THE MAORI SITE AND CONCEPT OF POWER

[1]  Like every indigenous nation, our Iwi and Hapū developed unique constitutional systems based upon our own history and cultural reality.  As we developed distinct dialects and attachments to whenua, we became polities that constructed our own concepts and sites of power.

We were never a lawless people because we developed a philosophy of law to regulate our behaviour, and devised ways to make ordered political and constitutional decisions.  Governing ourselves and the right to make our own decisions are an inherent part of who and what we were, because we were never power-less. 

Our concept of power was known generally as mana (and much later in the 19^th century as rangatiratanga).  It was also defined in some Iwi and Hapū as mana motuhake, mana taketake, or mana tō rangapū. It implied an independence that Dame Mira Szaszy once defined as “the self-determination” implicit “in the very essence of being, of law, of the eternal right to be, to live, to exist, to occupy the land.”

Our concept of mana as a political and constitutional power denotes an absolute authority because it was absolutely the prerogative of every polity.  It was also absolute in the sense that it denoted an independence and exercise of authority that could not be tampered with by any other polity.

Our site of power was vested in the institution of ariki and rangatira who were charged with the responsibility of making decisions.  John Rangihau once noted that “rangatiratanga was people-bestowed and could only be exercised in a way that the people thought was tika.”

As such, all rangatira learned that good leadership depended upon how well they responded to their people, and how well they were able to protect them and their whenua.  In a well-known aphorism the rangatira Manuhuia Bennett described the necessary attributes of rangatiratanga in a way that sums up its constitutional and cultural parameters –

“Te kai a te rangatira, he kōrero.

  Te tohu o te rangatira, he manaaki.

  Te mahi a te rangatira, he whakatira te iwi.”

The ‘kai’ of the rangatira, and thus the sustenance of mana, is not just the gift of oratory but also the responsibility to heed and articulate the voice of the people.  The ‘tohu’ is the obvious obligation to care for both the people and any manuhiri, while the ‘mahi’ or prime role of rangatira is to keep the people together with all the necessary implications to husband and care for the taonga of Papātūānuku which that entails.

Like all cultures our people recognised that we could not survive in a power vacuum, and from the earliest days of colonisation we have endeavoured to assert and maintain the essential constitutionality of our relationship with the Crown through our own concepts and sites of power. 

We will explore these further next week.

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[1] Fifth edited extract from pp. 33 – 34 of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

CONCEPTS AND SITES OF POWER

[1] The Westminster constitutional system developed in the particular cultural circumstances of England.  Its hierarchical structure, headed by the Crown or sovereign, grew out of the historical tensions between the monarchs and those deemed to be below or in opposition to them.

It is a distinct artefact that over the centuries has sought to accommodate the long-disputed interests of the nobility, the Church and the “lower classes” while preserving the notion of individual property rights.  Its concept of power became known as sovereignty which was exercised in a site of power known as Parliament.

Although sovereignty is generally understood as an English or Westminster construct, it was first defined in France by the political philosopher, Jean Bodin, in 1569. 

Bodin’s view of sovereignty was essentially based in a belief that it marked a hierarchy of progress from societies of “apolitical barbarism” (such as those of the recently “discovered” Indigenous Peoples in the Americas) to those countries in Europe with a “civilised” constitutional order.  It presumed that proper political power could only exist once “man … purged himself of troubling passions” and moved up “the great chain of being … and its hierarchical order.”

Once a people became “civilised” they attained the reason to vest power in a sovereign, “a single ruler on whom the effectiveness of all the rest depends.”  Sovereignty was thus the “most high … and perpetual power over the citizens”, and it was that power “to which after immortal God we owe all things.” 

The site of that power throughout Europe was the monarch, or alternatively the “monarch in Parliament”, which had absolute authority and dominion over the land and its peoples. It was that culturally defined notion of constitutional authority which the Crown brought to Aotearoa after 1840.

Yet other nations also developed their own quite different concepts and sites of power within their own distinct cultures.  For example the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is made up of six different nations who came together in territories that now stretch from Upper New York State to Southern Quebec.

Constitutionalism in their cultural context is about making joint decisions in accordance with their concept of power known as the “Kaswentha” or Great Peace.  It does not presume dominion over the land, but rather acknowledges the need to live with it.  The earth is the Mother, and all human authority ultimately derives from her.

