He Puapua and other initiatives have been undertaken in secret, without significant consultation or public debate and without an electoral mandate. In relation to Three Waters, probably less than one percent of the non-Māori population are aware that the Te Mana o te Wai statements that iwi and hapu issue are powerful enough to give tribes effective control of New Zealand’s water resources.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi is now at the core of many New Zealand statutes, constitutional and policy documents. It is disquieting that neither the current nor former Prime Minister, when asked, were able to state all three Tiriti Articles.
Te Tiriti confers on the Crown governance powers (kawanatanga), including the ability to make and enforce laws, and to uphold the rule of law. It protects Māori property rights (tino rangatiratanga or chieftainship), consistent with Magna Carta and with common law. It also makes Māori subjects of the Crown with all the rights and obligations inherent in this. Te Tiriti protects all New Zealanders, not just Māori.
As an international treaty a domestic government was needed to deliver on Te Tiriti within New Zealand. This was given effect to through the NZ Constitution Act 1852. New Zealand’s constitution and government system evolved, leading to the NZ Constitution Act 1986. This Act reduced the Crown’s role to the symbolic and procedural and conferred on the elected Parliament the full power to make laws.
However, in recent times power has been shifting away from Parliament to the judiciary, the Waitangi Tribunal, and to other agencies with delegated powers and no (or very little) accountability.
In 1975 the Waitangi Tribunal was set up to investigate and make recommendations on claims of Crown breaches of Te Tiriti. These claims became more and more expansive, such as the Wai 262 claim relating to ownership of flora and fauna. The Waitangi Tribunal has expanded beyond its original brief. It now focuses on developing new sources of dissension as well as on final settlements – if finality is possible in Tiriti claims which can be extended or relitigated.
From the mid-1980s Te Tiriti became subject to judicial activism that created some tension with Parliament’s law-making role. The “Lands case” in 1987 saw Te Tiriti as akin to a partnership between Māori and the Crown, despite the absence of partnership principles in the 1840 text. ‘Taonga’ meant real property in 1840, while now it is claimed to include intangibles such as language, cultural ‘property’, water, and broadcasting spectrum.
In 2014, the Tribunal opined that Ngāpuhi rangatira did not give up their sovereignty when they signed te Tiriti in 1840. There are concerns that the Tribunal’s processes may become unworkable if the Crown has to negotiate settlements with hundreds of Northland hapu, many of which do not acknowledge Crown sovereignty.
However, a bigger problem for government is the 2019 He Puapua document that challenges key foundations of modern New Zealand. These include equal citizenship rights for all New Zealanders, secular democracy based on equal voting rights, and science based on reason and evidence rather than mysticism validated by cultural authority. He Puapua marks a break from addressing Māori socioeconomic problems as social class issues to focusing more on identity, cultural and constitutional matters.
In Waitangi Tribunal processes and in the He Puapua document there is little or no economic reasoning or evidence in support of proposals being put forward. Quantitative evidence and economic cost-benefit analysis is rarely used. I cannot recall a single Tribunal researcher or He Puapua activist who in their work has seriously addressed the most important determinant of wellbeing – productivity growth.
The He Puapua challenge is based on racial distinctiveness, tribalism, and the belief that Māori wellbeing is best addressed culturally and through constitutional change rather than through needs-based and “colour-blind” socio-economic initiatives such as education, employment, and housing.
Beginning as a bi-cultural nation, over the last fifty or so years New Zealand has become a multi-cultural and multi-racial society. However, especially since the 1980s Māori racial identity has become more salient, and additional race-specific rights have been sought. Māori have asserted distinctiveness in almost all fields, ranging from citizenship and democratic rights, education, jurisprudence, scientific methods and “ways of knowing”, “digital sovereignty”, spirituality, relationships with the natural environment, and professional and community group affiliations.
The belief in Māori distinctiveness has led to separate representation within institutions as different as the Anglican Church and the Playcentre association. Māori often have an unofficial veto right within institutions that have adopted bicultural processes. A 91.75% majority vote to change the Playcentre Aotearoa’s constitution was overruled by the organisation’s Rōpū Māori (Māori Group). At least five of the six Rōpū must approve the change, but only four agreed, so the vote was overturned.
The government is promoting Te Ao Māori and the view that Te Tiriti “principles” must be understood and adhered to across most New Zealand institutions. This includes almost all central and local government agencies. It is increasingly extending into trade and professional associations, and even into industries such as real estate.
Given the minute racial variances in the human genome it is uncomfortable to define people in racial terms. However, the Māori Land Act and other statutes define Māori as “a person of the Māori race and includes any descendant”. Only persons of Māori descent can enrol in and vote in a Māori electorate or lodge a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal.
New Zealand’s legislation, Waitangi Tribunal processes, and reforms in health, education, resource management and local government are making Māori racial identity fundamental to New Zealand’s constitution, society and public services delivery. Yet New Zealand’s population by racial descent is around 70% European, 16.5% Māori, 15% Asian and 8% Pacific peoples. Note for this data that total response ethnic groups have been used (where everyone is included in every ethnic group they identify with), so percentages add to more than 100%.
