There was a time when those with an interest in history would have embraced the Northland Report with relish. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible in New Zealand. History, like so many other subjects, has become a bitterly contested ideological ground. A discipline where angry partisans struggle for supremacy.
For the moment, at least, the upper hand lies where it has lain for the past 50 years – with the Tribunal. For most of that time New Zealanders assumed that those weighing the evidence which claimants brought before the Tribunal were dispassionate professionals. Only relatively recently has it become clear that the Tribunal’s “history” is little more than compensatory fiction, composed by Māori and/or Māori-identifying “historians” to clear the way for the Crown’s acknowledgement of wrong-doing and, ultimately, to secure compensation for the manifold sins of our colonial fathers.
In short, the Waitangi Tribunal has taken upon itself the risky business of inserting indigenous moral judgements into the amoral narrative of New Zealand’s past. I say “amoral” for the very simple reason that the events of the past, like those of the present, are driven by such a multiplicity of factors that expecting them to elicit universal approval, or condemnation (like the Holocaust) is nonsensical.
The current Minister for Treaty Settlements, for example, Paul Goldsmith, sees as much virtue as vice in the colonisation of New Zealand – an historical perspective that would find few supporters among Māori Treaty historians. Māori scholars, and their allies, present colonisation as an unmitigated disaster: an historical catastrophe from which the indigenous people of New Zealand are only now beginning to recover.
With this view of New Zealand history, the Tribunal is clearly in steadfast agreement. Its reports are based on the testimony of the aggrieved, and upon their carefully curated historical grievances. Only to this “evidence” does the Tribunal accord the status of unchallengeable truth. And only these, the Tribunal’s truths, are allowed to prevail over what is invariably characterised as the evil historical choices of the Crown. That this Manichean historiography cannot help but infantilise Māori, turning them into trusting dupes of the wicked Pakeha, and denying them the dignity of effective historical agency, is deemed an acceptable price to pay by a Waitangi Tribunal determined to deliver to Māori claimants a browbeaten and guilt-ridden Crown.
A stricken Crown cannot be secured, however, unless the Treaty of Waitangi is itself reconceived as something other than what it so clearly was: an agreement securing the voluntary cession of Māori sovereignty to the British Crown. A Crown committed to protecting the native people’s “lands, forests and fisheries” from rapacious chancers like the New Zealand Company; and to safeguarding their persons from allcomers by granting them the full rights and privileges of British subjects.
But, such a Treaty would require the Māori chiefs and their people to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Victoria. Any concerted failure to do so would oblige the colonial authorities to enforce the Crown’s supremacy.
Obviously, that Treaty of Waitangi was no good. What the Tribunal needed was a Treaty that left the sovereignty of the chiefs intact and unhindered by the decisions of a government in faraway London.
But, once again, this could only be achieved by asserting that the chieftains gathered at Waitangi were too dim-witted to understand the proposition that was being put to them. That, in all their debates over whether or not Captain Hobson’s proposed agreement was worth signing, there was not one Māori leader with even the slightest understanding that they were dealing with the wealthiest and most powerful entity on the planet. Not one who grasped that if they failed to secure the “protection” of Great Britain, then they would soon be receiving the “attentions” of her rivals.
In reality, there were many Māori present who understood exactly what Hobson was offering, and explained it clearly to those who demonstrated confusion. We know this because the impassioned refusals by a number of chiefs to surrender their freedom of action to the British was recorded by those present at Waitangi on 6 February 1840. Those who did sign knew what they were getting – and what they were giving away.
Reputable historians do not present grown human beings as innocent children, or confused savages, incapable of understanding the political, economic and military realities of their time. Nor do they construct frankly ridiculous constitutional scenarios in which the British Government of 1840 was happy to share power with “natives” whom the science of the day proclaimed their inferiors. Since 2014, the Waitangi Tribunal has been indulging in what might best be called “Bridgerton History” – i.e. refashioning the realities of the past to meet the ideological specifications of the present.
Among those ideological specifications, at least in New Zealand, is that the nation state which grew out of the Treaty of Waitangi (as understood prior to the 1980s) must be “decolonised”. Part and parcel of that decolonisation process, from the perspective of the Māori people of the North, will be the creation of a territorial entity in which the writ of the New Zealand state no longer runs. What Hōne Heke Pōkai could not hold, Christopher Luxon is expected to hand back.
