Charters is a law professor at Auckland University. She chaired the He Puapua working group and is the indigenous rights governance partner at the Human Rights Commission. She has ancestral links to Ngāti Whakaue, Tūwharetoa, Ngā Puhi and Tainui. She also has extensive European ancestry.
In her 14 July Opinion piece Professor Charters argues that “before we can claim to be a nation founded on the rule of law, we must address the fundamental illegality of the state.” To add to the sins of the illegal New Zealand state, Charters also opines that “Aotearoa still refuses to repudiate the doctrine of discovery – the racist rule that permitted European powers to take land from “natives” because they didn’t qualify as human.”
In another media piece (Kowai 2023) Professor Charters argues that “As we know, under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, there was no cession of sovereignty, in fact, quite the opposite – the retention of tino rangatiratanga by Māori.” It is argued that Māori signing Te Tiriti didn’t know that they were conceding sovereignty or the right to govern New Zealand. This argument is untrue.
Māori before 1840 had no conception of a sovereign nation state. The neologism ‘kāwanatanga’ (the authority to govern) was therefore coined. Claire Charters implies that the tino rangatiratanga property rights protection in Article two overrides kāwanatanga. This is absurd – apart from anything else the Crown retained in the Treaty pre-emptive (sole) rights of purchase of Māori land. This made quite clear that kāwanatanga overrode tino rangatiratanga when the Crown felt this was needed, for example to stop speculative, unlawful or unfair property transactions.
By 1840 several thousand Māori had visited New South Wales and knew how Governors in British colonies operated, and the powers they had. The redoubtable William Bligh of mutiny on the Bounty fame was at one stage Governor. Under Governor George Gipps, in December 1838 seven white settlers were hanged for the murders of innocent Aboriginal civilians. Colonial Governors were not figureheads – they had power over life and death, and Māori knew it.
In discussions with Māori leading up to Te Tiriti’s signing, Hobson, Henry Williams and others put great emphasis on ensuring Māori knew what they were asked to agree to. Henry Williams translated Hobson’s presentation into Māori. Tāmati Wāka Nene spoke in favour, referring to Hobson as “a father, a judge, a peacemaker.”
William Colenso took detailed notes of Tiriti discussions in 1840 and recorded them in The Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. These notes were attested to by James Busby in the month following the Treaty’s signing. The Māori perspective was very well reflected in Colenso’s record. Others who left accounts of the discussions included Hobson, Pompallier and Henry Williams.
The 1860 Kohimarama Conference was at the time the largest ever gathering of Māori chiefs in New Zealand. Many of the chiefs who signed Te Tiriti in 1840 were at the 1860 Conference. Some expressed concerns around land, law and order, and engagement in the political process. However, they agreed unanimously to endorse Crown sovereignty.
McQueen (2020) comprehensively summarises the evidence that Māori fully understood what they were signing up to in Te Tiriti, including Crown sovereignty and its relationship with tino rangatiratanga.
Professor Charters argues that Māori political rights are not upheld in New Zealand. The statistics tell a different story. After the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting in 1996, the percentage of Māori in Parliament increased from 8% to 14%, giving a total of 17 MPs. In 2011, 22 MPs (18%) were Māori. The number increased to 28 (23%) in 2017, and fell to 25 (21%) in 2020, when no New Zealand First MPs were re-elected. Māori currently make up about 27% of our Parliamentarians. Thus, since about 2011, Māori have been “over-represented” in Parliament compared to their population base (around16.5%).
Political rights go far beyond Parliamentary representation and include a plethora of laws, institutions and interventions that favour Māori. These range from the education, health and resource management sectors through to the Waitangi Tribunal. It is assumed that Professor Charters will not be arguing that these result from the actions of an illegal government.
The legality of New Zealand’s government starts with the 1840 Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the chain of events that followed from it.
The preamble to the 1840 Te Tiriti makes clear that its purpose was to create a settled form of government and to secure peace and good order.
Article One confers on the Crown sovereignty or kāwanatanga (the right to make laws and to govern).