Asians make up 29% and Māori 13% of Auckland’s population. It is possible that Asian minorities in future will challenge Māori having superior rights in relation to, for example, acceptance into some study programmes and public sector jobs, and emphasis being given to mātauranga Māori whilst other minority contributions have been ignored. Some within Asian minorities resent lack of police protection for their small businesses and this could be a future flash point.
He Puapua is driven by middle class people who stand to benefit from it financially, reputationally or through acquiring power and influence. It is supported by radical judicial or Waitangi Tribunal Tiriti interpretations. He Puapua summarises a vision and a pathway to its fulfilment by 2040, two centuries after Te Tiriti was signed.
The He Puapua narrative is essentially that pre-European Māori life, despite some privation, was relatively harmonious and environmentally sustainable. Māori had their own tikanga (customary law) and unique knowledge base and “ways of knowing”. Some Māori describe pre-European Māori life as “highly sophisticated” and prosperous.
The narrative is that Te Tiriti o Waitangi did not cede sovereignty to Britain, with ‘kawanatanga’ giving the Crown only limited powers to control immigrant behaviour. Tino rangatiratanga meant that the real power was vested in chiefs (rangatiratanga), including control over all their properties. These included intangible treasures (taonga) as well as real property. The narrative then argues that principles can be discerned within Te Tiriti, including that it was an equal partnership between the Crown and Māori. “
The He Puapua and related documents recommend, among other things, a Māori health system, a court system based on tikanga, an upper house or parliament; Māori electoral wards, and the statutory protection of Māori seats in parliament. It seeks compulsory te reo Māori and New Zealand history in schools; joint governance bodies across all government agencies; and strengthening the recognition of Te Tiriti in law. It recommends greater rights for Māori in areas such as fisheries and resource management. It proposes that Māori co-design and/or co-govern services which have big impacts on Māori.
He Puapua proposes that more Crown land such as National Parks be transferred to tribal ownership and that tribes be able to impose levies on water, minerals, and petroleum from these lands.
He Puapua, if implemented, is likely to rekindle tribal rivalries that the Crown quelched from 1840. For example, during the powhiri to the nationwide kapa haka competition held at Eden Park in February 2023 the tribe claiming mana whenua status in Auckland, Ngati Whatua, clashed with Tainui which still advances historical claims to much of Auckland. He Puapua could lead to a proliferation of tribal conflicts that the Crown had largely ended after the 1840 Te Tiriti agreement.
The counter narrative to He Puapua is that New Zealand’s good performance as an economy and society is based on democracy, equal rights, an inclusive market economy, and the rule of law. It pits the values of the Enlightenment, secularity, science and an open society against tribalism, religion, racialism and autocracy.
Billions in Treaty settlements and decades of experimentation with such Māori-centred institutions as wananga, Māori medium schooling, Te Reo training, cultural literacy courses, tax advantages for some Māori businesses and co-governance such as for the Ureweras have all had patchy results.
Furthermore, invocations to “honour” Te Tiriti, make it central to government activities, and to adhere to “Treaty principles” all rest on shaky foundations. There is no mention in Te Tiriti of principles or partnership. Māori are made Crown subjects in Te Tiriti. It is impossible for Māori to be both subjects of the Crown and partners with it. Te Tiriti protects the rights of all New Zealanders, not just Māori.
Debates over Te Tiriti are inward-looking, and so it helps to draw on the international context. The 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone is entitled to freely hold and express his or her own beliefs and opinions. New Zealand is a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Our Bill of Rights Act 1990 and Human Rights Act 1993 further guarantee civil and democratic rights, and non-discrimination on the basis of colour and race.
Despite these international and domestic declarations, conventions and laws New Zealand has created superior rights for Māori over other New Zealanders. Some protections for New Zealanders’ rights are simply not actioned. For example, the Race Relations Commissioner seems to believe that racism is a white problem only. Extreme right wing Māori activists can slander or libel whole swathes of white humanity with impunity.
White racism exists and must be eliminated, and we must be especially on guard for unconscious or casual racism. However, the debate has become unbalanced. When history is taught at school, young New Zealanders learning about slavery may be told white colonial racists invented it. They will not be told that slavery was practiced throughout the world, and it was largely white people that ended it. Over 360,000 white Unionist soldiers died in the American civil war to eliminate slavery. Students will not be taught that the colonial government in New Zealand ended slavery and cannibalism in New Zealand, with strong support from missionaries and from enlightened Māori leaders.
New Zealand’s media is not formally censored by government. However, the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) requires a commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, to Māori as a te Tiriti partner, and a commitment to te reo. A report commissioned by New Zealand on Air, “Te Tiriti framework for news media” effectively solicits false reporting by insisting that “Māori never ceded sovereignty”, and that: “Reporting on Māori and Māori issues reflects the ongoing colonial constitution of society.” In effect New Zealand no longer has a free press that allows broad and informed discussion of Māori and Te Tiriti-related issues.