But Luxon (or any other prime minister of New Zealand for that matter) cannot do that without sanctioning the state’s disintegration – something which Pakeha (and not a few Māori) simply will not permit. The nation which the 1840 Treaty enabled has come too far to surrender itself to a political project dedicated to the proposition that it should never have been permitted to exist in the first place. Christopher Luxon may soon find himself playing the role of Abraham Lincoln, fighting to preserve the unity of his country against those who would refashion it according to the ugly and divisive considerations of race.
Chris Trotter is a well known political commentator. This article was first published HERE
For the moment, at least, the upper hand lies where it has lain for the past 50 years – with the Tribunal. For most of that time New Zealanders assumed that those weighing the evidence which claimants brought before the Tribunal were dispassionate professionals. Only relatively recently has it become clear that the Tribunal’s “history” is little more than compensatory fiction, composed by Māori and/or Māori-identifying “historians” to clear the way for the Crown’s acknowledgement of wrong-doing and, ultimately, to secure compensation for the manifold sins of our colonial fathers.
In short, the Waitangi Tribunal has taken upon itself the risky business of inserting indigenous moral judgements into the amoral narrative of New Zealand’s past. I say “amoral” for the very simple reason that the events of the past, like those of the present, are driven by such a multiplicity of factors that expecting them to elicit universal approval, or condemnation (like the Holocaust) is nonsensical.
The current Minister for Treaty Settlements, for example, Paul Goldsmith, sees as much virtue as vice in the colonisation of New Zealand – an historical perspective that would find few supporters among Māori Treaty historians. Māori scholars, and their allies, present colonisation as an unmitigated disaster: an historical catastrophe from which the indigenous people of New Zealand are only now beginning to recover.
With this view of New Zealand history, the Tribunal is clearly in steadfast agreement. Its reports are based on the testimony of the aggrieved, and upon their carefully curated historical grievances. Only to this “evidence” does the Tribunal accord the status of unchallengeable truth. And only these, the Tribunal’s truths, are allowed to prevail over what is invariably characterised as the evil historical choices of the Crown. That this Manichean historiography cannot help but infantilise Māori, turning them into trusting dupes of the wicked Pakeha, and denying them the dignity of effective historical agency, is deemed an acceptable price to pay by a Waitangi Tribunal determined to deliver to Māori claimants a browbeaten and guilt-ridden Crown.
A stricken Crown cannot be secured, however, unless the Treaty of Waitangi is itself reconceived as something other than what it so clearly was: an agreement securing the voluntary cession of Māori sovereignty to the British Crown. A Crown committed to protecting the native people’s “lands, forests and fisheries” from rapacious chancers like the New Zealand Company; and to safeguarding their persons from allcomers by granting them the full rights and privileges of British subjects.
But, such a Treaty would require the Māori chiefs and their people to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Victoria. Any concerted failure to do so would oblige the colonial authorities to enforce the Crown’s supremacy.
Obviously, that Treaty of Waitangi was no good. What the Tribunal needed was a Treaty that left the sovereignty of the chiefs intact and unhindered by the decisions of a government in faraway London.
But, once again, this could only be achieved by asserting that the chieftains gathered at Waitangi were too dim-witted to understand the proposition that was being put to them. That, in all their debates over whether or not Captain Hobson’s proposed agreement was worth signing, there was not one Māori leader with even the slightest understanding that they were dealing with the wealthiest and most powerful entity on the planet. Not one who grasped that if they failed to secure the “protection” of Great Britain, then they would soon be receiving the “attentions” of her rivals.
In reality, there were many Māori present who understood exactly what Hobson was offering, and explained it clearly to those who demonstrated confusion. We know this because the impassioned refusals by a number of chiefs to surrender their freedom of action to the British was recorded by those present at Waitangi on 6 February 1840. Those who did sign knew what they were getting – and what they were giving away.
Reputable historians do not present grown human beings as innocent children, or confused savages, incapable of understanding the political, economic and military realities of their time. Nor do they construct frankly ridiculous constitutional scenarios in which the British Government of 1840 was happy to share power with “natives” whom the science of the day proclaimed their inferiors. Since 2014, the Waitangi Tribunal has been indulging in what might best be called “Bridgerton History” – i.e. refashioning the realities of the past to meet the ideological specifications of the present.