Article Two protects property rights and is based on Magna Carta principles. Magna Carta aimed to protect the English nobilities’ property rights by limiting the Crown’s powers. It catalysed a dynamic relationship between property rights and political power that led to the emergence of the modern British democracy. It created a basis for human rights protection by linking it to property rights. Magna Carta established the principle that no one is above the law – it helped establish the rule of law.
In Te Tiriti Article Two Queen Victoria promises ‘te tino rangatiratanga’ of their properties not just for rangatira and hapū, but for ‘nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani’, that is ‘all the inhabitants of New Zealand’.
Article Three made Māori subjects of the Crown. It gave Māori equal rights with other Crown subjects, not additional or superior rights.
The 1840 Tiriti was the first step towards a nation state. As an international Treaty it had no legal force domestically until a government administration had been set up in New Zealand.
The Constitution Act 1852 was the foundation for government in New Zealand. It established Parliament and the basis for democracy, albeit with the vote limited to private property-owning males, including Māori. In practice most Māori males were excluded since they owned land communally. This was remedied when in 1867 four parliamentary seats were set up specifically for Māori. As a result, all Māori men were able to vote 12 years before all European men in 1879. The Electoral Act gave women, including Māori women, the vote in 1893.
New Zealand’s constitutional evolution culminated in the New Zealand Constitution Act 1986. This affirmed Parliamentary sovereignty, and the Crown’s role was reduced to the symbolic and procedural.
New Zealand adopted MMP in 1996 to further counterbalance majoritarian power with wider Parliamentary inclusiveness.
Some Māori leaders are calling on King Charles to reject the Doctrine of Christian Discovery as a rationale for colonisation.
Claire Charters claims that the Doctrine of Discovery was the legal grounds by which the British claimed the South Island. They used Te Tiriti o Waitangi to justify their actions in the North Island. This raises the question; how did the Crown acquire sovereignty? Charters’ view is that the “only Doctrine in which you can apply would be the Doctrine of Discovery to, I guess, legalize that claim to sovereignty (sic). So yeah, that’s the basis,” she said.
However, the distinguished historian Professor Paul Moon shredded the Doctrine of Discovery thesis in a devastating critique. He described the claims about the Doctrine affecting New Zealand’s colonisation as being entirely fabricated. The ‘doctrine’ itself derives from a sentence contained in a Papal Bull issued in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI. Moon noted that even for Catholic nations in Europe, the 1493 Bull had carried little authority at the time, and by the eighteenth century was no longer adhered to at all.
There is no mention either directly or subliminally of the Doctrine of Discovery in any British Government document relating to New Zealand’s colonisation. In the years leading up to the 1840 Tiriti/Treaty, British colonial policy was developed on principles that conflict with the Doctrine of Discovery. This negates the argument that the Doctrine embedded itself in British colonial policy and influenced New Zealand’s colonisation.
Professor Moon observed that the “persistent assertion that the Doctrine of Discovery applied to New Zealand’s colonisation is falsifiable on numerous evidentiary bases and betrays among its advocates an extraordinarily uncritical and impoverished understanding of history… when branches of the state and academia seem unwilling to relinquish their fixation on this myth, the evasions of evidence in favour of ideology (however vapid) ought to be of concern.”
New Zealand has one of the world’s oldest continuously functioning democracies, however it is vulnerable to those driven by tribalistic or race-based ideology. Falsities are promoted by academic staff with influence over credulous young minds.
Are the academics involved charlatans? No, but they can be casual with their “facts”. Are they simply loyal to their socio-economic class – an amalgam of tribal elitists and entitled middle class academics? Socio-economic class is part of their incentive structure but does not fully define them. Are they simply bored with the tedium of teaching students and would prefer the intellectual whiff of gun powder and the cracking of breaking ice? Possibly.
To allow falsehoods about our country to go unchallenged will result in systemic vacuity, a directionless nation and potentially civil unrest. Paul Moon’s article is an encouraging example of how to challenge false assertions from a strong scholarly base, and more academics need to emulate this.
References
Charters, C. 2023: Stuff Opinion 14 July 2023.
