1803052022-03-31T22:07:45Z2022-03-31T22:07:45ZPutting te Tiriti at the centre of Aotearoa New Zealand’s public policy can strengthen democracy – here’s how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455365/original/file-20220330-5009-oi8dn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C7%2C4903%2C1555&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>ACT party leader David Seymour’s demand that a <a href="https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/03/24/act-party-wants-referendum-on-co-governance-with-maori/">referendum on Māori co-governance</a> be a bottom line in any coalition agreement with the National Party was, if nothing else, well timed. </p>
<p>With the prime minister confirming public consultation on <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/co-governance-firmly-on-top-of-political-agenda">co-governance</a> will begin this year, the place of <a href="https://www.archives.govt.nz/discover-our-stories/the-treaty-of-waitangi">te Tiriti o Waitangi</a> (Treaty of Waitangi) in the nation’s life is front and centre once more.</p>
<p>Specifically, Seymour says successive governments’ interpretations of the English language version of te Tiriti – which differs in important ways from the Māori text negotiated at Waitangi in 1840 – is <a href="https://www.act.org.nz/david_seymour_speech_to_milford_rotary_club">creating an “ethno-state”</a>. He was later <a href="https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/audio/barry-soper-cabinet-to-consider-next-steps-on-maori-self-determination-plan/">reported as saying</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[The government] believes there are two types of New Zealanders. Tangata whenua, who are here by right, and Tangata Tiriti who are lucky to be here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>ACT’s referendum would ask voters to agree that the Treaty means:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>all citizens of New Zealand have the same political rights and duties</p></li>
<li><p>all political authority comes from the people by democratic means including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot</p></li>
<li><p>New Zealand is a multi-ethnic liberal democracy where discrimination based on ethnicity is illegal.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1508593807398297600"}"></div></p>
<p>Government ministers, the Māori Party and others have argued Seymour’s policy is itself divisive, and National Party leader Christopher Luxon has <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/luxon-rules-out-co-governance-referendum-seymour-says-dont-run-away-from-hard-issues/QC6ZKQXM7BIA3UNQPNKZULNYGA/">ruled out</a> a referendum if he forms a government. But away from the electoral front line, important work on how te Tiriti can be applied at a policy level is already going on. </p>
<p>In 2020, we developed a policy evaluation method called “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1468796819896466">Critical Tiriti Analysis</a>” (CTA) to address the problem of policy failure by ensuring distinctive Māori voices are heard. We recently explained these ideas to over 300 people at a public seminar.</p>
<p>CTA could be used by co-governance entities, but it doesn’t require them. It is especially relevant at the policy evaluation level, and is being used in government departments and elsewhere to help give Māori people – and their values and expectations – a fair chance of influencing policy decisions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-crown-is-maori-too-citizenship-sovereignty-and-the-treaty-of-waitangi-111168">The Crown is Māori too - citizenship, sovereignty and the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How CTA works</h2>
<p>CTA uses five indicators to evaluate policy against te Tiriti’s main elements: the preamble, three written articles and the oral commitment to protect “wairuatanga” (an expression of custom, spirituality and psychological well-being):</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1412&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455387/original/file-20220331-25-cxed6l.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1412&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Part of the original Tiriti o Waitangi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<ol>
<li><p>The preamble creates an expectation of good government, so CTA asks how policy has been informed by substantive Māori values and expectations, and seeks evidence that Māori are equal or lead parties in the policy process</p></li>
<li><p>Article 1 granted the British Crown “<a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/kawanatanga-maori-engagement-with-the-state/page-1">kāwanatanga</a>” over non-Māori people in Aotearoa. CTA requires the demonstration of equitable Māori engagement or leadership in prioritising, resourcing, implementing and evaluating policy</p></li>
<li><p>“<a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=tino+rangatiratanga">Tino rangatiratanga</a>” was promised in Article 2, so CTA requires evidence of meaningful and expert Māori involvement in policy drafting, and measures the influence and authority of Māori values in the policy process</p></li>
<li><p>Article 3 of te Tiriti confers the right of Māori to actively engage in and influence <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4172-2">policy development, implementation and evaluation</a>. CTA involves evidence of Māori exercising their citizenship as Māori in policy development</p></li>
<li><p>And finally, in terms of wairuatanga, CTA seeks policy acknowledgement of the importance of wairua, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/rongoa-medicinal-use-of-plants/page-1#:%7E:text=Rongo%C4%81">rongoā</a> and wellness.</p></li>
</ol>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-parihaka-to-he-puapua-its-time-pakeha-new-zealanders-faced-their-personal-connections-to-the-past-164553">From Parihaka to He Puapua: it’s time Pākehā New Zealanders faced their personal connections to the past</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>CTA in practice</h2>
<p>In 2020 we used CTA to review the <a href="https://www.health.govt.nz/publication/primary-health-care-strategy">New Zealand Primary Healthcare Strategy</a>. It has since been used to evaluate government policies and practices including <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2213538320300448">cancer control plans</a> and disability strategies.</p>
<p>In 2019, Cabinet published a <a href="https://dpmc.govt.nz/publications/co-19-5-te-tiriti-o-waitangi-treaty-waitangi-guidance">Te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi Guidance</a> which set out questions policy advisers should consider in their advice to ministers. Our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14687968211047902">CTA review</a> of the guidance suggested te Tiriti might also require asking the following questions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>what contributions have Māori people and ideas made to the drafting of this advice?</p></li>
<li><p>what do Māori say are the issues to consider and their interests in this issue?</p></li>
<li><p>what evidence is there that this policy preserves Māori authority, peace and good order?</p></li>
<li><p>could this policy disadvantage Māori in ways that it does not disadvantage others?</p></li>
<li><p>why is the government (or local government) presuming to make this decision?</p></li>
<li><p>why does the decision not, in part or whole, belong to the sphere of tino rangatiratanga?</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Te Tiriti and liberal democracy</h2>
<p>Ultimately, CTA could strengthen the pillars of <a href="https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/43138/book.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">liberal democracy</a>, which developed precisely because people bring different values, experiences and aspirations to public life. Societies need to find fair and orderly ways of managing those differences. Suppressing them is not liberal and it’s not democratic.</p>
<p>When the ACT party formed a <a href="https://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/0811/NationalAct_Agreement.pdf">confidence and supply agreement</a> to support a National minority government in 2010, the <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/national-govt-support-un-rights-declaration">government agreed</a> that New Zealand would accept the United Nations <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/two-inquiries-find-unfair-treatment-and-healthcare-for-maori-this-is-how-we-fix-it-144939">Two inquiries find unfair treatment and healthcare for Māori. This is how we fix it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The declaration says treaties such as te Tiriti (the Māori text) should be honoured and that Indigenous democratic rights are no less important than anybody else’s. It explains how culture, language and resource rights have implications for what freedom and equality actually mean.</p>
