Mike Butler: Kawharu’s re-written treaty

Complaints that the Luxon coalition government is about to re-write the Treaty of Waitangi are a bit rich considering that the treaty was quietly re-written under another administration nearly 40 years ago.

In 1986, with the 150th anniversary of the signing of the treaty coming up, the Lange government invited Professor Sir Hugh Kawharu, an Oxford University trained Professor of Maori Studies at the University of Auckland, to check out the various translations that had been made of the Te Tiriti Maori text.

He produced what is often called the Kawharu translation, and that translation was accepted by the government of the day. (1)

But Sir Hugh was not necessarily the neutral academic that high-ranking politicians and jurists apparently took him for, and what he produced was a reinterpretation that serves as a manifesto.

Mike Butler: What is this thing called ‘rangatiratanga’?

What is this thing called “rangatiratanga” that only Maoris have and is the ACT Party trying to erase it?

Writing in a Stuff publication, a 34-year-old activist named Max Harris said that the ACT Party is “threatened by tino rangatiratanga – the absolute authority for Maori over their taonga, promised in te Tiriti. And the ACT Party wants to cement in its place private property rights for all”. (1)

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”.