The He Puapua movement, broadly defined, silences its opponents by hostile reactions to alternative views, denying publication rights, speaking rights and venues for meetings, and in some cases threatening violent protests to suppress alternative viewpoints. Infamous examples have included Massey University’s ban on Dr Don Brash, and disruptions to Julian Batchelors’ nationwide speaking tour against co-governance.
Bans on books and publishing houses such as Tross publications have been sought. Yet section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.”
It is notable that the stridency of the He Puapua voice is proportional to the weakness of its arguments and the paucity of its evidence. The “big lie” tactic is that if you state a big lie with confidence and repeat it often enough people believe it. Examples include that pre-European Māori society was sophisticated, that Māori never ceded sovereignty, and that Māori gained nothing from colonisation.
The He Puapua document advocates and supports a constitutional revolution in New Zealand based on the advancement of less than 17% of the population at the expense of the remaining 83%. Key elements include a birth-prescribed (that is, a racial) marker of in-group membership, insistence on the distinctiveness of the Māori in-group, and the revival of tribalism. It also includes a narrative about a past admired state, a fall from this with attributions of blame, and a desired future state to be achieved by 2040.
However, there is no example of a tribal-dominated country becoming a developed society with good social and economic outcomes. There is no example of a successful developed country where people’s rights differ due to their racial identity. He Puapua forces on us a choice between a democratic nation state with citizens born free and equal, versus a state where racial ancestry (that is, an accident of birth) determines some of your rights.
The compulsory history curriculum taught from 2023 will be heavily Te Tiriti and Māori-centred. It will underplay the benefits from colonisation and the institutions it brought to New Zealand. It will give only rudimentary treatment to the histories of other New Zealand minorities. It will gloss over the most violent and socially devastating events in our history – the Musket Wars fought from the early 1800s to the late 1830s. The Musket Wars killed about 40,000 Māori and sundered the relationships between iwi and their traditional whenua. By comparison less than 3000 people died in all the conflicts between the Crown and Māori rebelling against it – the New Zealand wars.
The history curriculum will falsely assert that the Māori signatories to Te Tiriti did not understand that sovereignty or the governance that creates laws and enforces them was vested in the Crown. The curriculum will undermine confidence in New Zealand’s equal rights-based democracy and institutions. It will thereby help pave the way for race and tribal-based constitutional change as set out in He Puapua.
Much of the context for He Puapua has been shaped by Waitangi Tribunal processes. The Waitangi Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry that makes recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to Crown actions which breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi. The Waitangi Tribunal has exclusive authority to determine the meaning and effect of the Treaty. It can decide on issues raised by the differences between the Māori and English texts.
The Tribunal has taken the Treaty out of its historical context and given it almost a religious status. “Presentism” has distorted thinking, with the Tribunal acting as if people in 1840 had the knowledge to behave as we do now rather than as they did in 1840.
New debates are emerging around whether tikanga Māori (that is Māori custom) can become a full part of our legal system. The High Court is now including tikanga in its deliberations on, for example, the Marine and Coastal Area Act. This shows the scope, inclusiveness, and heft of common law.
However, customs and norms evolve to solve practical problems a society faces, given its technology, institutions and surrounding environment. These problems include, for example, resource management, food safety and conflict resolution. Some outdated tikanga could become common law, however a safeguard exists in that statute law can be used to overrule common law. As Helen Clark learned with the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 this may come with serious political consequences.
Tikanga-based principles are relevant to the property rights, mana whenua or other claims of some iwi or hapu. Principles include ancestral rights (take tupuna), conquest or confiscation (take raupatu), gifting (take tuku) and continuous occupation (ahi kā). Extensive continuous occupation is referred to as ahi kā roa. Courts seem to be relaxing the requirement for continuous, unbroken occupation of, for example, coastal marine areas.
In some cases, tikanga already fits easily with New Zealand law and norms. The Peter Ellis case is similar to the reputational rehabilitation granted to soldiers suffering from shock who were executed for desertion in World War One.
However, tikanga can challenge the paramount interests of a child over the culture that child was born into – the “Moana case” in Hawke’s Bay is an example. This involved a loving and nurturing Pakeha couple seeking to retain custody of an abused Māori child against the opposition of the child’s birth mother, Māori culturalists and Oranga Tamariki. The Pakeha couple lacked financial support for legal costs and had to abandon the case. Sadly, the child may be the biggest loser.
The Peter Ellis case involved tikanga being brought to bear to restore a Pakeha’s reputation. Might tikanga also be applied to protecting non-Māori rights in other domains? For example, could a tramping or hunting club with non-Māori membership cite ahi kā tikanga to argue that Tuhoe cannot burn down huts in the Te Urewera area that have been in continuous use? While such a case would not involve Te Tiriti it may gain some support from the fact that the Te Tiriti text is colour blind, that is, it protects all New Zealander’s rights not just those of Māori.
The key beneficiaries from He Puapua would include a few tribal leaders who are positioned to capture such benefits as water, mineral and petroleum levies proposed in the document. Nepotism might mean that the benefits would be spread within well-positioned whanau and hapu, and no further.