<p>However, democracy doesn’t always meet these ideals. Māori have long been excluded from policy-making, leading to poor outcomes in areas like <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/inquiries/kaupapa-inquiries/health-services-and-outcomes-inquiry/">health</a>.</p>
<p>CTA is intended as a mana-enhancing process based on the intent and actual wording of <a href="https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/treaty-of-waitangi/">te Tiriti</a>. This focus can help ensure government policies reflect Māori understandings, expectations and aspirations. Because if policy making doesn’t reflect these things, Māori are not politically equal – and that’s not liberal or democratic.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-recognition-is-more-than-a-voice-to-government-its-a-matter-of-political-equality-154057">Indigenous recognition is more than a Voice to Government - it's a matter of political equality</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Ensuring a Māori voice</h2>
<p>These are first steps. Further development of CTA would consider how policy processes could be strengthened and how examples of effective policy making may be replicated. </p>
<p>We particularly want to see an active presence of Māori and Māori values in policy processes. This reflects our belief that effective public policy requires robust, critically and culturally informed engagement with the diversity of Māori policy thought and aspirations.</p>
<p>The CTA rationale involves meaningful Māori input throughout but also calls for a “final word” from Māori in the overall policy evaluation process, which should carry considerable weight.</p>
<p>At the same time, CTA does not diminish anyone else’s right to be well served by government policy. It doesn’t interpret te Tiriti to make anyone else feel “lucky to be here”. But it does provide protections against some people using policy to cause harm to others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Came receives research grant funding from the Marsden Fund. She is affiliated with STIR: Stop Institutional Racism.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan and Tim McCreanor do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>David Seymour says misinterpretation of the Treaty risks creating an ‘ethno-state’. But ‘Critical Tiriti Analysis’ aims to enhance democracy by ensuring a Māori voice at the heart of policy making.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology and Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityHeather Came, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Public Health, Auckland University of TechnologyTim McCreanor, Professor Race Relations, Health and Wellbeing, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1722192021-12-26T20:28:07Z2021-12-26T20:28:07ZLearning to live with the ‘messy, complicated history’ of how Aotearoa New Zealand was colonised<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434087/original/file-20211126-13-v4phe0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C7238%2C4086&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mt Taranaki on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Not I, some child born in a marvellous year / Will learn the trick of standing upright here.</em></p>
<p>The final couplet in Alan Curnow’s poem “The Skeleton of the Great Moa in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch” can be read in many ways. One is to see in it a gloomy acceptance of the impossibility of finding one’s place in another people’s land. Another is to find in Curnow’s words a bolshy refusal to even attempt the act at all.</p>
<p>But to remain resolutely non-upright, it seems to me, would require the awkward meshing of memories of some other land in which (once upon an earlier time) one did stand upright, with a sort of historical amnesia regarding the place in which it now seems so difficult to find one’s feet.</p>
<p>Here are some things about the land on which my people established themselves in Aotearoa that were, for a long time, forgotten.</p>
<p>My great-grandfather, Andrew Gilhooly, was one of the 644 members of the Armed Constabulary (<a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/defence-armed-services-army-new-zealand/page-3">AC</a>) that invaded <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/occupation-pacifist-settlement-at-parihaka">Parihaka</a> on the morning of November 5 1881. He was there for the weeks and months that followed, during which women were raped, <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?&keywords=whare">whare</a> were torn down, crops destroyed and people’s possessions and treasures looted.</p>
<p>Parihaka is not just an invasion day story, and Andrew remained at Parihaka as part of an occupying force until the end of 1884. The occupation was not benign. On April 17 1882, for instance, the AC broke up an attempt by non-Parihaka Māori to distribute food at the pā. The parliamentary record has Native Minister John Bryce finding the idea of Māori taking supplies to Parihaka to be “in every way objectionable”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-parihaka-to-he-puapua-its-time-pakeha-new-zealanders-faced-their-personal-connections-to-the-past-164553">From Parihaka to He Puapua: it’s time Pākehā New Zealanders faced their personal connections to the past</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>And so, in retaliation for “this act of antagonism to the expressed orders of the Government” – in other words, to punish people whose gardens have been destroyed and whose stock have been stolen for having had the temerity to try to feed themselves – the AC pulled down a dozen more whare.</p>
<p>Andrew returned to the coast a decade or so after he left, this time to become a farmer. He and his wife Kate would eventually control three family farms. All were within a couple of kilometres of Parihaka and each part of the 1,275,000 acres of land confiscated from <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/3452">mana whenua</a> by the colonial government under the provisions of the <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/03-12-2021/remembering-raupatu-a-forgotten-anniversary">New Zealand Settlements Act</a> and then granted to soldiers or sold to people like my great-grandparents.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434079/original/file-20211126-19-qaq3q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434079/original/file-20211126-19-qaq3q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434079/original/file-20211126-19-qaq3q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434079/original/file-20211126-19-qaq3q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434079/original/file-20211126-19-qaq3q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434079/original/file-20211126-19-qaq3q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434079/original/file-20211126-19-qaq3q2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1880s illustration of the village at Parihaka, sitting beneath Mt Taranaki.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Punishment for ‘sedition’</h2>
<p>Andrew obtained title to the first farm – section 44, Block 12 of the Cape Survey District (CSD) – in 1895. It was on the seaward side of the South Road (he had participated in its construction when he was with the AC) and was therefore available for freehold purchase.</p>
<p>Had the road been further to the west, as originally surveyed, he might not have been able to buy the property, because it would have been part of the land on the mountain side of the road that was initially set aside for Māori reserves. But a surveying error meant the South Road wound up being closer to Taranaki maunga than it should have been, freeing up 5,000 additional acres for freehold sale – including section 44.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/separatist-or-radically-inclusive-what-nzs-he-puapua-report-really-says-about-the-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples-163719">Separatist or radically inclusive? What NZ’s He Puapua report really says about the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>My great-grandmother, Kate, purchased the third of the Gilhooly farms in 1921. Section 102, Block 12 of the CSD, which the Native Land Court named “Parihaka A”, was on the mountain side of the road but was not leasehold land. It did, however, contain an <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?&keywords=urup%C4%81">urupā</a>. No-one seems to know whose people lay in it, or whether or not it still exists.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Parihaka A was part of the 5,000 acres of land the colonial government decided, in 1882, to hold back from any future Māori reserves as “an indemnity for the loss sustained by the government in suppressing the Parihaka sedition”. </p>
