TRANSFORMATION IS UNDERWAY

Under New Zealand law, non-Māori are entitled to go to court to determine damages and restitution where their property has been wrongly taken.  But the Waitangi Tribunal’s 2013 Ngāti Kahu Remedies Report now makes it clear that because of current government policy, Māori don’t have the same legal entitlements to damages and restitution as non-Māori. In fact this particular Tribunal says that to make such provision would overturn current constitutional principles.

The fact that Māori have no constitutional security in this country was one of the most serious concerns expressed in two reports issued by two different special rapporteurs from the United Nations in 2006 and 2011. The hostility and vehemence of the Tribunal’s and the Crown’s reaction to Ngāti Kahu formally challenging the legitimacy of those constitutional arrangements reinforces how unsafe they remain for Māori.

The same challenge has been posed by Ngāpuhi and it will be interesting to see if that Tribunal is as hostile to their claim for He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni and Te Tiriti o Waitangi to be recognized as the constitutional basis of this country. Certainly the independent report from those hearings, Ngāpuhi Speaks, overwhelmingly supports such recognition.

In 2010, Matike Mai Aotearoa, the Constitutional Transformation Working Group set up by the National Iwi Chairs’ Forum and led by Moana Jackson and Professor Margaret Mutu, began addressing the exact constitutional inequities and inadequacies that the Ngāti Kahu Remedies Report has highlighted. Their mahi is to draw up a model for a written constitution that would see an end to such discrimination.   

To date, they’ve conducted over 100 hui throughout the country.  Each hui has confirmed current constitutional arrangements are severely detrimental to Māori.  They have also broadly agreed that these arrangements must be transformed into a written constitution which must incorporate mana, tapu, whanaungatanga, manaakitanga, kaitiakitanga and other values that are based on the founding documents of this nation; He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti.

Matike Mai Aotearoa will complete their initial round of hui by the end of April 2013, and analysis on the questionnaires completed at each hui is already underway. In May they will start work on the model for a constitution, after which a further round of hui will be held to take the model back to the people.  Their final report is due with the National Iwi Chairs’ Forum by November this year.

After that the hope and expectation is that the country as a whole will enter into a long, informed and thoughtful discussion and debate on future constitutional arrangements for this country.  Given the work of Matike Mai Aotearoa, the politicisation of Māori in general, and the Crown’s failure to similarly engage with non-Māori, the probability is that it will be led by whānau, hapū, iwi and other Māori groups throughout the country.

In any event transformation is under way.