He Puapua would see dramatic growth in culturally fluent and mainly Māori managers and advisors appointed across the public sector, Crown Entities and universities. Already changes have been made in science system mechanisms such as the PBRF to grant more funding for Māori compared to non-Māori researchers regardless of their scientific contribution as gauged by international peers.
An effective response to He Puapua would be the strong affirmation of democracy, equal citizenship rights and the rule of law. We must avoid the debate becoming one of Māori versus non-Maori and ensure that it is democracy and equal rights versus tribalism and racialism.
The NZ Constitution Act 1986 should be reaffirmed as the legislative core of New Zealand’s constitution. Te Tiriti/Treaty references should be deleted from legislation. The Waitangi Tribunal and the Office for Māori Crown Relations – Te Arawhiti should be wound down. Legislation placing public lands and waters in New Zealand into private (Māori) hands should be repealed.
My prediction is that the He Puapua activists will win out on most though not all issues. They will lose every time they try to cancel Shakespeare. It may take up to a decade, however they will have to give up on mātauranga Māori being seen as equal to science. International science does not value mysticism and vitalism. Applied science and technology degrees often have to meet international standards for which mātauranga Māori is irrelevant. There will be a reversal of some of the more extreme ideas such as giving tribal interests full control of New Zealand’s water.
The biggest ruction may come when thousands of young Māori who have learnt te reo, studied tikanga and mātauranga Māori find themselves struggling for meaningful employment in a globalised rather than a self-referenced world. Officials who know from their databases the likely returns from different study programmes should then have to explain why this data was not available to those young people. The officials concerned can probably relax – no-one seems to be held accountable for such public service failings in a country which was once one of the wealthiest and progressive democracies in the world.
Demographics and sociology will in the long run see an end to racialism and tribalism and the damage it does to New Zealand’s social democracy and economy. However, as Keynes said, “in the long run we are all dead.” The next generation has a lot to lose, however it also has a lot to gain if Māori and non-Māori can learn how to create a positive-sum game from what is currently at best a zero-sum game.
Dr Peter Winsley has worked in policy and economics-related fields in New Zealand for many years. With qualifications and publications in economics, management and literature. This article was first published HERE
As an international treaty a domestic government was needed to deliver on Te Tiriti within New Zealand. This was given effect to through the NZ Constitution Act 1852. New Zealand’s constitution and government system evolved, leading to the NZ Constitution Act 1986. This Act reduced the Crown’s role to the symbolic and procedural and conferred on the elected Parliament the full power to make laws.
However, in recent times power has been shifting away from Parliament to the judiciary, the Waitangi Tribunal, and to other agencies with delegated powers and no (or very little) accountability.
In 1975 the Waitangi Tribunal was set up to investigate and make recommendations on claims of Crown breaches of Te Tiriti. These claims became more and more expansive, such as the Wai 262 claim relating to ownership of flora and fauna. The Waitangi Tribunal has expanded beyond its original brief. It now focuses on developing new sources of dissension as well as on final settlements – if finality is possible in Tiriti claims which can be extended or relitigated.
From the mid-1980s Te Tiriti became subject to judicial activism that created some tension with Parliament’s law-making role. The “Lands case” in 1987 saw Te Tiriti as akin to a partnership between Māori and the Crown, despite the absence of partnership principles in the 1840 text. ‘Taonga’ meant real property in 1840, while now it is claimed to include intangibles such as language, cultural ‘property’, water, and broadcasting spectrum.
In 2014, the Tribunal opined that Ngāpuhi rangatira did not give up their sovereignty when they signed te Tiriti in 1840. There are concerns that the Tribunal’s processes may become unworkable if the Crown has to negotiate settlements with hundreds of Northland hapu, many of which do not acknowledge Crown sovereignty.
However, a bigger problem for government is the 2019 He Puapua document that challenges key foundations of modern New Zealand. These include equal citizenship rights for all New Zealanders, secular democracy based on equal voting rights, and science based on reason and evidence rather than mysticism validated by cultural authority. He Puapua marks a break from addressing Māori socioeconomic problems as social class issues to focusing more on identity, cultural and constitutional matters.
In Waitangi Tribunal processes and in the He Puapua document there is little or no economic reasoning or evidence in support of proposals being put forward. Quantitative evidence and economic cost-benefit analysis is rarely used. I cannot recall a single Tribunal researcher or He Puapua activist who in their work has seriously addressed the most important determinant of wellbeing – productivity growth.
The He Puapua challenge is based on racial distinctiveness, tribalism, and the belief that Māori wellbeing is best addressed culturally and through constitutional change rather than through needs-based and “colour-blind” socio-economic initiatives such as education, employment, and housing.
Beginning as a bi-cultural nation, over the last fifty or so years New Zealand has become a multi-cultural and multi-racial society. However, especially since the 1980s Māori racial identity has become more salient, and additional race-specific rights have been sought. Māori have asserted distinctiveness in almost all fields, ranging from citizenship and democratic rights, education, jurisprudence, scientific methods and “ways of knowing”, “digital sovereignty”, spirituality, relationships with the natural environment, and professional and community group affiliations.