<p>The sedition, to be clear, that was non-violent and whose protagonists welcomed my great-grandfather and his AC comrades into the pā with gifts of food. (And for a time the food kept coming: on New Year’s Day 1882, mere weeks after their pā had been destroyed, the people of Parihaka prepared a hangi for members of the occupying force.)</p>
<p>But it is the second farm that I want to talk about here, because that was on Māori leasehold land.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434082/original/file-20211126-15-1b1wy94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434082/original/file-20211126-15-1b1wy94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434082/original/file-20211126-15-1b1wy94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434082/original/file-20211126-15-1b1wy94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434082/original/file-20211126-15-1b1wy94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434082/original/file-20211126-15-1b1wy94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434082/original/file-20211126-15-1b1wy94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Armed constabulary awaiting orders to advance on Parihaka pā, 1881.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexander Turnbull Library</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Locked out of their own land</h2>
<p>The history of the <a href="https://taranaki.iwi.nz/our-history/west-coast-commissions/">West Coast leasehold system</a> is, I suspect, even less well understood than that of the invasion and plunder of Parihaka. Briefly, in 1882 the government began restoring to Māori some of the land it had confiscated 20 years earlier. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434084/original/file-20211126-27-1bt6tag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434084/original/file-20211126-27-1bt6tag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434084/original/file-20211126-27-1bt6tag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434084/original/file-20211126-27-1bt6tag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434084/original/file-20211126-27-1bt6tag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=695&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434084/original/file-20211126-27-1bt6tag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434084/original/file-20211126-27-1bt6tag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434084/original/file-20211126-27-1bt6tag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pukeariki.com/">Puke Ariki</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bizarrely, however, responsibility for the administration of these West Coast reserves was vested not with the Māori owners but in the hands of a government-appointed public trustee, who was tasked with acting for the benefit of “the natives to whom such reserves belong” <em>and</em> for “the promotion of settlement”.</p>
<p>Those two requirements are, of course, fundamentally incompatible, and it was the second that won out. By 1912 some 193,996 acres had been notionally set aside in reserves in Taranaki, but 120,110 of them had already been leased to settlers by the trustee via 21-year leases. </p>
<p>And these were no ordinary leases. From 1887 they could be renegotiated without the approval of the land’s owners, and from 1892 they came with a perpetual right of renewal, effectively (and quite literally) locking Māori out of their own land.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-colonialism-be-reversed-the-uns-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples-provides-some-answers-147017">Can colonialism be reversed? The UN's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides some answers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is more, as there always is with such things. Quite apart from enjoying security of tenure, leaseholders could also mortgage, sublet or transfer a lease to others – without the permission of the land’s owners. Under the <a href="http://nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/gatsaaa189963v1899n16526/">Government Advances to Settlers Act</a> 1894, Pākehā settlers could borrow money from the government to improve the land – but Māori landowners could not (the clue is in the title of the act). Māori were forbidden from negotiating leases, and the trustee systematically set rents at lower rates than would have been secured on an open market.</p>
<p>After 1892, the trustee could also charge Māori to live on what remained of their own land. Some Māori owners paid more for these occupation licences than some Pākehā farmers paid to lease Māori land, which led to people who owned land they could not live on sometimes finding themselves in debt.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434085/original/file-20211126-1794-1g7icsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434085/original/file-20211126-1794-1g7icsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434085/original/file-20211126-1794-1g7icsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434085/original/file-20211126-1794-1g7icsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434085/original/file-20211126-1794-1g7icsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434085/original/file-20211126-1794-1g7icsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434085/original/file-20211126-1794-1g7icsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kate Gilhooly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This was land owned by Māori but controlled by the state, which was leased out at rates decided through a process the owners could play no part in, and which incurred debt over which those owners had little or no control, in part because they could not live on and work their own land. It is difficult – impossible, really – to imagine such a regime being applied to Pākehā landowners.</p>
<p>My family were beneficiaries of that system. In 1902, my great-grandfather signed the lease on a farm on the Opourapa Road for £35. The lease was renewed 21 years later, at which point its value increased to £47. </p>
<p>By the time the second leasehold period had elapsed the Māori owners of the land – of whom there is no mention in any of the archival material I have found – had endured a 42-year period during which the return on land that had been leased in perpetuity to someone else had grown by just £12.</p>
<h2>The trick of standing upright here</h2>
<p>Historian Vincent O’Malley has also <a href="https://www.meetingplace.nz/2018/08/learning-trick-of-standing-upright-here.html">pondered</a> Curnow’s “trick” to standing upright in Aotearoa:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I would suggest a big part of it is reconciling ourselves with the history of this country. Not the imagined history of a plucky wee nation at the bottom of the globe, punching above its weight, egalitarian and forward-looking. I’m talking about the messy, complicated history of how Pākehā colonised this land.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For the better part of my life I have managed to avoid attempting this trick, much preferring both the orthodox settler story of thrusting progress and a personal history that began with the purchase of the family farms.</p>
<p>Lately, though, I have found myself trying to take O’Malley up on his suggestion, grubbing around in the archives, old cadastral maps and AC annual reports in an attempt to end the forgetting by putting together a more honest, less selective and self-serving historical narrative. </p>
<p>The story that is emerging is a very <em>un</em>-settling one. Things are still feeling a bit shaky, but I’m slowly getting better at standing on my own two feet here.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Richard Shaw’s <a href="https://www.masseypress.ac.nz/books/the-forgotten-coast/">The Forgotten Coast</a> is published by Massey University Press.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172219/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Like it or not, many Pākehā New Zealanders are the beneficiaries of a colonial settlement system based on dispossession and alienation. How can the past and present be reconciled honestly?Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1653812021-08-02T00:00:08Z2021-08-02T00:00:08ZHas the High Court shown the way for successful Māori claims to marine title?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413883/original/file-20210730-15-1nhu9xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C5146%2C2043&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nearly two decades on from the bitter political battle over ownership of the seabed and foreshore, a recent precedent-setting <a href="https://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/assets/cases/2021/2021-NZHC-1025.pdf">High Court decision</a> passed almost without comment in the mainstream media.</p>
