Bruce Moon: Democracy in Danger

"We ought not to extract pernicious honey from poison blossoms of misrepresentation and mendacious half-truth, to pamper the coarse appetite of bigotry and self-love." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge).

And so, in New Zealand ...

We have The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, and its creation the Waitangi Tribunal, recreating history, misrepresenting the Treaty of Waitangi itself and rorting the taxpayer for the benefit of those who are genetically blessed ‒ or some of them anyway ‒ because they are Maoris.

 Well, who are these Maoris? 

It’s simple: “Maori means a person of the Maori race of New Zealand and includes any descendant of such a person.”  Well, that’s what the Act says! [1]

Hmmm!  Where to now?  What is the Maori race of New Zealand?  It is the Maoris and part-Maoris of course!

And who are Maoris? Well they are “persons of the Maori race of New Zealand” as just defined above of course!

And when do descendants of a Maori stop being a Maori?   Well they don’t of course!

So how do I know, for the purposes of Treaty of Waitangi Act or the Maori Land Act, or the Electoral Act who or what is a Maori?

Well, you look at the definition of “Maori” of course.   It’s all set out in the Act as described above!

“Curiouser and curiouser”, said Alice[2]. 

What next? It’s obvious you might say: do a DNA test. But the legislation does not define Maori in terms of DNA, which is a scientific concept, but rather in terms of race which is a social construct. 

And while thinking about this, why is someone with one great-grandparent a Maori (however defined)?  What if all the other great-grandparents were British colonials  - wicked white colonials? What if some of those colonial great-grandparents fought against the Maori great-grandparent and family?  Such a person today might well ask: “Who in the world am I?  Ah! that‘s the great puzzle.” [3]

Well now, no!  Off down the rabbit hole. “I am a Maori and that is that!”

So let’s think of a social definition: what if I speak te reo Maori?  Aha, we have a problem because te reo Maori is very different from the many dialects of Maori spoken before Europeans arrived. Nor is the world and its linguistic representation today the same as, say, 200 years ago.  So-called standardised Maori spoken today on a mobile phone over a coffee and chocolate cream bun is surely very different from the Stone Age Maori dialects filled with words of war and other matters fundamental to their lives – maybe some 700 words in all?  And what if I speak Maori but assert my race as being British?  So that notion doesn’t quite “hold water”!

Maybe we could look to the dictionary to define “Maori”. But then, why have the definition in the Act? Surely it is not for a dictionary to render part of a law of New Zealand redundant? And how can we rely on a dictionary definition that defines Maori as being indigenous – which of course they are not (unless indigeneity is transferable by conquest)? Do we have to search for a definition that does not refer to indigeneity and substitute that into the Act? What if there are more than one dictionary definitions not necessarily the same?

Perhaps the Law itself could help us. And so to the Interpretation Act 2019.

Section 3(i) says: ‘The purpose of this Act is to promote high-quality legislation for New Zealand that is easy to find, use and understand’.

Alas!  We evidently have a failure on our hands already as we cannot find or understand who a Maori is for the purposes of the Treaty of Waitangi Act.  Circular arguments have got us nowhere.  But let’s keep going.

Section 10)i) reads: ‘The meaning of legislation must be ascertained from its text[4] and in the light of its purpose and its context’.[5]

We have already ascertained that the definition of Maori in the Treaty of Waitangi Act is circular and, not surprisingly, leads us nowhere.

The purpose, per the long title, is “An Act to provide for the observance, and confirmation, of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi by establishing a Tribunal to make recommendations on claims relating to the practical application of the Treaty and to determine whether certain matters are inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty”.

The preamble states: ‘ Whereas on 6 February 1840 a Treaty was entered into between her late Majesty Queen Victoria and the Maori people of New Zealand;

And whereas the text of the Treaty in the English language differs from the text of the Treaty in the Maori language;

And whereas it is desirable that a Tribunal be established to make recommendations on claims relating to the practical application of the principles of the Treaty and, for that purpose, to determine its meaning and effect and whether certain matters are inconsistent with those principles’.

Does this help us? Frankly, no. The use of the word “Maori” is a defined term so we must use that and hence we are back to ‘Maori means a person of the Maori race of New Zealand; and includes a descendant of such person”. And so to the definitions – again….. and again!

And what does the context give us in helping understand who is a Maori? Nothing actually, as being a Maori in fact is the context of the statute. “Contrariwise if it were so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.” [6]

Maybe it is time to move on, definition unresolved.  Perhaps it is just a case of “Cogito ergo sum”[7] - although as Descartes was almost certainly not thinking of the definition of who is a Maori at the time of his famous utterance and as it is in Latin not Maori, this may be just a red herring or, perhaps, an inanga. 

