Graeme Spencer: Kawanatanga, Rangatiratanga and the Treaty

Maori radicals pin much of their argument on Hugh Kawharu’s modern reinterpretation of “tino rangatiratanga”, claiming it means self-determination or retained sovereignty — and that Māori in 1840 did not understand what they were agreeing to.

Over the past few days, with the help of AI, I [Graeme Spencer] have been examining contemporary Māori-language articles written (by Māori?) for Māori in the 1840s–1870s.

Ewen McQueen: Kāwanatanga katoa was the fundamental question at Waitangi

A guest post on Kiwiblog by Ewen McQueen, that the Herald refused to run:

Matthew Hooton wrote in the NZ Herald last week that “There’s no doubt that both Māori and Pākehā in 1840 understood tino rangatiratanga to be a bigger deal than kāwanatanga”.1 However whilst this is undoubtedly the modernist position on how we should interpret the Treaty, the historical evidence suggests something very different.

Mike Butler: Tribunal’s dodgy Ngata quote

A quote from a luminary Maori politician in Nga Matapono - The Principles shows how the Waitangi Tribunal twists information.

The quote, on page 24 of the new report in a section discussing the sovereignty and the treaty, is from a book by former Native Affairs Minister Sir Apirana Ngata. The report said:

Mike Butler: Tribunal displays its principles

The Waitangi Tribunal’s latest report titled Nga Matapono - The Principles puts its principles on show while condemning both ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill and New Zealand First’s review of treaty principles in legislation.

The 202-page report, that draws heavily on the once-was-covert He Puapua plan for two governments in New Zealand, predictably concludes that both policies were:

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: A vote on the treaty?

Would a referendum on the treaty of Waitangi be corrosive and unfair, as anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond wrote three days ago, and how sound is the dame’s reasoning?

With the ACT Party likely to become party of a new government, Dame Anne dashed off a column to explain why she felt giving everyone the opportunity to vote on the issue was mean and unfair.

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: A vast deception

An extravagantly illustrated article in Stuff on 5th February 2022 written by one Philip Matthews and evidently endorsed by Claudia Orange, whose picture appears within it, carries the headline:

Was the Treaty of Waitangi an act of love or a vast deception?

The answer to that question is neither of those alternatives!!

It is indeed a common trick of hucksters and even, sadly, of politicians, to present false alternative answers to a question (sidestepping the correct answer) and inviting the audience to choose between them. We should be decidedly naive if we fell for that trick on this occasion.

Mike Butler: Jamie Whyte and treaty settlements

Act Party leader Jamie Whyte is only partly correct to say that the reparations made to iwi by the Waitangi Tribunal are recognition of property rights. After his excellent analysis of the place of race in law delivered in a speech at Waikato this week, he could subject treaty settlements to his incisive accurate thought.

To what extent are treaty settlements to do with property rights? Working for the Waitangi Tribunal, historian Professor Alan Ward analysed the 650 or so historical claims lodged between 1985 and 1997, and, sorted them to match the tribunal’s interpretation of the treaty and the 1986 treaty principles.

Mike Butler: Pushing amalgamation co-governance

While submitting against council amalgamation in Hawke’s Bay I argued against the creation of a Maori Board. A Local Government Commission member told me to re-read Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi that he asserted promised to Maori co-governance.

Proposals for council amalgamations are in progress in Northland and in Hawke’s Bay. The commission heard oral submissions in Napier and Hastings this week.