<p>Perhaps that is a sign the country as a whole has moved on. Various appeals now await a hearing, but if the judgment survives in its current form it may offer a way forward for many successful applications for customary marine title (CMT) and protected customary rights (PCRs) by Māori.</p>
<p>The case in question mainly involved whānau and hapū from <a href="http://www.whakatohea.co.nz/">Whakatōhea</a>, but also their neighbours <a href="https://www.ngatiawa.iwi.nz/">Ngāti Awa</a>, Ngāi Tai, Te Ūpokorehe and others, and their claim to the takutai moana (common marine and coastal area) in and around Ōpōtiki and Ōhiwa harbour in the eastern Bay of Plenty. </p>
<p>The claims were made under the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2011/0003/latest/DLM3213131.html">Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act</a>. Seen by many as only a marginal improvement on the <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/repeal-foreshore-and-seabed-act-announced">now defunct</a> Foreshore and Seabed Act, its thresholds for successful applications were felt to be still too high.</p>
<p>So, while there may have been limited expectations of Justice Churchman’s ruling, it’s safe to say he delivered something very much worth talking about.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Coastline near Ōpōtiki" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414069/original/file-20210802-79497-1rfbsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414069/original/file-20210802-79497-1rfbsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414069/original/file-20210802-79497-1rfbsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414069/original/file-20210802-79497-1rfbsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414069/original/file-20210802-79497-1rfbsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414069/original/file-20210802-79497-1rfbsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414069/original/file-20210802-79497-1rfbsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Coastline near Ōpōtiki in the eastern Bay of Plenty.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Winning customary marine title</h2>
<p>To understand why the judge’s decision was so noteworthy, it’s important to grasp what are considered three key factors in determining an application for customary marine title:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the retention of land adjacent to the claimed foreshore </p></li>
<li><p>the issuing of resource consents by local authorities</p></li>
<li><p>third-party (public) use of the foreshore and seabed.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>On all these, Justice Churchman ruled in favour of the claimants. He found the retention of adjacent land was not important, and loss of land may even have led to increased use of the takutai moana. </p>
<p>The judge recognised the importance local authorities have placed on resource consent consultation with tangata whenua as evidence of continued authority. And he found third-party use was protected under the legislation, and so could not be evidence of interruptions to use by the applicants.</p>
<p>As a result of these findings, the issuing of CMT may not be as difficult as was previously thought — and that is perhaps the most surprising aspect of the decision.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1390956931422982146"}"></div></p>
<h2>An overwhelmingly positive decision</h2>
<p>It’s true the court seemed to follow the Crown’s preference for what it has termed “large natural groupings” (LNGs) for treaty settlement redress, rather than smaller hapū or whānau groups.</p>
<p>The consequent reliance on whanaungatanga (kinship) that seemed to work in this case may be strained in the long run, as some LNGs have been after treaty settlements.</p>
<p>Here, the court relied on Canadian jurisprudence when providing for non-exclusive orders covering a combination of groups including Whakatōhea, Te Ūpokorehe, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai and others.</p>
<p>Some fear this mix of different interests, without specific geographical and legal boundaries, could possibly open the door to fresh grievances. </p>
<p>But this is quite picky in the context of an overwhelmingly positive decision for many claimants.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-parihaka-to-he-puapua-its-time-pakeha-new-zealanders-faced-their-personal-connections-to-the-past-164553">From Parihaka to He Puapua: it’s time Pākehā New Zealanders faced their personal connections to the past</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Customary rights more challenging</h2>
<p>In contrast to the supposedly more difficult “macro” claims for CMT, the applications for PCRs – the “micro” activity-based rights – weren’t as readily approved.</p>
<p>The specific customary rights in the Whakatōhea application were extremely varied. Unlike CMT, multiple orders for PCRs could be provided to different groups like whānau and hapū, rather than just iwi-sized groups.</p>
<p>The key was evidence customary activity was continually practised on the takutai moana. The applications included harvesting kaimoana (seafood) and fishing, exercising kaitiakitanga (guardianship), mana motuhake (independence) and rangatiratanga (self-determination), using resources for medicinal and healing purposes, and resource extraction.</p>
<p>Most of these activities, especially those related to all fishing except for whitebait, were specifically excluded by the Takutai Moana Act, meaning many (though not all) applications for PCRs were unsuccessful.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-crown-is-maori-too-citizenship-sovereignty-and-the-treaty-of-waitangi-111168">The Crown is Māori too - citizenship, sovereignty and the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Small but tangible gains</h2>
<p>Where might this all lead? There is no immediate financial windfall, such as in a treaty settlement. Exclusion of third parties was never going to be possible, and fisheries (other than whitebait) are completely excluded from the process.</p>
<p>Non-Māori will be almost entirely unaffected. The holders of CMT will obtain certain proprietary rights, such as for minerals other than gold, silver, petrol and uranium, and ownership of newly found taonga tūturu (Māori archaeological objects).</p>
<p>They will also have some measure of co-management of conservation permission rights, protection of wāhi tapu (sacred sites) and a stronger influence on the coastal policy statement planning process. </p>
<p>These won’t be of great use to all applicants, but they will be valuable to many.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Entrance to NZ Supreme Court" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413890/original/file-20210730-13-1cnr72u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/413890/original/file-20210730-13-1cnr72u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413890/original/file-20210730-13-1cnr72u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413890/original/file-20210730-13-1cnr72u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413890/original/file-20210730-13-1cnr72u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413890/original/file-20210730-13-1cnr72u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/413890/original/file-20210730-13-1cnr72u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Time will tell how robust Justice Churchman’s decision is, including possible appeals all the way to the Supreme Court.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Just the beginning?</h2>
<p>As Treaty settlement negotiations slowly wind down, these applications for CMT and PCRs in the High Court are only just beginning. While many applicants have preferred the other option of direct negotiations with the Crown, the Crown has yet to begin a single negotiation.</p>
<p>If and when it does, the Crown’s reaction to Justice Churchman’s decision will be interesting. The Crown Law Office did not appeal his decision, leaving that to the <a href="http://www.landownerscoalition.co.nz/">Landowners’ Coalition</a> (an incorporated society claiming to be a “voice for private property rights”), which is an interested party to nearly every application. </p>