The Haudenosaunee site of power was a “long house” within which decisions were made to maintain what the current Faith Keeper of Haudenosaunee, Oren Lyons, has called “the good relationship between humans and the universe.”  It was an institution based upon a relational ideal of constitutionalism.

Every indigenous nation developed similarly distinct concepts and sites of power consistent with their view of the world. 

Next week we will begin to consider the Māori concept and site of power.

[1] Fourth edited extract from pp. 32 – 33 of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

A CULTURAL CREATION

[1] Prior to 1840, Iwi and Hapū were vibrant and functional constitutional polities with the right, capacity and authority to make politically binding decisions for the wellbeing of our people and the protection of our lands.

That authority was exercised within the construct and values of our own culture, and was part of a unique constitutionalism that jealously guarded the independence of each polity, while stressing the interdependence that is fundamental to whakapapa.

It included the obligation to maintain the peace or make war, the right to define what we would now call citizenship, and the authority to decide who could enter into our jurisdiction as immigrants, what tikanga would govern their presence, and what entitlements, if any, they might be granted.

In spite of all that has happened in the last 176 years to the effective practice of that constitutionalism, those who took part in the 252 hui held by Matike Mai Aotearoa (the Independent Constitutional Working Group) between 2012 – 2015 are clear that our right to it remains intact.

“I can’t see how we could have existed without mana, meaning that we governed ourselves … You just have to look at all of the things we did before Pākehā came to know that.  We made mistakes … but humans do that everywhere … it doesn’t mean they’re not in charge of their own lives.”

“Of course we governed ourselves.  I’m Tūhoe and I know that no other Iwi had the right or would even claim the right to make decisions for us … and because we never signed the Treaty we never intended to let the Crown do what other Iwi had never been able to do to us before 1840.”

“I don’t know of any people who never governed themselves.  Self-determination is just a reality which our tūpuna lived every day.  It was real because they did it, and they would literally fight to keep it.”

While constitutionalism and government are often regarded as complex ideas, they are really very simple.  Government is the process we choose to regulate our affairs, and a constitution is the code we use to describe how government will function.   

Constitutions are based on “a concept of power” and “a site of power”.  The concept of power is the philosophy a society develops about what constitutional authority is, and the values or interests that underpin it.  The site of power is the institution or place where a society decides the authority may be exercised and the limits that might, or might not, be placed upon it.

Every way of governing, every concept and site of power, is based upon and gives expression to the values of the people from which it comes, and which in turn it is designed to serve.  Like the law of any society, a constitution is a cultural creation.

Next week we will briefly consider the Western concept and site of power.

[1] Third edited extract from pp. 30 – 31 of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mō Aotearoa – The Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

A RESPECTFUL RELATIONSHIP

Ever since 1840 Māori have sought a respectful and equal constitutional relationship with the Crown as promised in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.  That has not occurred, as the history and consequence of colonisation too clearly show.[1]

 

Yet Māori have never abandoned the treaty promise.  Whether it was the establishment of Kotahitanga or the Kingitanga, or the discussions prior to the first sitting of the Māori Parliament at Waipatu in 1892, or even the establishment of Māori Congress nearly a century later, the kaupapa of constitutionalism has always been present.

When the Iwi Chairs’ Forum was established at a National hui held at Takahanga Marae in Kaikoura in 2005, it was the latest step in that history of revitalising tino rangatiratanga and seeking a proper treaty-based relationship with the Crown. 

Shortly after its establishment, the Forum established a process of meeting Ministers and officials of the Crown.  But by 2010 it was concerned about the lack of progress being made on key issues such as water use management, the environment, housing, education, welfare, and treaty settlement policy. 

In some cases, any options offered by Māori were simply ignored or subordinated to Crown policy imperatives, and a sense developed that the lack of progress was not just due to Crown disinterest or to a disconnect between the policy aspirations of the Crown and Māori.  Rather the cause was a fundamental imbalance between the Crown’s exercise of constitutional authority and the constitutional powerlessness of Māori.