The belief in Māori distinctiveness has led to separate representation within institutions as different as the Anglican Church and the Playcentre association. Māori often have an unofficial veto right within institutions that have adopted bicultural processes. A 91.75% majority vote to change the Playcentre Aotearoa’s constitution was overruled by the organisation’s Rōpū Māori (Māori Group). At least five of the six Rōpū must approve the change, but only four agreed, so the vote was overturned.
The government is promoting Te Ao Māori and the view that Te Tiriti “principles” must be understood and adhered to across most New Zealand institutions. This includes almost all central and local government agencies. It is increasingly extending into trade and professional associations, and even into industries such as real estate.
Given the minute racial variances in the human genome it is uncomfortable to define people in racial terms. However, the Māori Land Act and other statutes define Māori as “a person of the Māori race and includes any descendant”. Only persons of Māori descent can enrol in and vote in a Māori electorate or lodge a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal.
New Zealand’s legislation, Waitangi Tribunal processes, and reforms in health, education, resource management and local government are making Māori racial identity fundamental to New Zealand’s constitution, society and public services delivery. Yet New Zealand’s population by racial descent is around 70% European, 16.5% Māori, 15% Asian and 8% Pacific peoples. Note for this data that total response ethnic groups have been used (where everyone is included in every ethnic group they identify with), so percentages add to more than 100%.
Asians make up 29% and Māori 13% of Auckland’s population. It is possible that Asian minorities in future will challenge Māori having superior rights in relation to, for example, acceptance into some study programmes and public sector jobs, and emphasis being given to mātauranga Māori whilst other minority contributions have been ignored. Some within Asian minorities resent lack of police protection for their small businesses and this could be a future flash point.
He Puapua is driven by middle class people who stand to benefit from it financially, reputationally or through acquiring power and influence. It is supported by radical judicial or Waitangi Tribunal Tiriti interpretations. He Puapua summarises a vision and a pathway to its fulfilment by 2040, two centuries after Te Tiriti was signed.
The He Puapua narrative is essentially that pre-European Māori life, despite some privation, was relatively harmonious and environmentally sustainable. Māori had their own tikanga (customary law) and unique knowledge base and “ways of knowing”. Some Māori describe pre-European Māori life as “highly sophisticated” and prosperous.
The narrative is that Te Tiriti o Waitangi did not cede sovereignty to Britain, with ‘kawanatanga’ giving the Crown only limited powers to control immigrant behaviour. Tino rangatiratanga meant that the real power was vested in chiefs (rangatiratanga), including control over all their properties. These included intangible treasures (taonga) as well as real property. The narrative then argues that principles can be discerned within Te Tiriti, including that it was an equal partnership between the Crown and Māori. “
The He Puapua and related documents recommend, among other things, a Māori health system, a court system based on tikanga, an upper house or parliament; Māori electoral wards, and the statutory protection of Māori seats in parliament. It seeks compulsory te reo Māori and New Zealand history in schools; joint governance bodies across all government agencies; and strengthening the recognition of Te Tiriti in law. It recommends greater rights for Māori in areas such as fisheries and resource management. It proposes that Māori co-design and/or co-govern services which have big impacts on Māori.
He Puapua proposes that more Crown land such as National Parks be transferred to tribal ownership and that tribes be able to impose levies on water, minerals, and petroleum from these lands.
He Puapua, if implemented, is likely to rekindle tribal rivalries that the Crown quelched from 1840. For example, during the powhiri to the nationwide kapa haka competition held at Eden Park in February 2023 the tribe claiming mana whenua status in Auckland, Ngati Whatua, clashed with Tainui which still advances historical claims to much of Auckland. He Puapua could lead to a proliferation of tribal conflicts that the Crown had largely ended after the 1840 Te Tiriti agreement.
The counter narrative to He Puapua is that New Zealand’s good performance as an economy and society is based on democracy, equal rights, an inclusive market economy, and the rule of law. It pits the values of the Enlightenment, secularity, science and an open society against tribalism, religion, racialism and autocracy.
Billions in Treaty settlements and decades of experimentation with such Māori-centred institutions as wananga, Māori medium schooling, Te Reo training, cultural literacy courses, tax advantages for some Māori businesses and co-governance such as for the Ureweras have all had patchy results.
Furthermore, invocations to “honour” Te Tiriti, make it central to government activities, and to adhere to “Treaty principles” all rest on shaky foundations. There is no mention in Te Tiriti of principles or partnership. Māori are made Crown subjects in Te Tiriti. It is impossible for Māori to be both subjects of the Crown and partners with it. Te Tiriti protects the rights of all New Zealanders, not just Māori.
Debates over Te Tiriti are inward-looking, and so it helps to draw on the international context. The 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone is entitled to freely hold and express his or her own beliefs and opinions. New Zealand is a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). Our Bill of Rights Act 1990 and Human Rights Act 1993 further guarantee civil and democratic rights, and non-discrimination on the basis of colour and race.