<p>A number of whānau and hapū, some of which were awarded PCRs but not CMT, also appealed the decision. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/separatist-or-radically-inclusive-what-nzs-he-puapua-report-really-says-about-the-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples-163719">Separatist or radically inclusive? What NZ’s He Puapua report really says about the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Only time will tell if the Whakatōhea decision can withstand possible appeals that may run all the way to the Supreme Court. But if it does survive in its current form, it will be a template for future successful applications.</p>
<p>It might also provide some legitimacy for a process that many had dismissed as largely worthless, precisely because of the perceived difficulty of obtaining successful orders for CMT and PCRs. </p>
<p>For that alone, Justice Churchman’s reasoned and measured boldness should be applauded.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Fisher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With Treaty of Waitangi settlement negotiations winding down, customary marine title claims are only just beginning. A recent High Court decision could provide the way forward.Martin Fisher, Lecturer, University of CanterburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1607822021-05-26T03:12:31Z2021-05-26T03:12:31ZThe New Zealand Chinese experience is unique and important — the new history curriculum can’t ignore it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402737/original/file-20210525-19-19div65.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C870%2C4928%2C2360&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>News of a revised New Zealand history curriculum was welcomed by many, including me as an historian and someone who has worked closely with high schools and the education sector.</p>
<p>In particular, this seemed like an opportunity to extend the breadth of history taught, including the important stories of Aotearoa’s migrant and refugee communities. </p>
<p>In its present form, however, the Ministry of Education’s history curriculum <a href="https://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Aotearoa-NZ-histories/MOE-Aotearoa-NZ-Histories-A3-FINAL-020-1.pdf">consultation document</a> falls well short.</p>
<p>Allowing for the fact the draft curriculum proposal is meant as “a framework” for “setting directions” and not a detailed prescription, aspects of it are nonetheless deeply worrying — not least the invisibility of the Chinese story.</p>
<p>With the <a href="https://www.education.govt.nz/our-work/changes-in-education/aotearoa-new-zealand-histories-in-our-national-curriculum/">public consultation process</a> ending on May 31, it’s vital this gap is addressed.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1395136954820284416"}"></div></p>
<h2>The other New Zealand stories</h2>
<p>The aim of history teaching should be to empower learners to think critically about the past. This equips them to understand the present and deal with the complexities of the future.</p>
<p>History is an interpretation of past events in as comprehensive and unbiased a way as possible. Sound history needs to have accuracy and integrity.</p>
<p>Quite rightly, <a href="https://archives.govt.nz/discover-our-stories/the-treaty-of-waitangi">Te Tiriti o Waitangi</a> as a founding document legitimising the relationship between Māori and the Crown is central to the draft curriculum. </p>
<p>However, there is little mention of <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?idiom=&phrase=&proverb=&loan=&histLoanWords=&keywords=tauiwi">tauiwi</a>, the many communities who have come to call Aotearoa home, but who do not identify as Māori or <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=pakeha">Pākehā</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402492/original/file-20210525-21-ohs4do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402492/original/file-20210525-21-ohs4do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402492/original/file-20210525-21-ohs4do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402492/original/file-20210525-21-ohs4do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402492/original/file-20210525-21-ohs4do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402492/original/file-20210525-21-ohs4do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402492/original/file-20210525-21-ohs4do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402492/original/file-20210525-21-ohs4do.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two Chinese gold miners seated in front of a stone cottage in Central Otago, circa late 1860s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexander Turnbull Library</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Chinese as ‘other’</h2>
<p>I write from the experience of researching and writing New Zealand Chinese history. The Chinese have been in Aotearoa New Zealand for close to 180 years and have never been part of the binary frame of colonisers and colonised.</p>
<p>They were itinerant workers brought to the Otago goldfields and subjected to a series of anti-Chinese laws from 1881 onwards. Since the Chinese were prevented from applying for naturalisation from 1908 onwards, they could never be British subjects or be represented by the Crown.</p>
<p>Neither Pākehā nor Māori, the Chinese are still labelled “<a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/ethnic-and-religious-intolerance/page-3">others</a>”.</p>
<p>Relegated to the fringe of society, they had no say in the nation’s policies and could not even expect the most basic rights, from miners’ accident benefits and family reunion to health care.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/teaching-chinese-politics-in-australia-polarised-views-leave-academics-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-157886">Teaching Chinese politics in Australia: polarised views leave academics between a rock and a hard place</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>They were the only ethnic group to pay a £100 poll tax for entry and had to be thumb printed on arrival and departure. Many of the arbitrary policies targeting Chinese were applied to local-born Chinese, confirming they were about race, not nationality.</p>
<p>Governor George Grey favoured New Zealand’s development as a “better Britain of the South Pacific” and successive New Zealand governments continued to build a white nation.</p>
<p>Chinese immigration was strictly controlled by tonnage ratios, quota systems, poll taxes and an English test. From the 1860s to the 1950s, the Chinese endured forced family separation in the interests of that unofficial white New Zealand policy.</p>
<h2>A history of suspicion</h2>
<p>The reception and treatment of the Chinese as a community is an interesting social barometer of New Zealand as a whole.</p>
<p>In the post WWII era of comparative plenty, New Zealand accepted refugees and orphans from many parts of war-ravaged Europe. During <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/chinese/page-4">this period</a>, a few hundred Chinese women and children who escaped the Japanese occupation of China in 1939-40 were allowed to stay in New Zealand.</p>
<p>This modest group formed the nucleus of the Chinese New Zealand community, and the Chinese finally became families instead of cohorts of bachelors.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-an-age-of-digital-disinformation-dropping-level-1-media-studies-in-nz-high-schools-is-a-big-mistake-151475">In an age of digital disinformation, dropping level 1 media studies in NZ high schools is a big mistake</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The arrival of the “new Asians” after 1987 was a rude awakening for everyone concerned. They seemed a far cry from the low-key, docile and polite local-born Chinese New Zealanders.</p>
<p>Auckland suburban newspapers splashed a sensational two-page story about “<a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/ethnic-and-religious-intolerance/page-5">The Inv-Asian</a>” in 1993. In 2006, the magazine “for thinking New Zealanders”, North & South, <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/press-council-condemns-asian-angst-story/UX5JDZEKBJOZ3E4N3NF4RMV2S4/">featured a story</a> titled “Asian Angst: Is it time to send some back?”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Lanterns in band rotunda and people" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402512/original/file-20210525-19-1vx2v1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402512/original/file-20210525-19-1vx2v1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402512/original/file-20210525-19-1vx2v1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402512/original/file-20210525-19-1vx2v1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402512/original/file-20210525-19-1vx2v1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402512/original/file-20210525-19-1vx2v1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402512/original/file-20210525-19-1vx2v1y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Crowds flock to events such as the Chinese Lantern Festival in Auckland, but most know little of the Chinese New Zealand experience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<h2>A curriculum for all New Zealanders</h2>