Kowhai, Te Rina 2023: Māori leaders call on King Charles, New Zealand Government to reject Doctrine of Christian Discovery. News Hub. 16 July 2023.
McQueen, E. 2020: One Sun in the Sky. Galatas NZ Ltd.
Moon, P. 2023: The Doctrine of Discovery in New Zealand: A Fresh Historical Conspiracy-Theory. Plain Sight. 11 April 2023.
Māori before 1840 had no conception of a sovereign nation state. The neologism ‘kāwanatanga’ (the authority to govern) was therefore coined. Claire Charters implies that the tino rangatiratanga property rights protection in Article two overrides kāwanatanga. This is absurd – apart from anything else the Crown retained in the Treaty pre-emptive (sole) rights of purchase of Māori land. This made quite clear that kāwanatanga overrode tino rangatiratanga when the Crown felt this was needed, for example to stop speculative, unlawful or unfair property transactions.
By 1840 several thousand Māori had visited New South Wales and knew how Governors in British colonies operated, and the powers they had. The redoubtable William Bligh of mutiny on the Bounty fame was at one stage Governor. Under Governor George Gipps, in December 1838 seven white settlers were hanged for the murders of innocent Aboriginal civilians. Colonial Governors were not figureheads – they had power over life and death, and Māori knew it.
In discussions with Māori leading up to Te Tiriti’s signing, Hobson, Henry Williams and others put great emphasis on ensuring Māori knew what they were asked to agree to. Henry Williams translated Hobson’s presentation into Māori. Tāmati Wāka Nene spoke in favour, referring to Hobson as “a father, a judge, a peacemaker.”
William Colenso took detailed notes of Tiriti discussions in 1840 and recorded them in The Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. These notes were attested to by James Busby in the month following the Treaty’s signing. The Māori perspective was very well reflected in Colenso’s record. Others who left accounts of the discussions included Hobson, Pompallier and Henry Williams.
The 1860 Kohimarama Conference was at the time the largest ever gathering of Māori chiefs in New Zealand. Many of the chiefs who signed Te Tiriti in 1840 were at the 1860 Conference. Some expressed concerns around land, law and order, and engagement in the political process. However, they agreed unanimously to endorse Crown sovereignty.
McQueen (2020) comprehensively summarises the evidence that Māori fully understood what they were signing up to in Te Tiriti, including Crown sovereignty and its relationship with tino rangatiratanga.
Professor Charters argues that Māori political rights are not upheld in New Zealand. The statistics tell a different story. After the introduction of Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting in 1996, the percentage of Māori in Parliament increased from 8% to 14%, giving a total of 17 MPs. In 2011, 22 MPs (18%) were Māori. The number increased to 28 (23%) in 2017, and fell to 25 (21%) in 2020, when no New Zealand First MPs were re-elected. Māori currently make up about 27% of our Parliamentarians. Thus, since about 2011, Māori have been “over-represented” in Parliament compared to their population base (around16.5%).
Political rights go far beyond Parliamentary representation and include a plethora of laws, institutions and interventions that favour Māori. These range from the education, health and resource management sectors through to the Waitangi Tribunal. It is assumed that Professor Charters will not be arguing that these result from the actions of an illegal government.
The legality of New Zealand’s government starts with the 1840 Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the chain of events that followed from it.
The preamble to the 1840 Te Tiriti makes clear that its purpose was to create a settled form of government and to secure peace and good order.
Article One confers on the Crown sovereignty or kāwanatanga (the right to make laws and to govern).
Article Two protects property rights and is based on Magna Carta principles. Magna Carta aimed to protect the English nobilities’ property rights by limiting the Crown’s powers. It catalysed a dynamic relationship between property rights and political power that led to the emergence of the modern British democracy. It created a basis for human rights protection by linking it to property rights. Magna Carta established the principle that no one is above the law – it helped establish the rule of law.
In Te Tiriti Article Two Queen Victoria promises ‘te tino rangatiratanga’ of their properties not just for rangatira and hapū, but for ‘nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani’, that is ‘all the inhabitants of New Zealand’.
