Geoff Parker: The News Media role in advancing Maori interests.

New Zealand historian Paul Moon recently stated that 25% of the entire Maori population had been killed in the inter-tribal musket wars of 1806-1845, and that “it’s a bit disappointing that the biggest war in New Zealand’s history, fought in New Zealand, ever, doesn’t get mentioned in the history curriculum”.

Yet Tom Roa, in a recent Stuff article, blames colonisation for all ills, including the decline in use of the Maori language. He claims education conducted in English was part of the Government’s policy to assimilate Māori into Pākehā society, and infers that Maori were driven from their lands with Government troops devastating tangata whenua.

The Unpalatable Truth

Mike Butler: Sovereignty not ceded. Really?

The view that chiefs did not cede sovereignty in 1840, that is being popularised by Auckland University of Technology Professor Paul Moon in a five-minute You Tube clip, looks ridiculous when compared with what was said, and not said, in 1840.

But first, a warning. Don't be daunted by the length of this post, made so by the inclusion of four treaty texts.

Why four? Two are the texts appended to the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, one is a revised version by a Waitangi Tribunal member that changed the treaty's meaning. And the last is the Busby February 4, 1840, draft that is most likely the missing final draft in English from which Te Tiriti was translated.

Why include them all? Most treaty discussions centre on cherry picked words ("rangatiratanga") and phrases ("Lands estates forests and fisheries") without any attempt to contextualise them.

In the clip titled Maori sovereignty and the Treaty of Waitangi, Dr Moon of AUT’s Maori Development Faculty says:

Britain decided (in 1839) to “have a treaty with the indigenous population so that it could implement its justice system over its citizens” living in New Zealand. 

“The whole treaty orbits around the issue of sovereignty”.