Back to the Treaty of Waitangi Act and its preamble which says quite specifically that the English and Maori versions of the Treaty differ in their text.   If this were so, it would be an absurdity beyond rational belief.

Let’s check out exactly what the Treaty is, (according to the Act, that is).

“Treaty means the Treaty of Waitangi as set out in English and Maori in Schedule 1.” 

And so we go to Schedule 1. The Treaty in Maori looks familiar- but the English text? Oh dear, a little sleuthing is needed. And behold, we find the English text is by Freeman.  Freeman dreamt this up post sacking by Hobson for incompetence (in preparing the English treaty text) and post signing, using unauthorised florid text which he disingenuously presented for signing to an ailing Hobson.  Freeman distributed this in several somewhat different versions as he thought useful.  I am in equal parts gobsmacked[8] and distressed.  It is this dishonesty which the 1975 Labour Government chose to validate by legislation.  And now it is the law.  

We find that the Treaty of Waitangi as set out in English … in Schedule I is not the treaty in English at all but Freeman’s fake version – or one of them – which was used for an overflow of signatures at Waikato Heads in April 1840.

We have told this story before[9] but need must, it seems, tell it again.  When Captain Symonds with the official copy of the treaty (in Maori) had not arrived in time for the signing activities, missionary Maunsell improvised, using a printed copy in his possession for the first five chiefs’ signatures . For the remaining thirty-odd signatures he improvised, using a piece of paper that had somehow arrived with a consignment of stationery.  And what an irony of history!  It just happened that this piece of paper was one of Freeman’s fake treaties – except that Freeman himself had discarded it because Hobson’s signature was too weak. A defective fake English text of the treaty!!!    Maunsell,  having obtained the signatures,  duly folded the Maori text and defective fake English text together, the valid Maori text on top, and eventually they found their way back to base where they were sealed together with wax, torn apart, pinned together, and torn apart to go their separate ways.[10]  Both are illustrated in [Paul] Moon & Biggs,[11] p226, Sheets 3 & 4, but they are not, as implied there, separate documents.  If they were, one signed copy of the Treaty in English is unique but neither officialdom nor professional historians ask the obvious question: why on a single occasion were signatures collected on what is apparently a treaty in English when all the rest were copies of the original, 6th February version, in Maori?

The blunt truth is that there never was a  “Treaty in English”. The Treaty of Waitangi Act, 1975 and other legislation which refers to such a non-existent document are based on false foundations.

*   *   *   *   *

What we do know of the 1840 situation is that more astute Maori Chiefs wanted the Crown’s protection to save them from their own continuing inter-tribal slaughter and/or that by the French. 

In addition, both the Chiefs and the Crown had mutual interest in doing away with dodgy land transactions, perpetrated by both Maoris and colonists from time to time and indeed a commission was set up by the Crown for their review.  This was effective and numerous pre-treaty land deals were nullified.  Repeated assertions of vast land loss to wicked white colonials by a variety of part-Maori interests today are raw political propaganda.

Now the Crown was never going to fight with or on behalf of the various tribes either against each other or the colonists, whatever tribal extermination activities might have been – the chaos would have been almost unimaginable.  And of course, the shrewd chiefs could see its absurdity too. 

It was pretty obvious to all that in the interests of Maoris themselves and recognition of the largescale immigration impending from Britain, some form of organized government for the whole country had become a necessity.  In practical terms this could only be attained by acceptance of British sovereignty- and the chiefs knew it.  Claims from many partisan quarters today that the chiefs never ceded such sovereignty as each possessed are entirely spurious and fly in the face of recorded evidence of the day from all quarters, Maori and British alike.

So all parties decided to make the Crown supreme, with the law of the Crown prevailing. There were to be no second class citizens. Maoris (and all others) retained their possessions but not of course their many slaves. Indeed the status of  slaves and women vastly improved and even the warriors could hold their heads up high and secure.  Neither Maoris nor colonials were impoverished or treated as losers.  Indeed, it was a brilliant exercise in win-win tactics.  No heads lost. 

 *   *   *   *   *

Quite evidently, the initiative lay with the British and Hobson’s immediate task was to provide the text of an agreement acceptable to both parties.  Of necessity this document was to be expressed in the Ngapuhi dialect, familiar to missionaries and many others resident in the Bay of Islands where all initial negotiations were to be conducted. 