That realisation was not new.  Forum members were all well-acquainted with the Crown’s exercise of unilateral power ever since the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.  Indeed the very notion of Crown breaches of Te Tiriti is, at its core, a question of constitutionalism and the use, or misuse, of the power taken by the Crown in 1840.

Therefore the Forum sought advice on a number of constitutional issues.  At its August 2009 hui at Hopuhopu, Judge Caren Fox presented a paper, “Change, Past and Present”, noting that, historically, tūpuna Māori were familiar with the notion of political autonomy and had long developed a fluid and dynamic constitutionalism that provided a natural “rhythm” and order to Māori society.

At the Forum’s next hui at Haruru in February 2010, reference was made to another paper, “Constitutional Transformation”, written by lawyer Moana Jackson in which the concepts of Māori constitutionalism were further explained. 

After more discussion, a constitutional plan of action was proposed, including the formation of Matike Mai Aotearoa, the Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.  Membership of the Working Group consisted of iwi and other representatives chosen for their tikanga or constitutional expertise.  Extra members were co-opted from time to time, and kaumātua and kuia were approached for advice and guidance.

In spite of funding restraints, they eventually held 252 hui between 2012 and 2015, and their report was officially released in February 2016.  Its findings strengthen the quest for the respectful and equal relationship promised in Te Tiriti.

[1] Second edited extract (pp. 12 – 13) of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu Mo Aotearoa, the Report of Maite Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation.

CONSTITUTING AOTEAROA

Over the next few months this column will feature extracts from the Matike Mai Aotearoa Report on Constitutional Transformation which is already attracting a lot of commentary, both good and bad.

That commentary is indicative in itself that the report is already fulfilling one of its most critical recommendations – i.e. the promotion of ongoing formal and informal korero amongst the peoples of Aotearoa about the need for and possibilities of constitutional transformation in our beautiful land.

[1] Matike Mai Aotearoa, the Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation, was first promoted at a meeting of the Iwi Chairs’ Forum in 2010.  The Terms of Reference given to the Working Group were deliberately broad –

“To develop and implement a model for an inclusive Constitution for Aotearoa based on tikanga and kawa, He Whakaputanga o te Rangatira o Niu Tireni of 1835, Te Tiriti o Waitangi of 1840, and other indigenous human rights instruments which enjoy a wide degree of international recognition”.

The Terms of Reference did not ask the Working Group to consider such questions as “How might the Treaty fit within the current Westminster constitutional system” but rather required it to seek advice on a different type of constitutionalism that is based upon He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti.  For that reason this Report uses the term “constitutional transformation” rather than “constitutional change”.

A Forum Representative, Professor Margaret Mutu, was appointed the Working Group Chair and Moana Jackson was invited to be its Convenor.  Members of the Working Group were nominated by Iwi and other organisations or were co-opted.  The Chairperson and Convenor facilitated 252 hui between 2012 and 2015.  The rōpū rangatahi that was convened by Veronica Tawhai presented 70 wānanga.

The Working Group also invited written submissions, organised focus groups, and conducted one-on-one interviews.  The views they received canvassed a number of topics such as the relationship between Te Tiriti and democracy, what is meant by a treaty relationship, what is a constitution, and other related issues such as –

-         The meaning of tikanga and its constitutional relevance.

-         The relationship between the Hapū referred to in Te Tiriti and the current Crown policy emphasis on Iwi.

-         The effects of increasing immigration of the Tiriti relationship.

-         The ongoing implications of the emigration of our people overseas.

-         How to engage with others to progress the kaupapa.

The Matike Mai Report synthesises those views and acknowledges both the complexity of the issues our people were asked to address and the insights which they brought to the whole kaupapa.  It also recognises, as our people did, that there will be opposition to the ideas presented and that more work needs to be done. 

The Report should be read as part of an ongoing dialogue into the future.  We stress however that it is not a new dialogue as the kaupapa of constitutional transformation has been part of Māori political debate for over 170 years.

Copies of the report are available online and from Te Runanga-a-Iwi o Ngati Kahu. 

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[1] First edited extract (pp. 14 – 17) of He Whakaaro Here Whakaumu, the Report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – The Independent Working on Constitutional Transformation

LEGITIMATE OUTCOME

As sovereign nations seeking constitutionally legitimate outcomes that protect our human rights, including the right to govern ourselves, Tangata Whenua regularly reflect on the constitutional foundation, philosophies and values of our own sovereignty. 

