Every day Parliament passes laws that impact on Māori people but Māori never have any effective say over what those laws might be. There have been Māori MP’s of course, and now there is “consultation,” but in nearly every case Māori views are ignored. For example during the recent consultation on Section 9 of the SOE Act most Māori opposed the selling of State Assets but the government is going ahead with its policy.
The asset sales example is part of a history from the New Zealand Settlements Act of 1863 which confiscated thousands of acres of whenua to the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 which was passed in spite of the largest hikoi the country has ever seen.
The passing of all these laws in spite of Māori views and rights is part of a Crown constitutional process.
Ever since 1840 Māori people have argued that a process which operates in this way is contrary to Te Tiriti oWaitangi because the retention of Tino Rangatiratanga reaffirmed the constitutional authority or the right to make our own decisions that Iwi and Hapū had exercised for centuries.
As a result Māori history since 1840 has been an attempt to retain and exercise the authority to make our own decisions – it has been an attempt to adapt yet hold fast to what have always been Iwi and Hapū-based constitutional processes. The Māori Parliament and Kotahitanga are just two examples, as was He Whakaputanga in 1835.
The Crown has never recognised the constitutional legitimacy of such attempts although it is clear that Māori people never signed Te Tiriti to be powerless in our own land. Instead it was signed to maintain an independent constitutional authority.
In more recent years Iwi and Hapū have couched these arguments in the language of “constitutional change” because of the need to change the way the Crown continues to exercise its authority by effectively reducing Māori People to just another “minority interest”.
The Working Group on Constitutional Transformation was formed at a National Hui in 2009 to further this discussion by actually transforming the whole process of government in a way that is based more honestly upon the relationship envisaged in Te Tiriti. As Sir Archie Taiaroa stated at the three hui called by Sir Hepi Te HeuHeu in 1995-96 any attempt to change the way government works must be a “transformative process that restores authority to Iwi and Hapū while recognising the place of others”.
The Working Group is convened by Moana Jackson (Ngāti Kahungunu) and chaired by Margaret Mutu (Ngāti Kahu). Over the next year they are travelling around the motu to hui with whānau, hapū and roopu katoa, asking people to imagine what this transformative process might be like.
No comments:
Post a Comment