Professor Ananish Chaudhuri: Debate around ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill essential for a multi-ethnic nation

I support the Treaty Principles Bill introduced by ACT. I believe the debate around this bill is fundamentally important if New Zealand is to remain a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural nation.

Here is the way I see it. While I fully acknowledge the discrepancies between the Maori and English versions of Te Tiriti Waitangi, the debate on whether Maori ceded sovereignty to the British Crown is sublimated by a long list of subsequent acts (and laws) that hold New Zealand to be an independent sovereign state. Parliamentary sovereignty has long been considered a foundational constitutional rule.

I was born in India, a former colony that does not recognize the Crown. I then studied and worked in the United States for many years; another former colony that does not recognize the Crown either. I strongly dislike the idea of having an unelected monarch as the Head of State and the Union Jack on our flag. But that is the law and in agreeing to accept New Zealand citizenship, I have agreed to abide by those as well as the multitude of other laws proclaimed by the nation’s Parliament.

This is the essence of a Parliamentary democracy; that all citizens are equal under the law.

While my interpretation may well be wrong, the fact remains that the proponents of the “Maori did not cede sovereignty” view are ignoring a key issue, which necessitates the need to have the conversation around the Treaty Principles.

According to the 2023 census, New Zealand’s population is 4,999,923. Out of these 3,383, 742 (68%) identify as Pakeha, 887, 493 (18%) as Maori, 442, 632 (9%) as Pacifica, 707,598 (14%) as Asian, 92, 760 (2%) as Middle Eastern/Latin American/African and 1% other. (The percentages add to more than 100 since people are allowed to indicate more than one ethnicity.)

The 1987 Court of Appeals decision argued that the treaty “signified a partnership between Pakeha and Maori requiring each other to act towards the other reasonably and with the utmost good faith” and that “the duty of the Crown was not just passive but extended to active protection of Māori people in the use of their lands and waters to the fullest extent practicable.”

But this emphasis on a bicultural view of New Zealand citizenship is antithetical to the basic tenets of a liberal democracy. If the treaty indeed establishes a partnership between two out of many ethnic groups residing in the country, and we are going to view our political process through this lens, then what does this imply for the quarter of the population that is neither Maori nor Pakeha?

This quarter of the population typically originates from other colonized nations, are not necessarily financially well-off and are people who have ventured to our shores in search of a better life. Did these people somehow become colonizers and the privileged by the wave of a magic wand? Or are they destined to be second tier citizens governed by an uneasy alliance between the Pakeha and Maori? If the basic argument is about equity then why are these people being excluded?

As David Lange pointed out in a 2000 speech (paragraph 9):

Here I come back to the government’s aim of closing the gaps between rich and poor, and the way in which it was overtaken in public understanding by the subsidiary goal of closing the gaps between Maori and the rest. I don’t describe the second goal as lesser than the first out of any wish to minimise the effect of growing inequality on Maori people. What I mean is that from the point of view of a democratic government, the first goal can encompass the second, but the second can’t encompass the first. If the government’s goal is to reduce inequality, it follows that it will do whatever it can to improve the position of Maori.

Democratic government can accommodate Maori political aspiration in many ways. It can allocate resources in ways which reflect the particular interests of Maori people. It can delegate authority, and allow the exercise of degrees of Maori autonomy. What it cannot do is acknowledge the existence of a separate sovereignty. As soon as it does that, it isn’t a democracy. We can have a democratic form of government or we can have indigenous sovereignty. They can’t coexist and we can’t have them both.

We have a choice. We can choose to remain a liberal democracy where everyone counts, or we can become an ethnocentric nation based on identity politics and riven by ethnic tensions. Make no mistake; the current path where particular ethnicities are granted “partnership” status can only lead to the eventual appearance of more ethnic parties fighting it out for a seat at the table.

Ananish Chaudhuri is Professor of Experimental Economics at the University of Auckland. Besides Auckland, he has taught at Harvard Kennedy School, Rutgers University, Washington State University and Wellesley College. This article was first published HERE