WHY NOT

For me this year’s Waitangi Day commemorations in Waitangi were the most enjoyable since 2008.  Why?  Well, the common denominator in 2008 and 2016 was that no Prime Minister came to Waitangi in either of those years. 

So with that in mind, I asked two questions of many of the people I met this year at Waitangi; “Do you think the PM should have come to Waitangi?” and, “Has his absence had a bad affect?” 

Most thought he should have been there, but few felt badly affected by his absence.  “He needs us more than we need him,” was the comment of one of the kuia.  “It’s no loss.  The day goes on without him,” said a whaea who has been attending Waitangi since she was a child in the 1970s.  And a rangatahi asked, “Why would we want him here?”

The views of these commenters have some validity; neither Helen Clark in 2008 nor John Key in 2016 were terribly missed by anyone.  But my view is that, while the absence of a Prime Minister clearly makes for a happier time at Waitangi on the day, in the long run it is not a good thing unless it leads to fundamental constitutional change in this country. 

The fact is that we who are the rangatiratanga, as declared by He Wakaputanga o Te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni in 1835, uphold the right to govern ourselves.  That right was recognised by the Crown in 1835 and 1840 and renewed by its New Zealand parliament in 1960 when that body signed the United Nations Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, and again in 2010 when it signed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). 

But we, the rangatiratanga, also have always upheld the kawanatanga right of the Crown’s New Zealand parliament to govern all other peoples in our lands, as it was mandated to do in 1840 by Te Tiriti o Waitangi. 

Why would we want [the PM] at Waitangi? The answer is simple.  To show and uphold what it means to have a balanced relationship between the kawanatanga and the rangatiratanga. 

But when has a New Zealand Prime Minister ever come to Waitangi with that purpose in mind?  The answer is, never.  

So, when will such a thing happen?  Only when we have a Constitution that allows the kawanatanga and the rangatiratanga to operate independently in our own spheres of influence on all matters that don’t require our mutual agreement, while also providing us with a relational sphere to deal with those matters that do.

The same vision of the members of Te Wakaminenga o Nga Hapu o Nu Tireni who signed He Wakaputanga in 1835 and Te Tiriti in 1840 also galvanised the founders of the Kingitanga movement in the 1850s, as well as the authors of the Kotahitanga Movement and first Maori Parliament in the 1880s and those who were part of the second Maori Parliament  from 1892 to 1902. 

It is the vision my generation inherited and have now passed on to the rising generations as their blueprint in He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu mo Aotearoa; The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – the IndependentWorking Group on Constitutional Transformation.

It is why Ngati Kahu take our rangatahi as well as our kuia kaumātua with us everywhere we go.

And what is the essence of that vision? Nothing less than a constitutionally balanced relationship between all the peoples in our lands; both Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti.  

To paraphrase the late United States Senator, Robert Kennedy, “Some men see things as they are and say, why; we dream things that never were and say, why not.”