Mike Butler: A Giant Treaty Rort?

Does Treaty of Waitangi policy amount to a rort that has grown beyond the wildest dreams of those who set it up and is now too large and too deeply embedded for any government to dismantle?

That is the question that emerged from spending a couple of months updating the treaty settlement financial redress total at Treaty Transparency 1975-2026 HERE 

 
The word “rort” describes a scheme that takes unfair advantage of a public service, loophole, or resource.

It is often applied to political expense scandals, exploiting bureaucratic loopholes, or bending the rules of an organization or government program for personal benefit without necessarily crossing into hard criminal fraud.

It usually results in public backlash, policy changes, or reprimands.

Undeniably, the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and the Waitangi Tribunal have delivered massive wealth and control to a select few. How did that come about. A few months doing the Treaty Transparency update showed what happened.

First, the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975:

• placed the concept of the “principles of the Treaty” into New Zealand legislation,

• established the tribunal as a permanent commission of inquiry into claims by Maori,

• and gave the tribunal the exclusive authority to determine the meaning and effect of the Treaty by examining both the English and Maori texts appended to the Act.

 Next, a 1985 amendment to that Act allowed the Waitangi Tribunal to investigate historical claims dating back to 1840, rather than only contemporary issues.

And then:

• A tribunal member created a “contemporary translation” of the Maori text that created four new treaty beliefs that now underpin treaty policy,

• Treaty principles that didn’t exist were created.

 As Edmund Blackadder in the 1980s Rowan Atkinson television comedy show famously says, “I’ve got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.”

Blackadder was mocking the supposed brilliance of an idea. The treaty plan in faraway New Zealand actually worked, way beyond the dreams of those who set it up who are mostly all deceased.

How was the treaty re-written? The devil, as always, is in the detail, the fine print, which are the 11 footnotes to the “contemporary translation” posted on the Waitangi Tribunal’s website.

In these footnotes, four words from the Maori text of the treaty were redefined to create four beliefs:

• “Kawanatanga” in footnote 6, sparked the assertion that chiefs could not understand “government” in the sense of “sovereignty”. That formed the basis of the claim that chiefs didn’t cede sovereignty.

• “Rangatiratanga” in footnote 7, was rebranded as “chiefly authority”. That became the treaty justification for Maori sovereignty, and that morphed into a special right that only people of Maori descent have.

• “Taonga”, in footnote 8, was asserted to refer to all dimensions of a tribal group’s estate, material and non-material. That went on to mean that if something exists (such as geothermal energy, water, spectrum, indeed everything in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone), and if a Maori has not already sold it, a Maori must be paid for it.

• “Tikanga” in footnote 11, asserts that the Queen really wanted to protect Maori customs because Maori did not understand British customs. That formed the basis of the assertion that people of Maori descent should live according to tikanga lore, not the range of laws in force in the English-speaking world. This in turn enabled the Supreme Court to impose its version of tikanga.

Note, the treaty was drafted in English and translated into Maori. The words “kawanatanga”, “rangatiratanga”, “taonga”, and “tikanga” were used to convey the words “sovereignty”, “possession”, “property” and “rights” respectively.

The person who rewrote the treaty, the late Hugh Kawharu, who was “a man of quiet persuasion” with “persistent advocacy for the Maori right to exercise rangatiratanga (self-determination)”, according to his official biography, took the words “kawanatanga”, “rangatiratanga”, “taonga”, and “tikanga” all out of context and gave them new meanings.

Then, hey presto, we have a treaty that appears to justify Maori self-government, an extra right that only Maori people have called rangatiratanga, ownership of everything, and the right to live outside of coloniser law.

How were the treaty principles created? Read New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney General 1987, the lands case, see exactly how the Appeal Court used the Kawharu re-written treaty and caved in to 20 affidavits from activists and academics, including Kawharu,.

What gradually became apparent, while looking at this for months, is that without the treaty principles there would be:

• No historical breaches of the treaty by the Crown,

• No financial redress totalling $5-billion,

• No way to mandate co-governance, active partnership,

• No way to direct authorities to cave in to specific Maori claims and requests.

“Treaty principles” have allowed the treaty document to move from a historical text into enforceable modern legislation. They have transformed law, enabled the treaty settlement process, and imposed a bicultural structure on the public sector where “partnership, participation, and protection” are the foundational buzz words. In short, these principles have created the situation we have today.

When “the treaty” is invoked, the invoker never says which treaty – the 1840s treaty agreed to by 512 chiefs, or the 1980s treaty conjured up by a man of “persistent advocacy for the Maori right to exercise rangatiratanga (self-determination)”.

The 1840s treaty, in its preamble, three articles, and postscript, is a concise agreement to cede sovereignty, confirm property rights, and confer British citizenship.

The 1980s treaty, with its 11 footnotes and redefined “kawanatanga”, “rangatiratanga”, “taonga”, and “tikanga”, ushered in a new world in which:

• Maori should self-govern,

• if a Maori has not already sold anything that exists, a Maori must be paid for it,

• Maori should live according to Maori customs only because Maori do not understand British customs.

This 1980s treaty principles started out with partnership, protection, good faith, redress, and the duty to consult and to remedy past breaches, but soon went on to include Kawanatanga, rangatiratanga, taonga, and tikanga, and currently can be customised to fit a fresh claim.

Once claims back to 1840 were permitted by an amendment to the Treaty of Waitangi Act in 1985, the Waitangi Tribunal wrote extensive reports that reframed everything that had happened since 1840 in terms of the very flexible treaty principles.

That reframed history transformed everything that the Crown/New Zealand government had done since 1840 as the sovereign authority into a treaty breach that attracted massive financial redress.

A giant treaty rort? It’s over to you to decide.

Read the 33 short chapters totalling 78 pages on the Moriori genocide, the Littlewood treaty, Tuhoe and the terror raids, the looming financial risk with a Ngapuhi settlement and the relativity mechanism.

Perhaps more important is how treaty tribes treated appeasement with contempt, collaborated with the Kingitanga, united, and commissioned a plan to replace the government with a set-up that they would control.

Or is it a case of unintended consequences?

Whatever it is, it is costing us all a lot of money and much more heartache. It’s time for New Zealand to turn the page on the treaty project.

Read “A giant treaty rort? Treaty transparency – 1975 to 2026” HERE

Direct link is here: https://www.nzcpr.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/A-Giant-Treaty-Rort-Treaty-Transparency-1975-2026.pdf

Mike Butler, a former journalist and current residential rental property owner and manager contributed to 'Twisting the Treaty - a tribal grab for wealth and power' - and authored 'The First Colonist: Samuel Deighton 1821-1900', 'Tribes, Treaty, Money, Power', '24 Years- the Trials of Allan Titford', 'Innocent Nil Debit', and 'The Treaty – Basic Facts'.