PRAISE AND PROGRESS

At Waitangi in February this year, the government and Iwi Māori agreed to develop a National Plan of Action to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  Three months later, Experts from the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous People visited to provide advice to the government and Iwi Māori on how to go about drafting it.

The Advice Note the Experts wrote has now been released on the Expert Mechanism’s website at https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IPeoples/EMRIP/Pages/Session12.aspx and it contains very clear and helpful advice.

Earlier this month, three members of the Independent Monitoring Mechanism, Bill Hamilton, Tracey Whare and Professor Margaret Mutu, along with Jess Ngātai and Hēmi Pirihi from the Human Rights Commission, attended the meeting of the Expert Mechanism in Geneva, Switzerland to present the fifth annual report on the government’s compliance with its obligations under the Declaration.  I covered that report in last week’s column and it can be read on the Ngāti Kahu website at http://www.ngatikahu.iwi.nz/node/16426.  They also reported on the Experts’ visit to this country. 

They were somewhat taken aback by the high level of praise they received from all the members of the Expert Mechanism who expressed strong gratitude to them for having set an historical precedent in monitoring this country’s government each year and in successfully persuading it to start drafting a National Plan of Action to implement the Declaration.

In the formal presentation to a room with about 400 Indigenous Peoples’ and government representatives, the Expert Mechanism asked the Monitoring Mechanism to explain how it had been done?  What were the key elements to its success?  How could other indigenous peoples pick it up?

The answer lies in the fact that the Monitoring Mechanism has its own experts working for it who know the United Nations and its processes really well.  They also have the strong support of our people for what they are doing, as well as the support of the Minister of Māori Development and the backing of the Human Rights Commission.

However, there are still politicians and officials who are obstructive to the Plan of Action and the Declaration; in fact, there was one in Geneva.  Hei aha (whatever).  The Monitoring Mechanism found ways around her, and they were too busy talking with other Indigenous Peoples about how to get all governments to implement the Declaration. 

There is a scripture that says, “No man [generic term], having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom.”  A whakataukī that echoes that same message is, “He rangai maomao ka taka ki tua o Nukutaurua, e kore a muri e hokia.” When a shoal of maomao fish has passed to seaward of Nukutaurua rock (off Mangōnui harbour) it will never return

So it is that we are making progress on this mission together, and there is no turning back.