For the record, our sovereignty derives from pre-European rangatiratanga and can be traced from He Wakaputanga o Te Rangatiratanga 1835 through to Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840, then on to current international instruments like the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.  These documents all enshrine our authority to govern ourselves, and to relate to Tangata Tiriti in a way that is right and just.  That foundation has never changed.

Our philosophies also remain largely unchanged.  In February 1840, the treaty offer of kāwanatanga to the Crown was enough to reassure our tūpuna Rangatira that their sovereignty remained intact and that the treaty was predicated on three main grounds.

First, the immediate and pressing need for some authority to be exercised over the unruly Pākehā who were arriving in increasing numbers, particularly in the north.  Second, the power and authority of the Rangatira to engage in treaty-making with the Chief of another sovereign people.  Third, the practical belief that, just as Iwi and Hapū were free to exercise their own sovereignty, so too should the Pākehā tribe be free to do the same. 

That remarkable offer is a reflection of an overarching philosophy that may be called the whakapapa ethic. That is, the expectancy that all the different people living here will manage our own affairs in a way that is consistent with fostering the good relationships essential to any whakapapa. 

When it comes to political entities like the Crown and Iwi or Hapū who already have a treaty, Tangata Whenua view the whakapapa ethic as the underpinning philosophy of any constitutional relationship.  We also view several core values that must be incorporated in any constitution. 

The first is the value of tikanga – the core ideals or the “ought to be” of living in Aotearoa.  Second is the value of community – fair representation and good relationships between all people.  Third is the value of belonging – fostering a sense of belonging for everyone in the country.  Fourth is the value of place – upholding relationships with, and the protection of, Papātūānuku.

Fifth is the value of balance – ensuring respect for the authority of rangatiratanga and kāwanatanga within their various spheres of influence.  Sixth is the value of conciliation – providing an underlying jurisdictional means of resolution.  And seventh is the value of structure – establishing structural conventions that promote basic democratic ideals.

Although the Crown tries to either deny its ongoing treaty breaches, or dismiss them on the ground that they are sovereign over us and some of our claims are settled, we simply note that their view remains at odds with our own; moving on.  

Tangata Whenua don’t need Crown recognition of our sovereignty, we require its protection of all our human rights.  To that end, constitutional transformation is a legitimate outcome.

CONTINUED CONFRONTATION

Another confronting cultural shibboleth that surfaces from time to time amongst some Pakeha is the claim that, because Maori were not living on or ‘farming’ all of our land in 1840, it was OK for the settler government to steal it from us and give or ‘sell’ it to settler colonials. 

Recently a self-declared historian on the Radio New Zealand website claimed rather quaintly, “It was VIRGIN land no human had ever used it to farm of [sic] anything else before [my English ancestors] ‘legitimately’ took ownership of their farm.”   She seemed unaware that she was actually talking about the Crown’s racist “wasteland policy”.

In 1997, researcher historian Peter Adams examined that policy in detail in his book, Fatal Necessity.  Under the policy, any Maori land not directly used for cultivation, or not ‘settled’, was able to be declared ‘wasteland’ belonging to the Crown.  

Of course Maori were not notified or consulted at the time about the policy.  But even if they had been, they would have had to prove their occupation and cultivation of the land if they wanted the Crown to recognise they owned it.

The racist nature of that policy is highlighted by the fact that neither the Crown nor the colonisers, were required to occupy and cultivate the land in order to assert ownership over it. 

As researcher historian Alan Ward noted in his 1999 book, An Unsettled History, the ‘uncultivated hunting lands of the English nobility were considered a different matter altogether’; there the fact that the land was left idle, or used only for the sport of hunting, did not affect its ownership, or leave it vulnerable to claims by the Crown or anyone else.

In 1840, there was considerable pressure from many settler colonials in New Zealand for the wasteland policy’s implementation. However, others recognised Maori ownership over the islands of New Zealand in 1840, and knew that a guarantee of their lands had been necessary to convince Maori to sign Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Further, as researcher historian James Belich noted in his 1996 book, Making Peoples, Maori commanded significant political and military power at the time.  And as researcher historian Claudia Orange noted in her 1999 book, The Treaty of Waitangi, if implemented, the policy would have provoked Maori rebellion, resulting in a ‘’serious crisis” for the project of colonisation.  

