IN THIS LAND

[1] Edited extract from He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – Report on Constitutional Transformation, pp. 112 – 113

The six indicative constitutional models identified by Matike Mai o Aotearoa (the Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation) are of course crucially important.  But the vision which prompted them is perhaps even more so, for it allows kāwanatanga to be constitutionally reconceptualised in a unique and new way.

In its own sphere of influence, kawanatanga would still source its power in its history of Westminster sovereignty, but it would no longer need to be conceived as a dominating power that is arrogant in its indivisibility and unchallengeability.  Rather it could find in its oft-professed good faith a more honourable power that prizes relationships more than conflict.

Kawanatanga could then become a conciliatory authority which incorporated into its institutions the values which have now made its peoples see themselves as New Zealanders rather than once-were strangers from another place.

How kawanatanga would actually exercise that authority and what constraints might be placed upon it would be determined, not so much by its origins, but by its sense of belonging in a treaty relationship that has been forged here.

Meanwhile, within that same new constitutional framework, rangatiratanga would once again be a site and concept of our constitutional uniqueness rather than merely a means of accessing or trying to limit Crown policy.

Rangatiratanga could then be exercised as an absolute authority in our sphere of influence because it has always been absolutely our power to define, protect and decide what was in the best interests of our people. As a taonga handed down from the tūpuna, rangatiratanga could also then flourish by being sensitive once more to all of the relationships and tikanga that have shaped it in this place. 

As such it would be a conciliatory but independent authority no longer subject to the power of another, and the only constraints upon it would be those that tikanga has always imposed; i.e. that independence is only real when it depends upon the interdependence one has in relationships with others. 

The ways in which rangatiratanga and kāwanatanga would then make joint decisions in the relational sphere would also have to take account of that same interdependence and sense of belonging. 

Te Tiriti never intended us to be “one people” as Governor Hobson proclaimed in 1840.  But it did envisage a constitutional relationship where everyone could have a place in this land.