Rawiri Taonui: Orewa to Oscars - it’s been a big year for Maori

Early in the year, Maori, as equal citizens under the Treaty of Waitangi and English common law, asked the courts to examine the continuing existence of their pre-colonial customary ownership of the seabed and foreshore.

A rattled Government moved quickly to block this via mock consultation and by passing the Seabed and Foreshore Act.

While older international law allowed governments to legislate to override customary rights, current international law, in the form of the United Nations permanent committee on indigenous issues and judicial decisions, says it is no longer appropriate to do so.

The UN committee notes cases such as Wik (Australia, 1996) and Delgamuukw (Canada, 1997). These found that pre-colonial indigenous rights could co-exist alongside those of the Crown and recommended negotiation between indigenous people and their governments where the two came into conflict.

This would have been the most likely outcome of foreshore hearings in New Zealand. But the Labour-led Government lacked the courage to take on unfounded Pakeha fears about access and was more concerned about the polls than about justice. Unfortunately, no effective international forum exists to hold it accountable.

Then Don Brash teased old prejudices in new-age disguise for the sole purpose of boosting a flagging National Party.

His furious and spurious Orewa attack polarised New Zealanders even further.

Labour again reacted quickly, investigating any anomalies and reviewing policies and funding regimes.

Last week we saw a reversal of funding policies in education; changes in health funding will follow next year.

Certainly, there was a need to tidy up some Maori funding. Department of Corrections consultation payments in the Waikato were a clear example of deficient checks. And poor Pakeha should be assisted, too.

However, race-based arguments ignore several things. First, while most Pakeha accept that injustices were inflicted on Maori, few acknowledge that this was racist.

Fewer still will acknowledge that this history caused cumulative inter-generational political, social and cultural poverty among Maori that continues today, and furthermore that this is also racist.

The same thinking ignores the billions of dollars in benefits that Pakeha communities reaped from those injustices. It concentrates entirely on the compensation paid in Treaty settlements - 1 per cent of the lost benefit on average - and additional government initiatives designed to bring Maori up to a par with Pakeha.

Both things are entirely consistent with United Nations guidelines on the settlement of indigenous land claims (except the UN says we should pay more) and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1969), which allows special help for ethnic minorities in recognition of the time it takes to attain equality.

The year's other lows for Maori included the unravelling of Donna Awatere-Huata for allegedly taking too many pipi, and John Tamihere's corporate koha, a lesson that brown handshakes can get you in the tutae just as much as golden ones.

Tamihere will be back. His balance of talent and imperfection and his willingness to challenge Maori and Pakeha and the greed in others is widely appreciated.

Awatere-Huata may not be back, but do not write her off.

A person with careers in psychology, protest, publication and Parliament can take a staple in the guts any day.

Then there was Destiny Church and enough is enough. A weird mix of old-time southern revivalism, uniforms, haka, conspicuous consumption and dreams of world - sorry, national - domination, it was difficult to distinguish them from the skinhead National Front except that Destiny do better impressions of a Nuremburg rally.

The vicissitudes aside, the year was good for Maori. The Maori Television Service has been a huge step forward. Despite the troubled start-up, the rumoured egocentric clashes at executive level and the butchering of the English sub-titles for otherwise landmark indigenous documentary series, Hawaiki, the channel will have far-reaching results for the advancement of Maori.

The face of the younger generation on air is particularly impressive. They represent a cultural renaissance that will not be stemmed. This vitality reverberates throughout our national culture. Twenty-three iwi radio stations pump out the volume. Maori and Pasifika beats resonate in our popular music. Raised in the 'hood, Scribe is our top act.

And who will forget the world embracing the adaptation of Witi Ihimaera's, Whale Rider, or Keisha Castle-Hughes, the Oscars' youngest best-actress nominee?
Maori Language Week was another success. Mainstream radio, television, newspapers, schools and employers joined in encouraging all New Zealanders to korero Maori.

While the future of the language is by no means assured, there is hope. The number of Maori-speaking adults has doubled and youth speakers have tripled in 20 years.

And 30,000 Pakeha students have learned Te Reo at school since 1992.

Maori continue to prosper in education. Thirty-five thousand Maori children attend early childhood education, kohanga reo and kura kaupapa are expanding, Maori enrolments at tertiary level have doubled since 1999, and Te Wananga-o-Aotearoa, with 38,000 enrolments, became the country's biggest tertiary institution.

Culturally friendly and with wider and more flexible options, the wananga will continue to make inroads into the standing institutions. They are yet to provide top-end scholarships, but that may yet come because universities that fail to meet this challenge will lose good Maori academic staff. Some have already gone.

Maori have continued to perform commercially. Business assets now total more than $9 billion.

The final passing of the Maori Fisheries Act ended more than a decade of acrimonious infighting which will mean better utilisation of the nearly $1 billion in assets Maori control.

Tainui reversed its fortunes, reporting a $15.8 million profit. Earlier difficulties should have been expected as the tribe dealt with the sudden transition from poverty to wealth and balancing tribal structures with economic ones.

Ngai Tahu is charging ahead. Its new savings scheme is a first for New Zealand and beats all previous government attempts at encouraging savings.

This continuing economic, political and cultural revolution has brought about a new generation of Maori leaders - Mark Solomon, Tahu Potiki and Hana O'Regan in Ngai Tahu, and a host of others. These people are bilingual, confident and well-educated. Few Pakeha match their skill set.

These rangatira stand at the vanguard of a demographically recovered population, one that declined 75 per cent from first contact to 35,000 in 1900.

Look for leaders of similar ilk to emerge at next year's Hui Taumata on Maori development. In particular, look for Shane Jones, chair of the Maori Fisheries Commission, to rise in the Labour ranks. Steeped in tradition, educated at Harvard and politically astute, he is a possible first Maori prime minister.

The future glitters with talent. Maori will number 750,000 in 2021, our average age will be 27 compared with 43 for non-Maori and we will comprise 28 per cent of all under-14s. Fifty per cent of all schoolchildren will be of Maori descent by 2050 when the question we ask might well be - will there ever be another Pakeha prime minister?

Marking the third-greatest point of Maori solidarity against injustice in recent times after the Hikoi-ki-Waitangi (1984) and the Fiscal Envelope protests (1994-1995), the 40,000-strong hikoi was the event of the year.

Born from the hikoi, the Maori Party will be a focus of next year's election.

If elections were held today, they would clean-sweep the Maori seats. However, 2005 is not a foregone conclusion. Labour will fight hard.

Expect Labour to resource campaigns in the Maori electorates like never before, load the party list with Maori and advance foreshore and seabed negotiations under different disguises with tribal groups to swing support their way.

Labour will also dig for dirt on Maori Party candidates, although this might backfire, as did Helen Clarke's attack on Tariana Turia over the foreshore, and Trevor Mallard's more recent one over teenage pregnancies.

The Maori Party will at least win around half of the Maori seats. They are the best and the most balanced independent voice on Maori issues since the Kotahitanga movement of the 1890s and the Maori congress of the 1990s.

Tariana Turia is my Maori leader of the year. She is a long time servant of grass-roots communities, mother of six, grandmother of 24 and foster parent of 30 Maori and Pakeha children. She combines the strength of Eva Rickard with the motherhood of Whina Cooper, the hands-on commitment of Princess Te Puea and the principled dignity of Mira Szasy.

In an age where many Maori leaders have an eye for mana and money, Tariana was prepared to risk all things and did. Maori and Pakeha respect that.

Happy New Year to all New Zealanders. Feel free to visit me at Kohimarama Beach. I think I might own it.

* Rawiri Taonui is head of the school of Maori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury.