Along the way, her most significant assertion was that Maori had never ceded sovereignty to the Crown, despite what the Treaty of Waitangi actually says. Therefore, in her eyes, any claims Maori like to produce must be treated seriously. Amazing stuff really. The meaning of words that the rest of us use is irrelevant to her. Clearly, she makes up the “korero” and the “kaupapa” as she goes along. For Ngarewa-Packer and her handful of followers her “korero” has no universally accepted meaning. It can be translated any way they like, whenever they feel an urge to do so.
This lack of respect for the meaning of words is why Maori radicals are terrified of David Seymour’s promise to identify, and put into law, the principles of the Treaty. To do so would threaten their growing practice of making up new “principles of the Treaty” when it suits them. The reality is, they have no respect for the wording of the document that their ancestors signed on 6 February 1840.
Let’s examine the Treaty: Article One translated into English by Sir Hugh Kawharu from the Maori version of the Treaty that Ngarewa-Packer’s ancestors signed, says that the Chiefs “give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land”. No leeway there for anyone in the Maori Party to argue that they didn’t cede sovereignty, however hard they might try.
There is more scope for debate over Article Two that gave the Chiefs and Subtribes “the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures” even though the Chiefs accepted they would sell land to the Crown at an agreed price. Most reasonable people agree now that governments after 1840 weren’t always as careful as they should have been at respecting that chieftainship. That’s why so much effort has been made this last half century to settle Maori grievances: billions of dollars paid, the transfer of thousands of acres of land, and a great many state-funded Maori agencies to help improve Maori health and educational outcomes.
In many ways the most significant piece of the Treaty that Ngarewa-Packer and her ilk keep trying to re-write is Article Three. In it, the Queen of England promised to protect all Maori and “give them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England.” Ngarewa-Packer seems to interpret this as meaning that the Crown signed up to pampering Maori, guaranteeing them, irrespective of how they behaved, that they would live as long as non-Maori, enjoy the same standards of living, and not have any obligation to work. Just please themselves. She constantly stresses Maori rights; never mentions any duties of citizenship in return. Her version of the Treaty is a one-way ride for Maori.
Armed with her re-written version of the Treaty, Ngarewa-Packer runs it over any problem that emerges. Pharmac is, and always will be, short of money as new drugs flow on to the international market. All New Zealanders who are keen to maintain their health keep an eye on the agency that buys and distributes drugs. But the crazy Maori fringe argues that the Treaty has some special relevance to Pharmac’s operation when, as David Seymour has pointed out, all people, Pakeha, Maori, and new New Zealanders from India, China and elsewhere have the same legitimate expectations of access to new drugs.
It is this perverse use of a constantly re-interpreted Treaty that David Seymour wants to counter by defining and legislating the actual, rather than the crazy Maori fringe’s changing version that pops up when it suits them. If Ngarewa-Packer’s use of English was the same as everyone else’s then she would realise that her version of what non-Maori owe to Maori is preposterous. She would turn her attention to the many ways in which her people could improve their lives by making an effort on several fronts.
Why are Ngarewa-Packer and the Maori Party never at the forefront of urging Maori to take more care with their diets, reduce their intake of drugs and alcohol, and cut back on smoking? Why does she never draw attention to the demonstrably violent upbringing that so many of her people inflict upon their children? And why does the Maori Party seem to possess no policies to encourage their children to attend school that is just as readily available to them as to everyone else? Educating the young is vital to their progress.
Setting aside Ngarewa-Packer’s dishonest misuse of the English language, she would quickly find more support from the rest of New Zealand if instead of eternally grizzling, she was seen herself to be making an effort to do something positive on behalf of those she claims are her people. She and they have no future in constantly trying to advance an absurd reinterpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi. But then perhaps we can count ourselves lucky that the Maori Party fetches only 3% of the total vote at election time and that, overwhelmingly, a majority of New Zealanders possessing some Maori ancestry give them a wide berth.
This lack of respect for the meaning of words is why Maori radicals are terrified of David Seymour’s promise to identify, and put into law, the principles of the Treaty. To do so would threaten their growing practice of making up new “principles of the Treaty” when it suits them. The reality is, they have no respect for the wording of the document that their ancestors signed on 6 February 1840.
Let’s examine the Treaty: Article One translated into English by Sir Hugh Kawharu from the Maori version of the Treaty that Ngarewa-Packer’s ancestors signed, says that the Chiefs “give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land”. No leeway there for anyone in the Maori Party to argue that they didn’t cede sovereignty, however hard they might try.
There is more scope for debate over Article Two that gave the Chiefs and Subtribes “the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures” even though the Chiefs accepted they would sell land to the Crown at an agreed price. Most reasonable people agree now that governments after 1840 weren’t always as careful as they should have been at respecting that chieftainship. That’s why so much effort has been made this last half century to settle Maori grievances: billions of dollars paid, the transfer of thousands of acres of land, and a great many state-funded Maori agencies to help improve Maori health and educational outcomes.
In many ways the most significant piece of the Treaty that Ngarewa-Packer and her ilk keep trying to re-write is Article Three. In it, the Queen of England promised to protect all Maori and “give them the same rights and duties of citizenship as the people of England.” Ngarewa-Packer seems to interpret this as meaning that the Crown signed up to pampering Maori, guaranteeing them, irrespective of how they behaved, that they would live as long as non-Maori, enjoy the same standards of living, and not have any obligation to work. Just please themselves. She constantly stresses Maori rights; never mentions any duties of citizenship in return. Her version of the Treaty is a one-way ride for Maori.
