Geoff Parker: Margaret Mutu and the Case Against Equal Citizenship

Why ancestry-based governance undermines democracy

In a recent appearance on Q+A, Margaret Mutu advanced arguments implying that Māori never ceded sovereignty, that New Zealand is fundamentally a Māori country, and that democratic structures should be reshaped to reflect Māori authority.

It is a powerful narrative. It is also one that collapses under constitutional scrutiny.

Michael Bassett: TV One's beat-up on the Treaty and the King's hui

Last Friday night, TV One’s lead item on the 6pm news was a story by reporter Te Aniwa Hurihanganui. She had scored a leaked piece of advice not yet considered by Cabinet that was intended to warn ministers in the new government that they would run into trouble with Maori if they backed David Seymour’s planned legislation to define in law the oft-mentioned principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. Coming the day before a major hui at Ngaruawahia called by King Tuheitia, Te Aniwa was intent on maximising irritation among Maori about the new government’s Maori policy.

Wendy Geus: Similar Journeys Reflect the Time We’re In

The left-wing media will have you believe the current National Government in New Zealand and Republican party in the US have recently made major radical moves to the right. That they are taking us back to the ’70s or even the ’50s.

That is rubbish and is a deliberate narrative to misrepresent and conceal the radical changes of the past three years (in NZ) by the political left; changes which were not campaigned on and were hidden from us by the most radical and corrupt of any government in our history, with full compliance from the media.

Mike Butler: Iwi leaders feeling heat?

A comprehensive rant from a spokesman for the National Iwi Chairs Forum is a rare display of a privileged and powerful elite apparently feeling the heat of public criticism.

In a piece titled “Co-governance is good for us”, published in E-Tangata on August 27, 2023, Te Huia Bill Hamilton tries to counter Julian Batchelor’s Stop Co-Governance campaign. (1)

Hamilton, who declares that his ancestry is “Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Raukawa, Nga Rauru, Scotland”, is described as “a Treaty of Waitangi and human rights specialist and a lead adviser for the National Iwi Chairs Forum, who has spent 25 years educating Pakeha and tauiwi about Te Tiriti through his company Treaty Solutions”.

Bruce Moon: The dishonesty of Professor Margaret Mutu

There is abundant evidence1 that New Zealand had been visited and populated by non-Maori peoples before the Maori tribes arrived circa 1350, and by Europeans and others from the late eighteenth century onwards. The Maori exterminated pre-existing inhabitants2 and now lay claim to being ‘indigenous’. The advent of post-Maori arrivals by and large brought co-existence with extensive inter-breeding but not always in harmony.

None the less, brutal inter-tribal warfare, conquests and massacres continued, around one-third of the Maori population perishing in the so-called “Musket Wars” of 1807-37. The conflict arising from the arrival of Frenchman, Marion du Fresne in 1772 led to a morbid fear of “the tribe of Marion”. Chaotic selling of land in exchange for European consumer goods developed.

Mike Butler: Domestic terrorism at Kaitaia

The hotheads who threatened travellers, blocked flights, and started fires at the Kaitaia airport last week were not protesting, they were repossessing their land, according to Ngati Kahu treaty settlement negotiator Margaret Mutu.(1)

A 28-hour occupation of Kaitaia Airport by Ngati Kahu, which began just before lunchtime on Tuesday, ended at 3pm on Wednesday in a blaze of tyres and five arrests.

Mike Butler: The permanent wallow in grievance

A key promise of the treaty settlement process is that as a society, we deal fully and finally with past injustices, achieve “closure”, and move forward as one people. The National Party took this further by setting a deadline in saying that this would all take place by 2014 – yes, this year.

However, there are more financial incentives for claimants, law firms, historians, and politicians, to continue to wallow in the past than there are to build a future. Despite around $2.3-billion being paid in treaty settlements little appears to have been settled.

Mike Butler: Self-interest hobbles forestry trust

The organisation which funds Maori lodging Treaty of Waitangi claims over Crown forests remains unable to fulfil its obligations because of High Court action by a trustee, Sir Eddie Durie, supported by fellow trustee Maanu Paul, and one of the trust’s appointors, the New Zealand Maori Council. This boardroom stoush offers a snapshot of treaty industry politics.

Mike Butler: Bolivian constitution a model for NZ?

Bolivia provides the model for the sort of constitution New Zealand should have, according to Maori studies professor Margaret Mutu, who launched the Independent Constitutional Working Group, a response to a review that stems from the National Party’s confidence and supply agreement with the Maori Party.

Mutu, who works at Auckland University and is chairperson of and treaty settlement negotiator for Far North tribe Ngati Kahu, courted controversy last year when she said the immigration of whites threatens Maori due to alleged supremacist attitudes that whites bring with them.