Hobson’s first, essential, task was to prepare a text in English from which a Maori document could be translated as an agreement to be signed by all parties.  With clerical assistance from Busby and Clendon (a British subject and American consul), he completed this text on 4th February and gave it to the Williams, father and son, who prepared the Maori text overnight. This was duly signed on 6th.

Yes!  Plenty of red herrings (or should I say inanga?) multiply today.[12]  It doesn’t change the fact that the Maori text is a direct translation of Hobson’s text at the time, no matter what present and future fantasists may dream. 

Deal done.

Thus we had “The Treaty of Waitangi”.

Now a text in English clearly continued to be needed and indeed two direct copies of Hobson’s final 4th February text were sent to American authorities by Clendon, as US Consul, and Wilkes, Commander of the American squadron which appeared soon afterwards.  It was an irony of fate that the final text was held unawares for many decades by the family of lawyer Henry Littlewood until found in 1989 amongst the possessions of her late mother, by his descendant, Beryl Needham.

There can be no serious doubt of the genuine provenance of this document yet, because it upsets the applecarts of so many politicians, historians and lawyers there has been an overwhelming and indeed frantic chorus of denial from amongst their ranks of its validity and spurious speculation of where it came from.  One such was Margaret Wilson, a minister in the 2004 Labour government, who dismissed it because it was not signed.  This shows Ms Wilson’s lack of knowledge of the circumstances – the English text was never intended to be signed. It was the text to be translated into the Maori document, which was to be signed and thus become the treaty. More recently Ned Fletcher, in a book glowingly referred to by Morgan Godfery in “The Spinoff” for 13 December 2022, makes equally false claims to dismiss it.

The misplacing[13] of copies of Hobson’s final 4th February draft was of course a problem.  And Freeman’s fake text was simply that: a fake with no official status. So in 1869 a translation back into English was made by T.E. Young of the Native Affairs Department.   While generally done competently, this text contains the    profound flaw of translating “kawanatanga”  in Article First as “government”, making the obvious mistake of so many of supposing that “translation is the same as derivation”.   “kawanatanga” was the Williams‘ translation of “sovreignty” [sic] in Hobson’s final draft.[14]

We say again: this English text, a document written and dated on 4th February 1840, was neatly, efficiently, exactly translated into Maori by Williams, father and son, bilingual fluently in English and the Ngapuhi dialect. This is what was signed.    The Maori text is a direct translation of Hobson’s 4th February text, tabbed today the ”Littlewood Treaty”, no matter what present and future fantasists may dream. 

And just to make the point, the chiefs articulated clearly and graphically at Waitangi during discussions on 5th February 1840 that they understood exactly what they were signing up to. This included cession of sovereignty and no mention of radio waves or fisheries quota.

And they signed because what they got was worth more to them than what they gave up. 

There was no partnership with the Crown. There were no ongoing principles. There was simply a point in time in 1840 at which a unification of people took place under a new agreed common social and political structure. The moment was absolute. 

New Zealand was now unified with a government:

• The Crown became sovereign
• Maoris and colonials were now both protected by the Crown. 
• Maoris and colonials now both had the rights and privileges of British subjects. 
• The Crown initiated a review of pre-treaty land transactions.
• All citizens retained their land (subject to such review), dwellings and property and the right to dispose of it if they saw fit. 

Of  course there were, and are, opportunists who have challenged, exploited or corrupted this change, but having broken their word and stepped outside their own Crown safety net in the past they were dealt with accordingly.  That was, and is, the only principle, embedded within the law of contract itself and implicit in our mutual social commitment. 

So – why does the Treaty of Waitangi Act talk about differing texts?  Why does it fail to use what was available at the time: the official 1869 translation back into English in a form much closer to the time than those speakers of manufactured Te Reo of today and taking into account too, that in 1869 the government of the day was implementing the Treaty as intended.  Bear in mind too, that in  1869 there were people still alive from 1840  who would be alert to the consequences of the Treaty and its effect.  The Act rests on false assumptions and total failure to investigate and recognize the historical facts.

Why does the Act talk about principles? There are no ongoing principles of the Treaty.[15] 

It leaves us with flawed legislation based on fantastical premises implemented (by recommendation only, note) by a Tribunal which has ‘exclusive authority to determine the meaning and effect of the Treaty embodied in the two texts and to decide issues raised by the differences between them’.[16]

It leaves us with the tribes (being persons of the Maori race of New Zealand or any descendant of any such person  (as “defined”)) receiving enormous taxpayer funded payouts and the government committing non -Maoris to more and more racially defined policies in favour of those citizens fortunate enough to be, in terms of the Act’s  “definition”, members of the “Maori race”. 