<p>The proposed curriculum risks continuing this unfortunate legacy of treating Chinese New Zealanders as perpetual migrants, a label not applied to the British people who have settled in Aotearoa.</p>
<p>A sound history curriculum should ensure all New Zealand’s children see history as a truly relevant subject. It needs to be everybody’s story. The linkages of non-Pākehā, non-Māori history must be established within the national history framework.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-model-minority-myth-hides-the-racist-and-sexist-violence-experienced-by-asian-women-157667">The model minority myth hides the racist and sexist violence experienced by Asian women</a>
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<p>The relationship between the Chinese (as the most distinctive, “undesirable” or “despised” immigrant group) and Māori (as <a href="https://maoridictionary.co.nz/search?keywords=tangata+whenua">tangata whenua</a>) is arguably the most essential relationship to tease out.</p>
<p>The draft curriculum proposal does not specifically recognise the diversity of New Zealand society in the past or present. Without significant and explicit guidance on the histories of the many diverse communities that call Aotearoa home, the risk is they and their children will fail to see themselves in their country’s histories.</p>
<p>And that will make it all the harder to see themselves as an important part of their country’s future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Manying Ip does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Chinese people have been in New Zealand for over 180 years, but their remarkable story will remain widely unknown if it isn’t taught in schools.Manying Ip, Emeritus Professor of Asian Studies, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata RauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1594342021-04-23T02:22:51Z2021-04-23T02:22:51ZWith closer ties to GPs, NZ’s new central health agency could revolutionise treatment of major diseases<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396669/original/file-20210422-21-19qh2l9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C168%2C6240%2C3923&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Inthon Maitrisamphan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is rare to get excited about institutional reform, but the government’s announcement of <a href="https://dpmc.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2021-04/heallth-reform-white-paper-summary-apr21.pdf">wholesale changes to the health system</a> has the potential to be transformative.</p>
<p>The restructure comes in response to last year’s <a href="https://systemreview.health.govt.nz/">Health and Disability System review</a>. Among other changes, it will create a centralised organisation, Health NZ, which will replace 20 district health boards and take responsibility for the day-to-day running of the health system. </p>
<p>The new system will be akin to the UK’s National Health Service (<a href="https://www.nhs.uk/">NHS</a>). My <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9789811076015">research</a> suggests this could begin to reduce inequalities and improve how New Zealand tackles major health conditions.</p>
<h2>History of public health</h2>
<p>New Zealand’s national health service goes back to the vision of former Labour prime minister <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/michael-joseph-savage-biography">Michael Joseph Savage</a>, best remembered for his landmark “cradle to grave” <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/1966/social-security/page-2">social welfare reforms</a>, especially the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/social-security-act-passed">Social Security Act 1938</a>. </p>
<p>The health system was <a href="http://www.nzlii.org/nz/legis/hist_act/ssa19382gv1938n7266/">legislated</a> a decade before the UK’s NHS. It provided for universal healthcare with publicly funded hospital treatment, free medicines, a maternity benefit and subsidised doctor’s visits. It sought to make healthcare free for all. </p>
<p>Fierce opposition by general practitioners at the time resulted in them being given the right to charge patients for their services. But over time, the level of user charges created a significant barrier to access to primary healthcare for poorer New Zealanders. </p>
<p>New Zealand now has a chance to finally develop a more constructive relationship with general practitioners and seek to resolve the problem of access, this time with a partner Māori health authority to honour obligations under the <a href="https://archives.govt.nz/discover-our-stories/the-treaty-of-waitangi">Treaty of Waitangi</a>. This could begin to resolve health inequalities.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-authority-could-transform-maori-health-but-only-if-its-a-leader-not-a-partner-159425">New authority could transform Māori health, but only if it's a leader, not a partner</a>
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<p>General practitioners have <a href="https://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/article/undoctored/gpnz-health-reforms-response">applauded the reform</a>. If the new NHS-type crown entity and the Māori health authority can collaborate in a way that truly engages general practitioners, this could be revolutionary. </p>
<h2>Comparison with England</h2>
<p>My comparative <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9789811076015">research</a> into health disparities and their many drivers compared GP services in New Zealand and England between 2004 and 2014, when both were responding to a new national pay-for-performance scheme designed to improve quality of care. </p>
<p>It was abundantly clear that the close partnership of general practice and the NHS in England, which reduced <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-impact-of-incentives-on-the-behaviour-and-of-Mcdonald-Cheraghi-Sohi/a1f4278dddb970b30ad10a26608c5584d00264ca">variations in care quality related to deprivation</a>, was the secret weapon in reducing health inequalities in that country. There were continuous <a href="http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/resources-reports/marmot-review-10-years-on">improvements in life expectancy until 2011</a>, although progress has now stalled as a result of austerity-based policies.</p>
<p>By comparison, New Zealand’s pay-for-performance scheme made only small, albeit promising, progress towards reducing admissions to hospital for conditions that should have been treated in primary care, before it was <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9789811076015">abandoned</a> in 2017.</p>
<p>This shows why New Zealand needs the kind of institutional reform the government has proposed. </p>
<h2>Disease prevention</h2>
<p>We can look at the prevention and care of diabetes as an example. In 2018, English academics reported on a <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/2/e019467">successful trial of a prevention programme</a> which delivered interventions compliant with best practice nationally to attack the onset of diabetes. </p>
<p>Through close partnership with its general practitioners, England has gone on to attack major health issues such as diabetes <a href="https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/43/1/152">more effectively</a> than New Zealand. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-needs-urgent-action-to-tackle-the-frightening-rise-and-cost-of-type-2-diabetes-157581">New Zealand needs urgent action to tackle the frightening rise and cost of type 2 diabetes</a>
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<p>Through a single central contract with all general practitioners, NHS England provides financial incentives to deliver best practice diabetes diagnosis, prevention and care (along with incentives linked to many other conditions). </p>
<p>General practitioners are rewarded with additional payments where their care of patients meets these nationally agreed quality standards and their practice data provides evidence for this. </p>
<p>New Zealand could build similar partnerships with general practitioners to tackle our most costly and debilitating health conditions through a centralised approach.