Armed with her re-written version of the Treaty, Ngarewa-Packer runs it over any problem that emerges. Pharmac is, and always will be, short of money as new drugs flow on to the international market. All New Zealanders who are keen to maintain their health keep an eye on the agency that buys and distributes drugs. But the crazy Maori fringe argues that the Treaty has some special relevance to Pharmac’s operation when, as David Seymour has pointed out, all people, Pakeha, Maori, and new New Zealanders from India, China and elsewhere have the same legitimate expectations of access to new drugs.
It is this perverse use of a constantly re-interpreted Treaty that David Seymour wants to counter by defining and legislating the actual, rather than the crazy Maori fringe’s changing version that pops up when it suits them. If Ngarewa-Packer’s use of English was the same as everyone else’s then she would realise that her version of what non-Maori owe to Maori is preposterous. She would turn her attention to the many ways in which her people could improve their lives by making an effort on several fronts.
Why are Ngarewa-Packer and the Maori Party never at the forefront of urging Maori to take more care with their diets, reduce their intake of drugs and alcohol, and cut back on smoking? Why does she never draw attention to the demonstrably violent upbringing that so many of her people inflict upon their children? And why does the Maori Party seem to possess no policies to encourage their children to attend school that is just as readily available to them as to everyone else? Educating the young is vital to their progress.
Setting aside Ngarewa-Packer’s dishonest misuse of the English language, she would quickly find more support from the rest of New Zealand if instead of eternally grizzling, she was seen herself to be making an effort to do something positive on behalf of those she claims are her people. She and they have no future in constantly trying to advance an absurd reinterpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi. But then perhaps we can count ourselves lucky that the Maori Party fetches only 3% of the total vote at election time and that, overwhelmingly, a majority of New Zealanders possessing some Maori ancestry give them a wide berth.
Historian Dr Michael Bassett, a Minister in the Fourth Labour Government, blogs HERE. - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
On her public facebook page, half irish debbie dismisses jack's questions and reiterates to her followers about how the white supremist govt wants to commit genocide against maori. Why is an mp allowed to openly lie like that? She is using a tactic that hitler used in the 1930s to try to turn the german population against the jews. Also she is half white so her argunent makes no sense. I think she is actuslly very evil. She is trying to indoctrinate ordinary maori and mske them hate white people just because they are white. This is disgraceful .
Dr Bassett overlooks that Article II of Te Tiriti grants “tino rangatiratanga” not just to brown supremacist part-Maori, but to ALL New Zealanders.
ARTICLE II reads:
“The Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and the tribes [the natives] and to all the people of New Zealand [the white pre-Treaty settlers who held land according to tikanga, meaning for as long as 'their' tribe could defend the locality against outsiders], the possession of their lands, dwellings and all their property.”
Everybody needed the same assurance from the incoming sovereign: that existing private property rights would be upheld and protected.
If ‘Tino Rangatiratanga’ means in its broadest sense “the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship” as claimed today by Treatyists, it was certainly not being used that way in Te Tiriti in 1840.
In the context of Te Tiriti, the words narrow in their meaning to be a guarantee of property rights in land and other property [the correct translation of ‘taonga’ in 1840] to both the natives and pre-Treaty settlers alike.
It is thus impossible to construe Article I as having been drafted to provide for the Crown to govern the settlers and for the chiefs to continue governing their tribes according to Article II.
If Te Tiriti was intended to be a Constitutional document providing for spheres of co-governance as asserted today by the deluded, there would have been no mention of the white pre-Treaty settlers in Article II.
An open-ended co-governance arrangement would surely have been worded at Article II; “the Queen of England HER HEIRS AND SUCCESSORS [emphasis added to additional wording] and “the chiefs THEIR HEIRS AND SUCCESSORS [emphasis added to additional wording]; and “Tino Rangatiratanga” would have been used in an entirely unrestricted manner, not narrowed as it was to being a guarantee of property rights.
The recorded words of the chiefs on the lawn at Waitangi and elsewhere when Te Tiriti was debated make it clear they were well-aware that their acceptance of Hobson would place him in authority over them, and that behind Hobson was Queen Victoria.
Surely it is time to give this thing a rest and just ignore the ravings as you would any other white madwoman (or madman for that matter).
Dr Bassett,
The reason why Packer and other Maoris talk the way they do is because they have been conditioned to get what they want by doing so. And they have been so conditioned by a series of previous Governments of which you have been a member.
Rational persons would eagerly give it a rest as too absurd to seriously consider. But a lerge propoertion of maori are neither reasonable or rational. very many, from school results, are of reduced cognitive ability and so especially easily swayed by rhetoric they are eager to believe. Sadly they and their prompters will not give their topic a rest.
We reap what we sow! Who in right mind would accept spurious claims from Māori for perceived wrongdoings based on oral history? That this has been allowed to continue at the Taxpayers’ expense, by both National and Labour, is nothing short of fraudulent. Not only those claiming to be Māori, but unprincipled folk with a teaspoon of Māori blood, have used the system to huge financial gain to themselves. David Seymour is right-The Treaty should not be used to create an apartheid system, and the wording of his suggested Bill should not require a referendum, but of course traits of commonsense, sensibility and logic are relics of an education system long gone.
In WW2 an American Colonel whose unit was surrounded was invited to surrender
to the Germans and his one word reply was "Nuts!" Surely it is time to use the one word response to the Packer woman and those like her instead of giving her misguided ranting the publicity it receives. Free speech is essential but a duty of rationality and truth is imposed on the speaker. To go on stirring up antagonism based on falsehoods is irresponsible and damaging to all of us.
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