New Zealand's leadership, Act Leader David Seymour, National leader Christopher Luxon and NZ First leader Winston Peters.
New Zealand's leadership, Act Leader David Seymour, National leader Christopher Luxon and NZ First leader Winston Peters.
Opinion by Professor Peter Crampton & Shelley Campbell
THREE KEY FACTS
National and NZ First will only support the Treaty Principles Bill to a first reading.
Political parties will state their positions on the bill and at the end of a debate, the House votes whether to ‘read the bill a first time’ and consider it further.
If voted against, after its first reading, the bill will not get a second or third reading and not progress.
Professor Peter Crampton (Pākehā) is a public health teacher and researcher at the University of Otago. He is a member of the board of Te Tāhū Hauora (Health Quality and Safety Commission) and is a member of the Public Health Advisory Committee.
Shelley Campbell (Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāpuhi) served on the Health and Disability System Review which advocated for the development of a Māori health authority, and is the CEO of the Wise Group.
US President Donald Trump gestures to supporters. Photo / AP
There is no mistaking however that ACT leader David Seymour’s national debate on the place of te Tiriti in New Zealand’s uncodified constitution is the canary in the mine.
With the potential to rewrite history, parties on all sides are steeling themselves for the main event. Will it or won’t it be supported past the first reading?
On the far-right Don Brash and Hobson’s Pledge have commenced a well-funded national advertising campaign while Māori, supported by legal and academic experts, are mobilising with full understanding of what is really on the table here.
Former PM Sir John Key talks with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the 2024 National Party conference. Photo / supplied by National Party
As citizens we must be prepared to enter this debate in an informed way. This requires us to look forward and consider who we want to be as a people and a country.
On a national level, this starts with the constitution. New Zealand has an unwritten constitution consisting of a number of statutes and conventions that together define the form of the State and the relationship of the State with its citizens.
Over the past several decades, te Tiriti o Waitangi has taken up a much more prominent role in these arrangements and we, like many others, consider it to be the foundation agreement upon which the state of New Zealand was created.
In 1840, William Hobson, a naval captain, was under instruction from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Normanby, and the Colonial Office in London to draft up the Treaty and have it translated and signed by Māori chiefs.
The final draft of the English version, the Treaty, follows Normanby’s instructions and guarantees to Māori “full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties”.
The Māori language version, Te Tiriti, was ultimately signed by 500 chiefs, and guaranteed to Māori ‘tino rangatiratanga o o ratou whenua o ratou kāinga me o ratou taonga katoa’.
Hobson’s so-called “pledge” was a comment that he made at Waitangi, “he iwi tahi tatou”, translated by Colenso (who was there) as “we are now one people”. Hobson was not himself a speaker of the Māori language and it is hard to know what he intended his comment to mean.
There is no doubt, however, that the preamble and the three articles of the Treaty contain the Crown’s commitments to Māori as signed by the Queen’s representative.
Any passing remark that Hobson made does not take precedence over the articles of the Treaty. His comment is, for practical purposes, a footnote to history.
But the footnote has been thrust into the spotlight because it has been adopted as the name and rallying cry of a lobby group that was set up to oppose the honouring of the Treaty/Tiriti and to take us back to a romanticised version of the “good old days”.
Our view of “how good things used to be in NZ” largely depends on which side of the fence you were sitting on: those who benefited from control of political, economic and legal systems, or those who bore the brunt of assimilation risking losing their language, culture and identity in exchange for a chance to be more “successful” in 1960s NZ.
A most tragic example of bearing the brunt was evidenced for us all to see with the recent Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care. Sixty-nine per cent of kids in care were Māori and 81 per cent of all those in care were Māori.
What’s different now? Māori are no longer alone (or on their own) in seeking a more inclusive and contemporary sense of nationhood. Māori and non-Māori in far greater numbers now see a future where our sense of “who we are as New Zealanders” reflects all cultures and uniquely embraces tikanga and te ao Māori in a way that includes and benefits us all.
A sense of mana and manaakitanga that is no longer reserved for weather emergency crises or celebrating sporting successes, but all day, every day proudly showcases to the world this is who we are now.
Our young people are already there, they see themselves as an inclusive generation who draw on Māori values to connect themselves with this land and their unique place in the world.
Professor Peter Crampton.
Perhaps this journey and maturation of race relations in Aotearoa was always going to lead us to this crossroads. The increasing influence of Māori leadership, education and business in NZ along with demographic and generational changes requires us to think together differently about the future and what collective success looks like.
It only remains to be seen if, with the Treaty Principles Bill, Kiwis wish to be led backwards into a state of a historical denial and racism or forward to a place of learning, acknowledgment and restoration.
Shelly Campbell.
In preparing for the bill, we encourage all New Zealanders to learn about our country’s constitutional arrangements and the place of te Tiriti.
A future where we are all better off – how more Kiwi could this be? Then it is for this Government to decide whether to exercise its leadership obligations to better serve all New Zealanders by building walls or taking them down.
