The funeral service for Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII will be held today.
The funeral service for Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII will be held today.
Kīngi Tūheitia’s simple message that there is room for everyone is being remembered ahead of his funeral service today.
New Zealand continues to mourn the loss of Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII, who died peacefully late last week, aged 69, after a period in hospital recovering from heart surgery.
Tributes for the King have flowed in from far and wide and thousands of mourners from across the country have since gathered at Tūrangawaewae Marae – the heart of the Māori King movement – over the past days to pay their respects.
Charles Sturt University political science professor Dominic O’Sullivan told The Front PageTūheitia’s message at his recent coronation celebrations was that mana motuhake means there is room for everyone.
It was a simple but powerful political statement, O’Sullivan said.
“It has far-reaching policy implications that contest the direction that the present government is taking but also creates a juxtaposition with the Government’s preference for a less cohesive, less united community.”
Kotahitanga, unity, is an enduring theme that the Kīngitanga brings to politics, O’Sullivan said.
“It does stand in quite significant contrast with the policy directions that the Government is wanting to take at present.”
These policies ranged from the petty to the potentially transformative, he said.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Māori Crown Relations Minister Tama Potaka at Tūrangawaewae Marae in Ngāruawāhia to pay their respects for Kīngi Tūheitia. Photo / Kīngitanga
O’Sullivan referred to the National/New Zealand First coalition agreement which states the Government will “ensure all public service departments have their primary name in English” and “require the public service departments and Crown entities to communicate primarily in English”, except for those specifically related to Māori.
He also said Act’s Treaty Principles Bill intended to create an assimilationist policy regime where Māori participation in public life was conditional on not expressing themselves in a distinct Māori way.
Last year Tūheitia issued a royal proclamation to hold a national hui (meeting) to promote Māori unity in January 2024.
The hui was in response to the Kīngitanga movement’s concerns that the National-led coalition Government’s policies towards the Treaty of Waitangi would reverse decades of hard-won progress on justice for historical wrongs. Thousands of people attended.
O’Sullivan said this hui was the highlight of Tūheitia’s reign.
“At no prior point in the last 18 years has the Treaty of Waitangi been undermined in the way that it has been in the last few months. At no point have things like the Māori language been undermined in this way.
“Often leadership is most obvious and most pronounced when there’s a concrete political issue around which leaders can galvanise people.”
That’s not to say that Māori-Crown relationships are always good – there are always points of contention and different ideas and perspectives are to be expected, O’Sullivan said.
“But when it reaches the scale that the Government has provoked in the last year or so, that does create space for leadership that just isn’t there in ordinary times.
O’Sullivan agreed that unity will be front of mind for those choosing the next monarch.
“They’ll be wanting to choose somebody that they have confidence in to be able to make a contribution to that and to lead that objective.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more from Dominic O’Sullivan about whether Tūheitia’s message has swayed the Government.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
