Claire Charters makes some remarkable assertions in her 14 July Opinion piece
Matariki is a mark of how far we have come and how far we have to travel.
Charters is a law professor at Auckland University. She chaired the He Puapua working group and is the indigenous rights governance partner at the Human Rights Commission. She has ancestral links to Ngāti Whakaue, Tūwharetoa, Ngā Puhi and Tainui. She also has extensive European ancestry.
In her 14 July Opinion piece Professor Charters argues that “before we can claim to be a nation founded on the rule of law, we must address the fundamental illegality of the state.” To add to the sins of the illegal New Zealand state, Charters also opines that “Aotearoa still refuses to repudiate the doctrine of discovery – the racist rule that permitted European powers to take land from “natives” because they didn’t qualify as human.”