This is flagrant racism by any yardstick and denial of democratic rights of other citizens of New Zealand.

The Treaty of Waitangi Act was ill-conceived and ill-executed.  The sad thing is, if the Act had not got things so wrong in the first place, or better still, if it had never existed, if the Treaty had been respected for what it achieved on its terms at the time, instead of being resurrected and manipulated to empower a cynical rewriting of history and disrespect for the original signatories, then time and money would not continue to be spent on current fabrication, sophistry and other abuses.

We, the people of New Zealand, need a government with the knowledge, ability and integrity to correct these deeply flawed episodes of our quite recent past.  It must:

·         - Repeal the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. 

·         - Abolish the Waitangi Tribunal, not recreating it in whole or in part in any other guise or manifestation. 

·         - Remove the charitable status of Maori corporations so they pay tax like the rest of us, recognizing that we, the taxpayers who funded them in the first place, did so on illogical premisses.

·         - Rediscover and reconnect to :

• our being New Zealanders irrespective of race
• integrating our diversity of race and culture into our New Zealand identity
• being honest about our history
• closing out the Treaty of Waitangi exhumation 
• building a future and good quality infrastructure throughout New Zealand for all the people of New Zealand, irrespective of their racial origins. 

---

References: 

[1] Treaty of Waitangi Act section 2.
[2] Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Section 10 Interpretation Act 2019: (3) The text of legislation includes the indications provided in the legislation. (4) Examples of those indications are preambles, a table of contents, headings, diagrams, graphics, examples and explanatory material, and the organisation and format of the legislation.
[5] Section 13 of the Interpretation Act 2019 also gives definitions for all legislation. For example, ‘North Island or Te Ika-a-Maui’, both official alternative names, mean the island commonly known as the North Island, and includes the island adjacent to it.’ Similarly, ‘South Island or Te Waipounamu’, both official alternative names, means the island commonly known as the South Island, and includes the islands adjacent to it.’
[6] Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
[7] “I think, therefore I am”, as our few remaining Latin scholars will know, but untranslated, as far as I know, and perhaps untranslatable into either “te Reo” or any Maori dialect of 200 years ago.
[8] I am not one for vulgarity in speech but on this occasion, the use of this word is well justified.
[9] “New Zealand; the fair colony”, 2nd Ed., 2020, ISBN 978-0-473-53728-9, 26, p.6
[10] Recent qualified forensic examination has established this sequence beyond doubt.  References are available.
[11] “The Treaty and its Times”, ISBN 0-908618-18, 2004
[12] Some of these purport to be what the Maori chiefs understood when they signed in 1840. Many of these contradict the written records of the day. They include speculation about governorship and sovereignty, as Maori concepts versus British concepts and hypotheses on residual Maori power or Maori – Crown  partnerships and pretence that somehow Maoris retained sovereignty.  The reality is that the critical nature of the transaction for both parties was to secure British supremacy in matters of government and law. Maoris became subjects – as expressly written in the Treaty.  Subjects are not a partners. 
[13] This vitally important document now lies buried deep in official archives and special permission must be obtained to examine it.  Fortunately, accurate records of its contents are held in competent and reliable hands!
[14] Recognition of this vital distinction is contained in “New Zealand; the fair colony”, 2^nd Ed., 2020, ISBN 978-0-473-53728-9, p.68.  As far as I am aware, no other author has recognized this critical distinction, ignored by treaty-twisters.
[15] It is like deciding that the younger of two grey horses is a unicorn to prove that unicorns exist. The principle would be of course that there must be more to horses than to the hippopotamus and thus a unicorn may well grow two horns over time. It opens the way to a whole new world of fantasy and fiction.
[16] May we mention the contribution of Harry Styles at his concert in Auckland 7 March 2023?  There, as reported in Stuff the next day, he waved the quite recently devised, so-called “tino rangatiratanga” flag, riddled with Maori mythology, with the gross lie that the missionary-coined term “tino rangatiratanga” ‘translates to highest chieftainship”, but can also mean “absolute sovereignty” and “self-determination”’ and the similar absurdity that “There is no English term that fully expresses its meaning”.  Well, yes there is: it is the Williams’ translation of “possession” in the Treaty!!  With Styles inspiring such gross propaganda amongst reporters and the immature here, he would be well-advised to keep his nose out of the murky world of New Zealand politics in future!

Bruce Moon is a retired computer pioneer who wrote "Real Treaty; False Treaty - The True Waitangi Story".