Among those ideological specifications, at least in New Zealand, is that the nation state which grew out of the Treaty of Waitangi (as understood prior to the 1980s) must be “decolonised”. Part and parcel of that decolonisation process, from the perspective of the Māori people of the North, will be the creation of a territorial entity in which the writ of the New Zealand state no longer runs. What Hōne Heke Pōkai could not hold, Christopher Luxon is expected to hand back.
But Luxon (or any other prime minister of New Zealand for that matter) cannot do that without sanctioning the state’s disintegration – something which Pakeha (and not a few Māori) simply will not permit. The nation which the 1840 Treaty enabled has come too far to surrender itself to a political project dedicated to the proposition that it should never have been permitted to exist in the first place. Christopher Luxon may soon find himself playing the role of Abraham Lincoln, fighting to preserve the unity of his country against those who would refashion it according to the ugly and divisive considerations of race.
Chris Trotter is a well known political commentator. This article was first published HERE
10 comments:
Well said. The Tribunal is stirring a very dangerous pot.
They are way past their use by date and they as an agency of government actually creating a serious civil conflict intended to bring down the very government they work under.
Is this what treason looks like?
Very well said.
I fear all this BS will not end well for any of us.
Are we likely to see the north blockade? and the ceded from the rest of the country.
These people live in a different dimension from the rest of us.
The Waitangi Tribunal is a weeping sore that is continually picked at by the elites and the woke whiteys to keep the entitlement gravy-train rolling.
Either close it down or clean it out of all the Maori activists who staff it....then close it down.
Until it goes, NZ will never have a chance of reconciling as one nation, where the first question asked is not whether you're Maori or not.
Luxon will never have the balls to do it. We need ACT/NZ First to propose this then campaign on it at the next election. Hopefully National will lose an even greater share of the centre-right vote.
A fantastic article Mr Trotter, I wish more would read it.
And they could also read a book by Ron Crosby, "The Musket Wars " the intertribal warfare that occurred for about 40 years, before and slightly after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Mr Crosby is regarded as the leading expert on the subject. He describes this warfare as very nearly self inflicted genocide.
The leader of The Maori Party Ms Ngarewa-Packer advises us she suffers not only from "post colonial trauma but also from "terrorist genocide", her recent very words , and no doubt she believes inflicted upon her by the same party. Perhaps she might now add the self inflicted further trauma Maori must suffer by these wars between themselves.
And these wars were very much the reason the Treaty was signed.
And the Public need to be reminded that the views of the Waitangi are recommendations only, though the MSM and Maori present them as authoritative and binding.
I for one would prefer the meaning of the Treaty be put to the Public by way of referendum. The sooner the better.
Record migration again, 120,000 new people from all over the World arriving on our shores. To be told by a minority, your second rate, back of the queue, we were here first and you’re going to pay.
Not the brightest buttons in the box, The Waitangi Tribunal.
Sounds like a recipe for a disaster.
This scenario could lead to the PARTITION of Northland and as in the partition of India, a bloody war and departure of all non-Maori from Northland into Auckland and the rest of the country. Those who own private land in Northland will find themselves on the end of Zimbabwe style retribution
If Maori have sovereignty then should they have their own laws, citizenship, passports, pay tax to the NZ govt for use of its roads and services etc?
It makes no sense. NZ needs proper leadership on this issue. Thankfully David Seymour understands the problem and the majority public sentiment against it.
All of these maori chancers happen to be carrying the genes of the very colonisers they despise. I'd like to see them all immediately 'decolonised' as without these colonial genes they simply would not exist.
Or, Anon@1.56PM, another way would be to allow Ngapuhi to be given Northland and for the rest of NZ to create an international border crossing on SH1; cutting all services including the national grid power etc. beyond that border; and, certainly stop all welfare payments and remove all other Govt. services including law and order, education, taxation etc. and allowing institutions like banking and insurance to do as they will. Of course, there will be a requirement for compensation to be paid for all improvements left behind (at handover date values indexed to inflation at an average OECD
level), especially those paid for by individual pakeha who shall be given the choice of staying or leaving.
How long do you think that will last? Would that idyllic 'Nirvana' go on forever amongst those historically renown peace-loving humanitarians who are, reputedly, also well attuned to environmental well-being? And what do you think the chances of them still being the owners of that 'state' in say fifty or a hundred years time? Somehow, I think not great, but perhaps they should be given the option?
I suspect Debbie’s traumas derive from what her Maori ancestors were doing to each other before the colonials arrived and it is her colonial genes as well as her Maori genes that are affected by this trauma.
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