Despite these international and domestic declarations, conventions and laws New Zealand has created superior rights for Māori over other New Zealanders. Some protections for New Zealanders’ rights are simply not actioned. For example, the Race Relations Commissioner seems to believe that racism is a white problem only. Extreme right wing Māori activists can slander or libel whole swathes of white humanity with impunity.
White racism exists and must be eliminated, and we must be especially on guard for unconscious or casual racism. However, the debate has become unbalanced. When history is taught at school, young New Zealanders learning about slavery may be told white colonial racists invented it. They will not be told that slavery was practiced throughout the world, and it was largely white people that ended it. Over 360,000 white Unionist soldiers died in the American civil war to eliminate slavery. Students will not be taught that the colonial government in New Zealand ended slavery and cannibalism in New Zealand, with strong support from missionaries and from enlightened Māori leaders.
New Zealand’s media is not formally censored by government. However, the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) requires a commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, to Māori as a te Tiriti partner, and a commitment to te reo. A report commissioned by New Zealand on Air, “Te Tiriti framework for news media” effectively solicits false reporting by insisting that “Māori never ceded sovereignty”, and that: “Reporting on Māori and Māori issues reflects the ongoing colonial constitution of society.” In effect New Zealand no longer has a free press that allows broad and informed discussion of Māori and Te Tiriti-related issues.
The He Puapua movement, broadly defined, silences its opponents by hostile reactions to alternative views, denying publication rights, speaking rights and venues for meetings, and in some cases threatening violent protests to suppress alternative viewpoints. Infamous examples have included Massey University’s ban on Dr Don Brash, and disruptions to Julian Batchelors’ nationwide speaking tour against co-governance.
Bans on books and publishing houses such as Tross publications have been sought. Yet section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.”
It is notable that the stridency of the He Puapua voice is proportional to the weakness of its arguments and the paucity of its evidence. The “big lie” tactic is that if you state a big lie with confidence and repeat it often enough people believe it. Examples include that pre-European Māori society was sophisticated, that Māori never ceded sovereignty, and that Māori gained nothing from colonisation.
The He Puapua document advocates and supports a constitutional revolution in New Zealand based on the advancement of less than 17% of the population at the expense of the remaining 83%. Key elements include a birth-prescribed (that is, a racial) marker of in-group membership, insistence on the distinctiveness of the Māori in-group, and the revival of tribalism. It also includes a narrative about a past admired state, a fall from this with attributions of blame, and a desired future state to be achieved by 2040.
However, there is no example of a tribal-dominated country becoming a developed society with good social and economic outcomes. There is no example of a successful developed country where people’s rights differ due to their racial identity. He Puapua forces on us a choice between a democratic nation state with citizens born free and equal, versus a state where racial ancestry (that is, an accident of birth) determines some of your rights.
The compulsory history curriculum taught from 2023 will be heavily Te Tiriti and Māori-centred. It will underplay the benefits from colonisation and the institutions it brought to New Zealand. It will give only rudimentary treatment to the histories of other New Zealand minorities. It will gloss over the most violent and socially devastating events in our history – the Musket Wars fought from the early 1800s to the late 1830s. The Musket Wars killed about 40,000 Māori and sundered the relationships between iwi and their traditional whenua. By comparison less than 3000 people died in all the conflicts between the Crown and Māori rebelling against it – the New Zealand wars.
The history curriculum will falsely assert that the Māori signatories to Te Tiriti did not understand that sovereignty or the governance that creates laws and enforces them was vested in the Crown. The curriculum will undermine confidence in New Zealand’s equal rights-based democracy and institutions. It will thereby help pave the way for race and tribal-based constitutional change as set out in He Puapua.
Much of the context for He Puapua has been shaped by Waitangi Tribunal processes. The Waitangi Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry that makes recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to Crown actions which breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi. The Waitangi Tribunal has exclusive authority to determine the meaning and effect of the Treaty. It can decide on issues raised by the differences between the Māori and English texts.
The Tribunal has taken the Treaty out of its historical context and given it almost a religious status. “Presentism” has distorted thinking, with the Tribunal acting as if people in 1840 had the knowledge to behave as we do now rather than as they did in 1840.
New debates are emerging around whether tikanga Māori (that is Māori custom) can become a full part of our legal system. The High Court is now including tikanga in its deliberations on, for example, the Marine and Coastal Area Act. This shows the scope, inclusiveness, and heft of common law.
However, customs and norms evolve to solve practical problems a society faces, given its technology, institutions and surrounding environment. These problems include, for example, resource management, food safety and conflict resolution. Some outdated tikanga could become common law, however a safeguard exists in that statute law can be used to overrule common law. As Helen Clark learned with the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 this may come with serious political consequences.
Tikanga-based principles are relevant to the property rights, mana whenua or other claims of some iwi or hapu. Principles include ancestral rights (take tupuna), conquest or confiscation (take raupatu), gifting (take tuku) and continuous occupation (ahi kā). Extensive continuous occupation is referred to as ahi kā roa. Courts seem to be relaxing the requirement for continuous, unbroken occupation of, for example, coastal marine areas.
