KEY POINTS:
There are many opinions about the Treaty of Waitangi and its impact. At the extremes some believe it should be disregarded, others that it has never been interpreted properly. Some see it as a document which may one day truly unite the country. Here are a selection of views.
"In many respects New Zealand, in spite of the Treaty, has been
merely a variation in the pattern of colonial domination of indigenous races. The gap between Maori and European expectations of the Treaty remains unbridged."
Claudia Orange, treaty historian, 1987.
"Those who will talk at each other or past each other or never to each other can scarcely claim to be partners. If that is trite, it is also the bleak history of relations between the Crown and Maori since 1840."
Sir Hugh Kawharu, emeritus professor and Ngati Whatua paramount chief, 1988.
"The Treaty is the founding document of our nation. To deny its rightful place in our society is to deny our past and to limit our future. Its betrayal is at the source of much of the ill-feeling between the races in this nation, and I say to all who would bother to listen, that if there is one truth about the Treaty of Waitangi, it is this - there will be no true peace in Aotearoa until this House has the courage to do justice to the Treaty,"
Hone Harawira, Maori Party MP, 2005.
"Why should the Maori people guard this land? It is no longer ours. The British evidently do not wish to keep their word as rangatiras. What difference does it make if the Tiamana [Germans] come here? The British have taken
our land. They have killed our wives and children. The Treaty of Waitangi is only a delusion to make the Maori people believe that the British people will keep their word of honour."
Princess Te Puea, referring to the attitude of the Waikato Maori leadership to enlisting during World War II, from Michael King, Te Puea - A life, 1977.
"We are not one people; we are one nation. The idea of one people grew out of the days when fashionable folk talked about integration. So far as the majority and the minority are concerned integration is precisely what cats do to mice."
Norman Kirk, Prime Minister, 1974.
"The Treaty has the potential to be our nation's most powerful unifying symbol."
David Lange, Prime Minister, 1989.
"Today we are strong enough and honest enough to learn the lessons
of the last 150 years and to admit that the Treaty has been imperfectly
observed. The original signatories saw it as a charter for their future. I look upon it as a legacy of promise."
The Queen, February 6, 1990.
"The Treaty grievance industry has all the impact of a plague-likedisease as it spreads through all echelons of the public service and government at both local and national level."
Winston Peters, New Zealand First leader, 2003.
"Not one more acre of Maori land!"
the slogan of the 1975 land hikoi led by Dame Whina Cooper.
"Over the last 20 years, the Treaty has been wrenched out of
its 1840s context and become the plaything of those who would divide
New Zealanders from one another, not unite us."
Don Brash, Opposition Leader, 2004.
