I don’t know whether the Government ever really considers these reports. If it did, it would conclude that they are complete nonsense and a waste of taxpayer money.
In the case of He Tangata, He Whenua, it should go one step further and ask for its money back.
The Tribunal granted this urgent inquiry to Australian-born John Ruddock, who has a Scottish father and was a New Zealand citizen by descent because his mother was a New Zealand citizen. Ruddock grew up in America and wanted his American-born children to obtain New Zealand citizenship, but citizenship by descent did not extend to them, as it had to him. Because his mother had Maori ancestry he made a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal when citizenship was not afforded to his children automatically. Urgency was granted by the Tribunal because the children could not attend school without visas. The fact that the visas were issued within days, effectively removing the immediate problem, did not prevent the Tribunal from pressing ahead eagerly with its ‘urgent’ inquiry even though there was no need for it.
From the circumstances of one family, and having heard from just eight witnesses, the Tribunal attempted to generalise a national crisis. It asserted systemic Treaty breaches involving partnership, active protection, rangatiratanga, equal treatment, good governance and options. In other words, virtually every Treaty principle that it could loosely relate to the case in order to find a breach by the Crown.
It concluded that the citizenship system itself is inconsistent with the Treaty and should be rewritten to embed ancestry-based rights for Maori.
He Tangata, He Whenua is a textbook illustration of why the Waitangi Tribunal has become irrelevant to modern New Zealand.
Of the many principles the Tribunal found to have been breached, the most revealing is the principle of equal treatment.
The Tribunal’s principle of equal treatment requires the Crown to treat Maori people equally, regardless of their connection to New Zealand. It concluded that the Crown’s Treaty obligations extend as equally to people whose only connection to New Zealand is a distant Maori ancestor as they do to Maori citizens living here.
On that reasoning, the Crown breached the principle of equal treatment by treating Maori differently according to their citizenship status.
It is not difficult to see where this logic could lead. If citizenship status cannot legitimately distinguish between Maori who are New Zealand citizens and those who have never lived here, why should the same principle not apply to voting rights, welfare entitlements or other benefits?
The fact that the Tribunal believes the New Zealand Government is as obligated to people with no connection to New Zealand as it is to those who are, demonstrates how irrelevant it is in a modern world.
The Tribunal then moves beyond conventional citizenship law and into an entirely different conception of belonging.
It considers whakapapa to be the enduring basis of Maori belonging, rather than where a person was born or to whom. It further concluded that it is inappropriate for Crown officials to determine the validity of a person’s whakapapa, as whakapapa is a taonga and too sacred for a mere official. It also stated that the Crown has no authority to determine whakapapa. This is because the Tribunal believes that the determination of whakapapa falls within the tino rangatiratanga guaranteed by Article 2, and therefore outside the Crown's kāwanatanga authority under Article 1. In believing this the Tribunal is rejecting the Crown’s sovereignty.
Instead, it recommended a tikanga pathway under which hapū and iwi would assess whakapapa evidence.
This is not simply a recommendation to change the citizenship rules. It proposes a system in which Maori authorities would have a formal role in determining whether a person qualifies for citizenship through whakapapa.
And here the Tribunal appears to encounter a rather awkward contradiction.
If Crown institutions have no authority to determine whakapapa, it raises an obvious question about how the Crown-created Waitangi Tribunal can determine who is Maori for the purposes of determining who is eligible to make a claim.
Also of course there are many Crown officials in other government departments required to determine eligibility to the many special rights Maori people get, voting rights, free prezzy cards, free meds, easy access to medical school etc, all require a determination on whakapapa.
The deeper problem is that the underlying philosophy of the Tribunal is that being Māori is somehow special. Things regarded as ordinary and unremarkable for everyone else, such as your family tree, become matters requiring special treatment when Māori are involved. Even American children who have a part Maori grandmother.
This belief drove it to want to elevate Maori ancestry to a unique legal status that transcends the normal rules of citizenship.
Citizenship in a modern democratic country is ordinarily an individual legal status. It is determined by rules that apply to people regardless of ancestry. The Tribunal’s approach instead creates a category in which whakapapa can confer rights independently of citizenship, residence or the normal relationship between an individual and the state.
That is not a minor administrative adjustment. It is a fundamentally different concept of citizenship: one in which whakapapa has a special legal status, Maori institutions participate in determining that whakapapa, and Maori citizenship rights can differ from those applying to other New Zealand citizens.
That is precisely where the Government must draw a line.
No Government can responsibly accept recommendations that create a separate, ancestry-based pathway to citizenship and give non-state Maori institutions a role in determining who qualifies.
Equally no government can accept stupid rulings. If the Tribunal’s principle of equal treatment requiring the Crown to treat people who have never lived here equally to its own citizens, is not stupid enough, its interpretation of the principle of ‘Good Government’, which it claimed the Crown breached in this claim also, is right up there too.
The Tribunal ruled that the Crown breached the principle of good government because a good government would have reviewed the 1970’s citizenship legislation and brought it up to date to comply with the Tribunal’s reinterpreted Treaty obligations. I would argue that a good government would not do that because it would know that the Tribunal’s interpretation of the Treaty is not credible. I would further argue that a good government would not give away its ability to control immigration, as the Tribunal is saying it needs to do for people with a Maori ancestor. The interpretation of this Treaty principle by the Tribunal another demonstration of its irrelevance.
This leaves the Government with a problem it must no longer avoid.
It is no longer credible to have our governments accepting that the Tribunal is authoritative enough to exist, while rightly refusing to accept the consequences of what the Tribunal says the Treaty requires.
The Government must have the courage to say that the Tribunal is wrong and disband it.
What it cannot reasonably do is continue funding a Tribunal whose findings it has no intention of implementing because they are incompatible with a society based on equal citizenship under one sovereign authority — and, many argue, are not compatible with the Treaty itself.
John Ruddock’s children got citizenship through the present legislative channels in any case, making the whole Tribunal hearing a waste of time and money, except of course for those with an agenda of Maori exceptionalism and racial superiority.
Robin Grieve, a tutor, orchardist and retired farmer, is Chairman of Pastural Farming Climate Research HERE.
5 comments:
“The Government must have the courage to say that the Tribunal is wrong and disband it.”
If ever a politician has misread the room it has to be Luxon. Is he that deaf dumb and blind to ignore the public uproar and still seek re-election?
Act is the only party within the Coalition to announce its own policy to wind up the Waitangi Tribunal entirely.
There is nothing wrong with the treaty itself (except perhaps being the most over rated document in NZ history compared with He Wakaputanga).
The problem is the tribunal's interpretation of the old Lands ruling. Justice Cooke did not lay down any duties that are distinct from the normal duties that a trustee owes his beneficiaries under equity.
The treaty industry must come to an end. Genuine land claims can be adjudicated by the Maori land court. Let us repeal the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 as it is redundant for anything but grift.
The question has to be asked Robin: Principles, what principles? The so-called 'treaty principles' are smoke and mirror territory, and the tribunal is largely unprincipled .
Two people - one with "other" DNA, the second with 1/512 th Maori DNA.
The Waitangi Tribunal would argue that the second person has greater rights, and that their great grandchildren will also retain those extraordinary rights.
Luxon - don't break up the supermarkets - break up the Waitangi Tribunal.
“Wind up the Waitangi Tribunal” - ACT
“Waitangi Tribunal Uber Alles” - TPM
The most important issue is this election. (And if it’s not, it should be)
Post a Comment
Thank you for joining the discussion. Breaking Views welcomes respectful contributions that enrich the debate. Please ensure your comments are not defamatory, derogatory or disruptive. We appreciate your cooperation.