In some cases, tikanga already fits easily with New Zealand law and norms. The Peter Ellis case is similar to the reputational rehabilitation granted to soldiers suffering from shock who were executed for desertion in World War One.
However, tikanga can challenge the paramount interests of a child over the culture that child was born into – the “Moana case” in Hawke’s Bay is an example. This involved a loving and nurturing Pakeha couple seeking to retain custody of an abused Māori child against the opposition of the child’s birth mother, Māori culturalists and Oranga Tamariki. The Pakeha couple lacked financial support for legal costs and had to abandon the case. Sadly, the child may be the biggest loser.
The Peter Ellis case involved tikanga being brought to bear to restore a Pakeha’s reputation. Might tikanga also be applied to protecting non-Māori rights in other domains? For example, could a tramping or hunting club with non-Māori membership cite ahi kā tikanga to argue that Tuhoe cannot burn down huts in the Te Urewera area that have been in continuous use? While such a case would not involve Te Tiriti it may gain some support from the fact that the Te Tiriti text is colour blind, that is, it protects all New Zealander’s rights not just those of Māori.
The key beneficiaries from He Puapua would include a few tribal leaders who are positioned to capture such benefits as water, mineral and petroleum levies proposed in the document. Nepotism might mean that the benefits would be spread within well-positioned whanau and hapu, and no further.
He Puapua would see dramatic growth in culturally fluent and mainly Māori managers and advisors appointed across the public sector, Crown Entities and universities. Already changes have been made in science system mechanisms such as the PBRF to grant more funding for Māori compared to non-Māori researchers regardless of their scientific contribution as gauged by international peers.
An effective response to He Puapua would be the strong affirmation of democracy, equal citizenship rights and the rule of law. We must avoid the debate becoming one of Māori versus non-Maori and ensure that it is democracy and equal rights versus tribalism and racialism.
The NZ Constitution Act 1986 should be reaffirmed as the legislative core of New Zealand’s constitution. Te Tiriti/Treaty references should be deleted from legislation. The Waitangi Tribunal and the Office for Māori Crown Relations – Te Arawhiti should be wound down. Legislation placing public lands and waters in New Zealand into private (Māori) hands should be repealed.
My prediction is that the He Puapua activists will win out on most though not all issues. They will lose every time they try to cancel Shakespeare. It may take up to a decade, however they will have to give up on mātauranga Māori being seen as equal to science. International science does not value mysticism and vitalism. Applied science and technology degrees often have to meet international standards for which mātauranga Māori is irrelevant. There will be a reversal of some of the more extreme ideas such as giving tribal interests full control of New Zealand’s water.
The biggest ruction may come when thousands of young Māori who have learnt te reo, studied tikanga and mātauranga Māori find themselves struggling for meaningful employment in a globalised rather than a self-referenced world. Officials who know from their databases the likely returns from different study programmes should then have to explain why this data was not available to those young people. The officials concerned can probably relax – no-one seems to be held accountable for such public service failings in a country which was once one of the wealthiest and progressive democracies in the world.
Demographics and sociology will in the long run see an end to racialism and tribalism and the damage it does to New Zealand’s social democracy and economy. However, as Keynes said, “in the long run we are all dead.” The next generation has a lot to lose, however it also has a lot to gain if Māori and non-Māori can learn how to create a positive-sum game from what is currently at best a zero-sum game.
Dr Peter Winsley has worked in policy and economics-related fields in New Zealand for many years. With qualifications and publications in economics, management and literature. This article was first published HERE
15 comments:
Maybe South Africa is an example of where racial identity has, over generations, destroyed a country. Rhodesia/Zimbabwe too. I include in scope the various white and black racial identities that have variously wielded power and ultimately, destruction.
A comprehensive summary of the Co-governance/ He Puapua journey to date.
However, no mention of any counter action by the 84% via elections, call for a referendum, even civil unrest.
Is passive acceptance just inevitable? If so, New Zealanders can truly blame themselves for the disaster ahead.
Over the last several years l have read much on this subject. Its given me comfort to realize there are many within New Zealand society who are deeply aware just how precarious the future of this once free democratic nation actually is.
Thank you Peter, your summation of how things stand currently is explicit and ultimately terrifying.
In my own little way I often find myself encouraging people to at least read the 1840 treaty text.
Much information and understanding of its true intent can be taken from its three simple statements. If all were encouraged to take an interest in our future and our past. Maybe, just maybe we can turn this around.
PS from Anonymous
In fact, the HP journey must viewed through the CRT (critical race theory)
lens which is deeply embedded in race relations in NZ - this phenomenon has allowed HP to actually happen.
When the polls showed National on the ascendancy I thought the msm might switch to the winning side and the likes of the above start to appear in the msm (although not RNZ which is totally captured by maori). With the public at last informed and not just conniving academic activist maori and a few thinking citizens, a positive feedback effect seemed likely. Sadly the polls have stagnated and the msm steadfastly resist informing the public. It seems for example impossible to get any coveraae of the counter co governace argument. Even just mention of the now cancelld road show has been avoided.
