Auckland University historian and anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond aired her views in a Newsroom column. Photo / Natalie Slade
Auckland University historian and anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond aired her views in a Newsroom column. Photo / Natalie Slade
Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
Esteemed educator and a former New Zealander of the Year Dame Anne Salmond has set the record straight about Act leader David Seymour’s claim that her work is the basis for his party’s Treaty of Waitangi referendum.
Act lobbied for a constitutional overhaul; pitching for the Treaty principles to be rewritten, legislated and ratified by the public
But in a Newsroom column, Salmond has distanced herself from Seymour’s stance.
“David Seymour has been citing my work to imply that I support Act’s attempts to rewrite Te Tiriti o Waitangi. I do not,” the Distinguished Professor in anthropology at the University of Auckland wrote in a column for Newsroom.
“When Te Tiriti was debated and signed in Waitangi and elsewhere, it was debated and signed in te reo. In order to understand the promises that the rangatira and Queen Victoria exchanged, it is the text in te reo, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, that is the most authoritative record.”
Act Party leader David Seymour. Photo / Alex Cairns
Salmond said though New Zealand had evolved as a nation since the signing of the Treaty in 1840, trying to change the country’s founding document is constitutionally impossible.
“Over the past 50 years, many distinguished scholars, te reo experts, lawyers and decision-makers have grappled with these differences, and tried to reconcile them. Now, however, Act proposes to sweep all this aside, by rewriting the Treaty of Waitangi from scratch. Unfortunately, however, their proposed ‘Principles’ of the Treaty bear almost no resemblance to the original document.
“Far from trying to reconcile different understandings of the Treaty, their text ignores or distorts the original promises. This is disrespectful, and arrogant. For a party that won just 8.6 per cent of the vote in the recent election to attempt to rewrite a pact that involves Queen Victoria and her descendants as well as the rangatira and theirs is presumptuous in the extreme.
“In these times of crisis, a new government will be assessed on its ability to bring New Zealanders together. Act’s proposed approach to Te Tiriti will do the opposite. I agree with Helen Clark that it would ‘rip us down the middle,’ and with Jim Bolger that it’s a ‘bloody stupid’ idea.”
Meanwhile Salmond has compiled 40 years of research into a new book.
Knowledge is a Blessing on Your Mind is a selection of her early books, Hui: A Study of Maori Ceremonial Gatherings and Eruera: The Teachings of a Maori Elder, through to her examination of first encounters in books like The Trial of the Cannibal Dog to more recent articles about race and Te Tiriti.
She says she was extremely fortunate to have Eruera and Āmīria Sterling as friends and mentors in her academic and personal life, with their expertise in tikanga and kawa Māori.
“I was just so fortunate. When I think about it you know all those marae and hui that we attended together sleeping in the whare at night just listening to the whaikōrero. Realising how different the kawa and the histories were on different models around the country. It was an amazing an amazing apprenticeship you might say,” she says.
Knowledge is a Blessing on Your Mind is published by University of Auckland Press.
Additional reporting Waatea.News.Com
Joseph Los’e joined NZME in 2022 as Kaupapa Māori Editor. Los’e was a chief reporter, news director at the Sunday News newspaper covering crime, justice and sport. He was also editor of the NZ Truth and prior to joining NZME worked for 12 years for Te Whānau o Waipareira.
