KEY POINTS:
The Kingitanga hui hosted by Tuwharetoa at their new marae Pukawa on Lake Taupo a week ago portends a significant new direction for the future of senior Maori statehood leadership.
The Kingitanga was born at Pukawa 150 years ago to protect land, preserve culture and fulfil Maori dreams under the unity of chiefs. For Tainui, last week represented coming full circle.
The Pukawa event symbolised the return to the mana and dignity before colonial trials.
Pukawa is historical poetry. Tainui and Tuwharetoa share ancient ongoing links. Tradition holds that their ancestral canoes were made from the same tree in Hawaiki and arrived together in the Bay of Plenty.
The Te Heuheu dynasty and Kingitanga share the only two surviving hereditary paramount chieftainships in Maoridom.
Pukawa was also about discussion of senior elder leadership of Maori, by Maori for Maori. This is important.
Previous pan-Maori organisations haven't worked. The 1890s Kotahitanga and 1990s Congress failed under the twin fallacies of pan-tribal democracy among fierce independents and also faith in a Treaty of Waitangi partner that never listened.
Government structures have been worse. The Maori Land Court and Maori Affairs Department ripped off Maori land.
Tribal Trust Boards were farcical. Fees for audits to check annuities were sometimes greater than the annuities they were checking. Ministerial approval was required for cheques over $200.
The Maori Council doesn't work. Electorates don't fit tribal boundaries.
There are some positives. Te Puni Kokiri is better than it was. Across the board there are all kinds of role models - political leadership in the Maori Party; tribal leaders in abundance; corporate leadership; and leaders in education, te reo, urban contexts, health, art, sport and religion.
Maori need more than that. There is a need for a collective leadership of our best most experienced traditional and modern elder statespeople.
There are important issues at stake. The Treaty settlement process is moving with indecent haste to an end that will enrich some tribes and impoverish others.
Reversals in Treaty policy threaten - note the bill to remove the principles, the absence of the Treaty and Te Reo in the draft School Curriculum and Tertiary Strategy.
Maori have made huge strides in development but huge poverty remains.
There is a new pride and spirit in being Maori, alongside appalling statistics in heart disease, diabetes, cancer, alcohol and drug addiction, smoking, heart disease, diabetes, domestic violence, child abuse, suicide and sudden infant deaths.
A council of elders and chiefs addressing these issues will need to work at several levels. It must balance the separation of statesmanship and political advocacy.
There is widespread support for King Tuheitia but also room for other statespeople to share ceremonial duties alongside him.
A council would allow Maori to harness the collective cumulative wisdom of elders for the wider benefit. Imagine if Maori had pooled the talents of Hugh Kawharu, Robert Mahuta, Whina Cooper, Mira Szazy and Eva Rickard together in one place.
Beyond that, can the Kingitanga and other senior leaders become involved in Maori politics? I think they can, but to do so they must remain politically non-partisan.
This was the strength of Dame Te Atairangikaahu - she was not apolitical as many think, but she was non-aligned and therefore able to deal with all political parties.
A council must also be tribally non-partisan. Most tribes will not join a council "under" the cloak of the Kingitanga - they will advocate "alongside" it as equals.
This approach will make them an effective senior lobby group - a Brown Table to match the round one.
A national body of traditional and modern elders operating with a secretariat built on merit and skill would enhance Maori muscle in negotiation with the Crown.
Looking back at the Foreshore and Seabed debacle and looking forward to future issues such as water, Maori will be stronger if they unite early.
A council will need to close the gap with young people. Many are being left behind.
It will have to reach out to the dispossessed. The new brown middle class is in danger of becoming distant.
There may be need to access funds from outside, so that iwi marginalised through the settlements process can also be included. This approach can't become too wide, too inclusive, too broad in an overall agenda. A core group rather than a horde is best.
A regular forum of elder statespeople asking hard questions is essential.
The Kingitanga-Tuwharetoa alliance is a natural centre. In 1856, Iwikau te Heuheu erected a flagpole symbolising Mt Tongariro as a centre. Muka ropes were hung from the centre post and leaders asked to come forward, take their rope and stake it into the ground, symbolically uniting their ancestral mountain to the centre.
In 1856, the call was "Hinana Ki Uta, Hinana Ki Tai" (search the land, search the sea for a leader).
Today the same call reverberates for a council of elder statesmen and stateswomen.
* Dr Rawiri Taonui is head of Aotahi: the School of Maori and Indigenous Studies, University of Canterbury.