Article Three made Māori subjects of the Crown. It gave Māori equal rights with other Crown subjects, not additional or superior rights.
The 1840 Tiriti was the first step towards a nation state. As an international Treaty it had no legal force domestically until a government administration had been set up in New Zealand.
The Constitution Act 1852 was the foundation for government in New Zealand. It established Parliament and the basis for democracy, albeit with the vote limited to private property-owning males, including Māori. In practice most Māori males were excluded since they owned land communally. This was remedied when in 1867 four parliamentary seats were set up specifically for Māori. As a result, all Māori men were able to vote 12 years before all European men in 1879. The Electoral Act gave women, including Māori women, the vote in 1893.
New Zealand’s constitutional evolution culminated in the New Zealand Constitution Act 1986. This affirmed Parliamentary sovereignty, and the Crown’s role was reduced to the symbolic and procedural.
New Zealand adopted MMP in 1996 to further counterbalance majoritarian power with wider Parliamentary inclusiveness.
Some Māori leaders are calling on King Charles to reject the Doctrine of Christian Discovery as a rationale for colonisation.
Claire Charters claims that the Doctrine of Discovery was the legal grounds by which the British claimed the South Island. They used Te Tiriti o Waitangi to justify their actions in the North Island. This raises the question; how did the Crown acquire sovereignty? Charters’ view is that the “only Doctrine in which you can apply would be the Doctrine of Discovery to, I guess, legalize that claim to sovereignty (sic). So yeah, that’s the basis,” she said.
However, the distinguished historian Professor Paul Moon shredded the Doctrine of Discovery thesis in a devastating critique. He described the claims about the Doctrine affecting New Zealand’s colonisation as being entirely fabricated. The ‘doctrine’ itself derives from a sentence contained in a Papal Bull issued in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI. Moon noted that even for Catholic nations in Europe, the 1493 Bull had carried little authority at the time, and by the eighteenth century was no longer adhered to at all.
There is no mention either directly or subliminally of the Doctrine of Discovery in any British Government document relating to New Zealand’s colonisation. In the years leading up to the 1840 Tiriti/Treaty, British colonial policy was developed on principles that conflict with the Doctrine of Discovery. This negates the argument that the Doctrine embedded itself in British colonial policy and influenced New Zealand’s colonisation.
Professor Moon observed that the “persistent assertion that the Doctrine of Discovery applied to New Zealand’s colonisation is falsifiable on numerous evidentiary bases and betrays among its advocates an extraordinarily uncritical and impoverished understanding of history… when branches of the state and academia seem unwilling to relinquish their fixation on this myth, the evasions of evidence in favour of ideology (however vapid) ought to be of concern.”
New Zealand has one of the world’s oldest continuously functioning democracies, however it is vulnerable to those driven by tribalistic or race-based ideology. Falsities are promoted by academic staff with influence over credulous young minds.
Are the academics involved charlatans? No, but they can be casual with their “facts”. Are they simply loyal to their socio-economic class – an amalgam of tribal elitists and entitled middle class academics? Socio-economic class is part of their incentive structure but does not fully define them. Are they simply bored with the tedium of teaching students and would prefer the intellectual whiff of gun powder and the cracking of breaking ice? Possibly.
To allow falsehoods about our country to go unchallenged will result in systemic vacuity, a directionless nation and potentially civil unrest. Paul Moon’s article is an encouraging example of how to challenge false assertions from a strong scholarly base, and more academics need to emulate this.
References
Charters, C. 2023: Stuff Opinion 14 July 2023.
Kowhai, Te Rina 2023: Māori leaders call on King Charles, New Zealand Government to reject Doctrine of Christian Discovery. News Hub. 16 July 2023.
McQueen, E. 2020: One Sun in the Sky. Galatas NZ Ltd.
Moon, P. 2023: The Doctrine of Discovery in New Zealand: A Fresh Historical Conspiracy-Theory. Plain Sight. 11 April 2023.
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
11 comments:
I am of the opinion that should the He Puapua document come to pass and it seems it certainly is coming to pass under this government, we will indeed see civil society start to unravel.
Already we see our economy, our education, our health system, our national infrastructure and our society failing on almost every metric while the government lies, the academics like Charters gaslight us on historical fact with falsity and the media leads the charge by ommission of debate.
Already we have people departing the country for friendlier environs.
We have a massive disconnect in the trust citizens have with government and that gap widens with every new racially based decision that excludes sectors of New Zealand that do not have a specific DNA marker.
Yes indeed this is the beginnings of the unravelling of our society once lauded internationally for its liberal, multicultural and democratic socio-political ethos.
Maybe Charters is not a charlatan, but she certainly is a propagandist and a misrepresenter of the facts who is up to no good. From a position of respectability, she seeks to divide our nation and anyone with that agenda deserves our contempt.
Thank you Peter, for exposing this nonsense se for what it is.
Keep up the good fight Peter>
This is what happens when academic appointments are made on the basis of political ideology rather than academic competence. Much of the diatribe is utter bunkum that anyone reasonably well acquainted with international law can see through. Commenting on it is in the domain of casting pearls to swine.
Maori are not and never will be indigenous plus treaty principles are a figment of a woke judge's imagination, in the real Treaty they don't exist . Why do we pander to all of this cultural bullshit? Just tell them to bugger off and return to the real world where people actually work and are productive. Kiwialan.
New Zealand had been declared British sovereignty under the 'Law of Nations' six months before the first signature appeared on the Treaty.
This was via our first Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated 30th July 1839 which placed New Zealand under the Laws and Dependency of New South Wales, with Governor Gipps New Zealand's first Governor and Hobson his Lt. Governor.
Our second Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated 16th November 1840 separated New Zealand from New South Wales and Governor Gipps, made New Zealand into an independent British Colony with its own Governor (Hobson) and constitution to form a Government to make laws with courts and judges to enforce those laws under one flag, irrespective of race colour or creed.
So our TRUE Founding Document and First Constitution which came into effect on the 3rd May 1841 is Queen Victoria's Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated 16th November 1840.
I wonder why Charters never talks about these REAL Facts and REAL DOCUMENTS??
Hi Peter,
The situation for us in New Zealand today is very challenging because we see existing inequalities that we must attempt to fix. And, indeed, we are making that attempt.
However, present-day inequalities do not justify degraded curricula for our children; nor taking resources from excellent and relevant science and passing it to research of questionable quality and reach; nor placing traditional medicine outside of Health legislation.
The efforts of Professor Charters and others in addressing persistent disparities are to be commended, but any policy, system, process or legislation that they advance, but that we believe stands to hurt our country, must be politely but firmly resisted.
David Lillis
Queen Victoria's 'Law of Nations' Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated 30th July 1839 placed New Zealand under the laws and dependency of New South Wales.
Queen Victoria's Royal Charter/Letters Patent dated 16th November 1840 separated NZ from New South Wales.
Britain obtained sovereignty over NZ by the first Royal Charter and became an independent British Colony with it's own Governor and constitution under the second Royal Charter on the 3rd May 1841, therefore our true Founding Document and First Constitution.
I wonder why Ms Charters overlooked these??
To Peter, and all the above commentators, you all make very valid points. I'll just say this to Claire Charters, if facing a firing squad on your beliefs, do you earnestly maintain they are correct and appropriate?
One has to surely wonder how earnest she is, and how she reconciles her half-caste heritage when she goes to sleep at night, just like all those other Maori activists presently living?
Something for nothing and at everyone else's expense? How attuned to "te ao Maori" is that?
Maybe the Doctrine of Discovery hd soem efect on the French for example, but whether it existed or not, apart from possibly discouraging the french, what difference did it make to maori? surely they did not coperate to a degree with settlers on the basis of it.
i do not recall having heard Charters on RNZ. Whilst they have had Margaret Motu. Ellah Henri and co repeatedly, how come they missed Charters? Perhaps wilcox has her lined up for a swipe at colonists and a hyenic maori giggle together.
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