This has the potential to bring better healthcare to every New Zealander — and this is worth getting excited about.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Verna Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By borrowing from the British NHS system of working closely with general practitioners, this radical shake-up of New Zealand’s health system can greatly improve primary healthcare.Verna Smith, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1561982021-03-04T19:24:42Z2021-03-04T19:24:42ZHonouring Te Tiriti means ‘getting into the stream together’ — so this vice-chancellor has become a student again<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387411/original/file-20210303-27-111dc6b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=19%2C6%2C4289%2C2861&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Massey University Vice-Chancellor Jan Thomas (centre) attends her pōwhiri (welcome) in 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As first-year students flooded onto campuses around the country this week, gripped with uncertainty and curiosity about their new lives, I too returned to university to learn.</p>
<p>For the first time since what feels like forever, but in reality was 1997 when I finished my PhD, I am now a bona fide university student.</p>
<p>It’s confronting to go back as an undergraduate online student (I’m doing a BA, through my own university, Massey University). But at the same time, it’s exciting and new. And for me, with a science background, stepping into the humanities is a whole other world. </p>
<p>The last time I was a student I used the scientific method; I tested, palpated and measured as a veterinary science undergraduate. In the humanities, it feels more fluid, more open to interpretation. As Vice-Chancellor I’ve known this, but to now be in it, well … I’ve surprised myself, because I’ve found I really like it.</p>
<p>I haven’t yet told my mother I’m doing a BA — she’ll find out when she reads this (sorry, Mum). I’ve been nervous about telling her; as a scientist in a family full of humanities graduates, I’ve always been a bit of a black sheep and was enthusiastically critical of my siblings’ choices as a youngster. </p>
<p>But increasingly I began to recognise our different disciplines have different ways of looking at the world, and that’s incredibly valuable for critical and creative thinking.</p>
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<img alt="Massey University Vice-Chancellor Jan Thomas in a graduation procession" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387414/original/file-20210303-19-tdnj3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387414/original/file-20210303-19-tdnj3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387414/original/file-20210303-19-tdnj3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387414/original/file-20210303-19-tdnj3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387414/original/file-20210303-19-tdnj3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387414/original/file-20210303-19-tdnj3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387414/original/file-20210303-19-tdnj3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Back to class: Jan Thomas at last year’s graduation procession in Palmerston North.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Into the third space</h2>
<p>I’m now stepping into a new space. In the Aboriginal world, in my native Australia, they talk about the “third space” — a place where white people and Indigenous people come together to begin to understand the other’s perspective. </p>
<p>You don’t have to agree to it, but it’s essential to understand it, otherwise you’re constantly in tension. The two separate worlds just keep flowing on in parallel, and nothing ever truly changes.</p>
<p>My first course is <a href="https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/learning/programme-course/course.cfm?course_code=150114">He Tirohanga Taketake: Māori Perspectives</a>, taught by Te Rā Moriarty at <a href="https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/explore/departments/school-maori-knowledge/school-maori-knowledge_home.cfm">Te Putahi-a-Toi</a>. We’re studying perspectives from Māori authors, through Māori teachers, alongside Māori and non-Māori students, gaining a deeper understanding of concepts such as tapu, mana, and whakapapa. </p>
<p>We’re examining social structures within Māoridom, the influence of colonisation, and the Māori world view on things such as the environment, family and personal characteristics such as humility and respect for kaumātua. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-century-that-profoundly-changed-universities-and-their-campuses-151765">A century that profoundly changed universities and their campuses</a>
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<p>I’m asking myself as I go, if I am standing in a Māori person’s shoes, what does the world look like?</p>
<p>Well, it looks pretty different. And that’s why I believe fostering understanding is essential to constructing the way forward together.</p>
<p>Although I managed to pass te reo Māori to level 5 at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa over three years, I feel I’ve still got so far to go. I’m not even dipping a full toe into the water yet — maybe just the toenail.</p>
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<img alt="Whare kai building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387616/original/file-20210303-13-lffyjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387616/original/file-20210303-13-lffyjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387616/original/file-20210303-13-lffyjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387616/original/file-20210303-13-lffyjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387616/original/file-20210303-13-lffyjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387616/original/file-20210303-13-lffyjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387616/original/file-20210303-13-lffyjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The whare kai, part of Te Putahi-a-Toi, on Massey University’s Manawatū campus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<h2>Strength and direction</h2>
<p>The world has changed dramatically over the past five to ten years, and many businesses and institutions now have strong aspirations to incorporate Te Tiriti o Waitangi into how they operate. Massey is no exception. </p>
<p>But it’s got to be more than just lip service, more than just te reo greetings in corporate emails. If we’re going to get the partnership right (and I recognise there’s a better word than “partnership” — perhaps fusing or blending), the responsibility has to fall on all of us. </p>
<p>Everyone has to work on it. And for me, entering the third space, I’m not trying to “be Māori”, but I know I’ve got to understand Māori perspectives and why others might want certain things. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guaranteed-maori-representation-in-local-government-is-about-self-determination-and-its-good-for-democracy-154538">Guaranteed Māori representation in local government is about self-determination — and it's good for democracy</a>
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<p>Sure, it might help me avoid giving offence, and that’s essential. But more than that, we might find areas of common interest, things that make meaning for both parts of the partnership. I know if I’m going to lead a university that upholds diversity, equity and excellence in Aotearoa, I need to engage fully.</p>
<p>There are te reo Māori terms for the sides of the stream and the middle of the stream. The sides are “au taha” — the side currents, where the water doesn’t flow swiftly. In the middle, it’s “au kaha”, which has more strength, direction and forward momentum. </p>
<p>Historically, we’ve had Pākehā on one side of the stream and Māori on the other. We’ve got to get into the middle of the stream together, au kaha, and move forward together down the river. </p>
<p>Don’t be satisfied paddling in the easy bits on the side, but find moments to meet in the middle. Get right into the stream, and be brave enough to work in that (sometimes) turbulent place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Thomas is the Vice-Chancellor of Massey University, where she is also now studying.</span></em></p>A veterinary scientist by training, Massey University Vice-Chancellor Jan Thomas has turned to the humanities to learn more about Māori. Here she explains why.Jan Thomas, Vice-Chancellor, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1545382021-02-04T19:07:09Z2021-02-04T19:07:09ZGuaranteed Māori representation in local government is about self-determination — and it’s good for democracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382389/original/file-20210204-18-1fvujkc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C4905%2C3260&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent controversy over a decision by the Tauranga City Council to <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/424402/tauranga-city-council-votes-for-maori-ward">establish a Māori ward</a> reminds us that arguments about Māori political representation are nothing new.</p>
<p>In this latest case, the <a href="https://www.hobsonspledge.nz/he_iwi_tahi_tatou">Hobson’s Pledge</a> lobby group helped <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/war-of-words-tauranga-residents-butt-heads-at-controversial-maori-ward-meeting/5QAPDKYPSD7DWRVSFDQM7KR3UA/">organise a petition</a> to overturn the council decision. It would have created an <a href="http://www.localcouncils.govt.nz/lgip.nsf/wpg_url/About-Local-Government-Participate-In-Local-Government-Voting-and-Becoming-a-Councillor#M%C4%81oriwardsandconstituencies">electoral district</a> (or ward) where only those on the Māori parliamentary electoral roll could vote for the representatives.</p>
<p>By the end of January the petition had achieved enough support to <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/435413/tauranga-maori-wards-proposal-to-go-to-referendum">force a referendum</a> under rules set out in the <a href="https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0084/167.0/DLM170873.html">Local Government Act 2002</a>.</p>