Thank you Peter for a great summary. We are, indeed, on a road to perdition and it's truly sad that our main opposition party can't see it for what it is. The next election will be telling, and unless there's full-on curtailment and lancing of many of the policies and practices, it will be like a suppurating sore that will just continue to poison and ultimately consume this once great little country. All the while we will have msm to thank, and I do hope that they too will get their comeuppance.
Most of nz is already moving to auz and europe. If labour/greens gets back in there will likely be a mass exodus. Who do these clowns in power think will fund their tribal systems with everyone gone?
Anonymous-yes: after my spouse and I having worked hard and paid taxes in New Zealand for over forty years each, we have retired to my country of birth. Sorry NZ but we no longer felt safe.
Robert Arthur: re the cancelled road show, the media hatred of Batchelor is vicious. There is now one way and one way only to think in NZ and that is the Maori supremacy way. Nothing else is countenanced.
Wait - these people are cunning and clued up - so expecting this.
This is the moment to block or confiscate financial assets - as per Zimbabwe.
Great article, Peter. Well done!
Surely, we can achieve an egalitarian society by working together and behaving with respect towards everyone - but not by elevating one demographic above all others. Take a look at Pacific health and poverty statistics. They're worse than those of any other group, but Pacific people get scant attention in He Puapua and our "refreshed" curriculum and get very much second place in our revised efforts on science funding.
Will we ever see a Pacific Health Authority? Shall we take funding from cancer research at Malaghan and pass it to modestly-qualified people researching traditional remedies? Where do our Asian and Islamic people fit in beyond a token mention here and there?
Preserving indigenous knowledge and language is to be fully supported but why should every Asian, Pacific and Muslim child be forced to take time out of critical learning in numeracy, literacy and mathematics and spend that time taking in the traditional knowledge of one minority and be made to accept it as truth?
Why is one form of traditional knowledge becoming embedded within our universities and how will other nations evaluate our secondary and tertiary systems? Why do our universities not defend themselves against false accusations of bias in academic appointments and promotions?
New Zealand is going down a wrong turn. Let's hope that cool heads prevail.
David Lillis
It is rather odd to read “ Beginning as a bi-cultural nation”. New Zealand was never bi-cultural. From the very beginning, the country had a multiplicity of cultures. Even on the early ships of discovery, there were men from all of the countries in the UK, plus Irish, Indians, and various other Europeans. Few Scottish men would admit to having the same culture as an Englishman! Early settlers came from a wide variety of countries. Most of these have proud associations, clubs and societies that keep their culture alive and vibrant. Bi-culturalism is a myth. Here are a few settlement dates for you:
Americans (i.e., USA) 1830s
Canadians 1850s
Chinese 1866 Otago
Croatians 1860s
Dalmatians 1860s
Danes 1870s
Dutch 1840s
English early 1800s
Finnish early 1900s
French 1830s
Germans 1842
Greeks 1860s
Hungarians 1840s
Indians early 1800s
Irish early 1800s
Italians 1870s
Japanese 1905
Norwegians 1871
Poles 1872 Canterbury
Portugese 1826
Russians 1870s
Scottish early 1800s
Spanish 1833
Swedish 1870s
Swiss 1860s
Ukrainians 1949
Welsh early 1800s
Not only that, there were people in NZ before the Maori. But the Maori made sure not for long.
Peter Winsley makes good points but he weakens his whole case in his fourth paragraph by stating “Te Tiriti confers on the Crown governance powers (kawanatanga), including the ability to make and enforce laws, and to uphold the rule of law. It protects Māori property rights (tino rangatiratanga or chieftainship).”
This is false in more ways than one. By Article first, the chiefs ceded sovereignty to the Queen, not merely “governance powers”. He makes the common mistake of imagining that translation is the same as derivation. “Kawanatanga” was the translation of “sovreignty” whatever its derivation.
His second blunder is in referring only to Maori property rights whereas Article second included the property rights of “tangata katoa o Nu Tirani” i.e. all the people of New Zealand. Again he blunders in stating that the Williams’ term “tino rangatiratanga” meant “chieftainship”. It was actually the translation of “possession”. These blunders riddle our history.
In response to Anonymous, Maori had no conception of sovereignty as we would understand it and so the term kawanatanga was invented, based on "governor". Several hundred Maori had visited Port Jackson by 1840 and would have observed the power weilded by governors. For example, shortly before te Tiriti was signed Governor Gipps had authorised the hanging of several white British subjects who had murdered some aborigines in Australia. In other words governorship had power over life and death and was not an effete, diluted form of authority that some Maori activists suggest.
I agree with your other points,though note that tino rangatiratanga has some Magna Carta elements to it, that is it implies some check on absolute sovereign power. You are correct that te Tiriti protects all NZers, notjust Maori Anne Salmond has been strong on this point.
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