Geoff Parker: The Littlewood Treaty - The Missing English Draft? Or A Back-translation?

A response to Barrie Davis's interpretation of the Littlewood document

Barrie Davis has recently written about the Littlewood document. His argument is difficult to pin down, but he ultimately appears to regard it not as the original final English draft prepared for translation into Māori, but as an English back-translation produced in connection with the Māori translation on 4 February 1840.

It is an interesting argument, but I am left with several questions.

But first what is not disputed?

Spaniard: Provisions of the Treaty - all the ‘principles’ ever were

Originating in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, which set up the Waitangi Tribunal, the notion of ‘Treaty principles’ refers to the provisions of the Treaty.

Neither the Act itself nor the Hansard record, nor the wider public record, suggest otherwise, and indeed it’s unthinkable that the 37th New Zealand Parliament would have blithely, and without a special process, substantively altered the compact that started our nation in 1840.

The carelessness of the wording is a flashpoint in the ‘cock-up theory’ of New Zealand’s history.

Geoff Parker: Bastion Point - The Untold Context

Public discussion of Bastion Point is often framed as a simple morality tale: an unjust Crown taking followed decades later by righteous protest and inevitable redress. History is rarely that neat. When the full record is examined, Bastion Point looks less like a story of continuous bad faith and more like a sequence of decisions made — sometimes bluntly, sometimes imperfectly — but largely in good faith, according to the laws and public expectations of their time.

Compensation and the 1886 taking

Michael Laws chats to Gary Judd KC about the Treaty of Waitangi & the Prospect of a Referendum

Gary unravels the drafting and signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in easy to follow discussion.

Click to watch