<p>These rules allow councils to create new wards. But when these new wards are for voters on the Māori parliamentary electoral roll, citizens can petition the council to have the decision overturned by referendum. </p>
<p>Council decisions can’t be overturned like this in any other circumstances. Minister of Local Government Nanaia Mahuta called it “<a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/435579/changes-to-fundamentally-unfair-process-to-make-way-for-maori-wards">fundamentally unfair</a>”.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/waitangi-day">Waitangi Day</a> on February 6 approached, Mahuta announced <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/124111313/government-dumps-law-threatening-mori-wards-halts-petitions">proposed law changes</a> that would remove the process for overturning such decisions and therefore make guaranteed Māori representation more likely. This would bring councils into line with central government where <a href="https://www.parliament.nz/mi/pb/research-papers/document/00PLLawRP03141/origins-of-the-m%C4%81ori-seats">Māori seats in parliament</a> have given Māori a distinctive political voice since 1867.</p>
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<h2>Room for Māori to be Māori</h2>
<p>Hobson’s Pledge takes its name from New Zealand’s first governor, <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/people/william-hobson">William Hobson</a>, who signed the <a href="https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/the-treaty-in-brief">Treaty of Waitangi</a> on behalf of the crown. After signing, Hobson greeted each of the chiefs with the words “he iwi tahi tatau”.</p>
<p>Hobson’s Pledge translates this phrase as “we are one people”, to support the argument that New Zealand should be a politically homogeneous state. It shouldn’t separate “ratepayers into ‘Maori’ and the ‘rest of us’”. Unity is the product of sameness. </p>
<p>However, political homegeneity inevitably also means cultural homogeneity. There would be no room for Māori to be Māori.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Don Brash speaking with microphone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382387/original/file-20210204-22-mdnrlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382387/original/file-20210204-22-mdnrlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382387/original/file-20210204-22-mdnrlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382387/original/file-20210204-22-mdnrlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382387/original/file-20210204-22-mdnrlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382387/original/file-20210204-22-mdnrlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382387/original/file-20210204-22-mdnrlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hobson’s Pledge spokesperson and former MP Don Brash speaking at Waitangi in 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>While the treaty doesn’t specify distinctive representation, it does help give effect to the rights and privileges of citizenship the agreement promised. </p>
<p>In turn, this helps Māori ensure council decisions uphold the rights of <a href="http://www.journal.mai.ac.nz/sites/default/files/Vol%202%20%281%29%20019%20Jackson.pdf">rangatiratanga</a> — the Māori right to authority over their own affairs — that the treaty also promised.</p>
<p>Since 2002, 24 councils have voted to establish Māori wards but referendums have overturned many of those decisions. At the next local government elections in 2022 there will (so far) be nine councils that elect members from Māori wards.</p>
<p>In the absence of Māori wards, Māori citizens vote as part of the general population. But their distinctive concerns are often obscured and subsumed by those of the non-Māori majority. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-significance-of-the-treaty-of-waitangi-110982">Explainer: the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The tyranny of the majority</h2>
<p>The arguments for and against distinctive Māori representation are well rehearsed. On the one hand, “one person, one vote of equal value” demands that political rights be expressed in identical fashion. </p>
<p>Equality doesn’t allow for difference. It doesn’t matter if other voters’ racism stops Māori being elected, or if other voters just don’t share culturally framed Māori views of what councils should achieve. Democracy requires the “tyranny of the majority” to prevail.</p>
<p>On the other hand, democracy developed precisely because people bring different values and perspectives to public life. Culture and colonial experiences influence people’s aspirations. They influence what people expect politics to achieve. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-treaty-of-waitangi-and-its-influence-on-identity-politics-in-new-zealand-110991">The Treaty of Waitangi and its influence on identity politics in New Zealand</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Democracy’s potential is to mediate, not to suppress these different perspectives. All people should be able to say they have had fair opportunities to influence the society in which they live. In this sense, democracy’s potential is to assure each person a voice rather than just a vote of equal value.</p>
<p>As my book <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-33-4172-2">Sharing the Sovereign: Indigenous Peoples, Recognition, Treaties and the State</a> argues, substantive political voice is a right of self-determination. It means all people have a share in the political authority of the state, which helps democracy work better for everybody.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Nanaia Mahuta and Jacinda Ardern" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382388/original/file-20210204-14-3l7mqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/382388/original/file-20210204-14-3l7mqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382388/original/file-20210204-14-3l7mqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382388/original/file-20210204-14-3l7mqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382388/original/file-20210204-14-3l7mqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382388/original/file-20210204-14-3l7mqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/382388/original/file-20210204-14-3l7mqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta (left) with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">GettyImages</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A worldwide movement</h2>
<p>Self-determination is a political right that belongs to all people, not just to ethnic majorities or to the descendants of settler populations. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (<a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html">UNDRIP</a>), which John Key’s government accepted as <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/national-govt-support-un-rights-declaration">aspirationally significant</a>, <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf">defines</a> it like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinct political, legal, economic, social and cultural institutions, while retaining their right to participate fully, if they so choose, in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the State.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indigenous peoples’ active participation in public life is also a matter of important public debate in Australia and Canada. </p>
<p>In Australia, <a href="https://caepr.cass.anu.edu.au/research/publications/support-constitutionally-enshrined-first-nations-voice-parliament-evidence">successive public opinion polls</a> have supported an Indigenous aspiration for a constitutionally entrenched elected body to act as a “voice to parliament”. In British Columbia, the UNDRIP is required to be implemented by <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6222331/british-columbia-passes-undrip/">law</a>. </p>
<p>Each case has lessons for New Zealand, just as the New Zealand experience is informing debates overseas — especially in <a href="https://www.aboriginalvictoria.vic.gov.au/treaty">Victoria</a>, <a href="https://www.datsip.qld.gov.au/programs-initiatives/tracks-treaty/path-treaty">Queensland</a> and the <a href="https://treatynt.com.au/">Northern Territory</a> where treaty negotiations are beginning.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1356437858479824896"}"></div></p>
<h2>The right to a political voice</h2>
<p>New Zealand is not an international outlier in saying it wants to strengthen Indigenous participation in public life. However, nobody participates as an abstract being devoid of culture and uninfluenced by political experiences like colonialism. </p>
<p>The Treaty of Waitangi and the UNDRIP imagine non-colonial societies. That requires a substantive political voice, not through other people’s tolerance, but as a matter of right. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/can-colonialism-be-reversed-the-uns-declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples-provides-some-answers-147017">Can colonialism be reversed? The UN's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides some answers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Democracy is strengthened if Māori candidates for public office can present themselves to Māori voters and be evaluated by Māori voters, in ways that make cultural sense and are responsive to the particular circumstances of prior occupancy, colonisation and culture. </p>
<p>There is still the question of whether distinctive representation should be a right of all Māori who want it, or just those who descend from the particular local government region (mana whenua). Also, should the choice to vote on the Māori parliamentary electoral roll automatically constitute a choice to vote on a Māori local government roll?</p>
<p>But from now on these points can be debated with the knowledge it won’t be possible for non-Māori voters to decide Māori can’t have a distinctive voice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154538/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic O'Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The struggle to establish Māori wards centres on the rights and privileges of citizenship promised in the Treaty of Waitangi.Dominic O'Sullivan, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, and Associate Professor of Political Science, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.