So the policy was suspended in 1847, and for a while after that Maori land was obtained through the pre-emption clause of the English Treaty.  

However the racist attitudes of assumed superiority behind it remained firmly embedded and continue to surface to this day.

The latest iteration of it is the current government campaign to create a Marine Sanctuary around the Kermadecs. 

Apparently, because Maori have not taken up our legal right under the 1992 fisheries settlement to fish the species within the proposed 620,000 sq km reserve, the government has deemed it can steal it off Maori and give it to the world. 

The confrontation continues. 

CONFRONTING CULTURES

One of the most confronting cultural shibboleths that surfaces now and then amongst some Pākehā is that Māori people and our culture are going to die out. This belief builds on earlier ideas of ‘fatal impact theory’, whereby ‘inferior’ races were supposed to have melted away as a result of European contact.

As early as the 1830s, Englishman Edward Markham wrote:  “In New Zealand the same as in Canada or North America, and in Southern Africa the Hottentots are a decreasing people … my belief is the Almighty intended it should be so or it would not have been allowed. Out of Evil comes Good.”

He was famously echoed in 1856 by physician and politician Dr Isaac Featherston who said it was the duty of Europeans to “smooth down … [the] dying pillow” of the Māori race. 

Then in 1868 a Wellington newspaper editor wrote in tones of surprised outrage: “They are determined to fight, and we, in self-protection, must treat them as a species of savage beasts which must be exterminated to render the colonisation of New Zealand possible.” 

The usefulness of racial theories like fatal impact, monogenism, polygenism and social Darwinism was that they upheld the European self-image as the most advanced of all races and eased any doubts about the morality of their attempt to take over the world. 

In that regard, usefulness was always more important than accuracy. For example, polygenists once claimed that different races could not interbreed, or at least that mixed-race people would be infertile.  Wrong.

And in 1863 the geologist Ferdinand Von Hochstetter managed the logically impossible feat of being monogenist, polygenist and social Darwinist in a single chapter when he wrote, “Richly endowed by nature … the Māori is fully aware of his progress in moral improvement and culture; yet he is not capable of attaining the full height of a Christian civilized life; and it is from this very incompleteness, that his race is doomed to gradual extinction …” Wrong again.

Although the belief that Māori and our culture ought to die out lost popularity from about 1914, many continued to believe that we would survive only as a ‘golden tinge’ on the skins of the Pākehā; and the belief itself did not die out.  Instead it went underground from whence it re-emerges occasionally in various racist guises.

In 2012, a rich ACT Party donor confidently and publicly claimed that all white New Zealanders "don't like the Māoris."  And just last week, a commenter on a Radio New Zealand story titled PM defends ‘racist’ TVNZ survey wrote, “Whatever, the future is clear Māori culture will die away...”

Confronted with the incurably racist culture of such people, Whina Cooper’s advice to Māori was that we ought to marry them until they died out, while McCully Matiu’s advice was that we ought to give them every chance to do the right thing.

My own thought is that while we combat their racism using their laws and ours, we also ought to work with non-racist Pākehā, like those from Network Waitangi, who are very able and willing to confront the culture from which racism came.

PLUTOCRATS, PROPHETS AND PITCHFORKS

American, Nick Hanauer, is a proud and unapologetic capitalist who has founded, co-founded or funded more than 30 companies, including aQuantive which he onsold in 2007 to Microsoft for $6.4 billion. 

With numerous homes, his own plane, a super-yacht and a bank, Hanauer is by definition also a plutocrat; i.e. he derives his power from his wealth. 

He describes himself as “not the smarted person” nor the hardest working, and credits his success to a combination of spectacular luck, of birth, of circumstance, and of timing. 

But Hanauer is demonstrably very good at a couple of things.  First, he has an unusually high tolerance for risk.  Second, he has a good intuition about what will happen in the future. 

In June 2014 he wrote a prophetic piece for Politico magazine in which he foresaw pitchforks coming for him and his "fellow 1%ers” because of the increasing wealth inequality between themselves and the rest of us.

To demonstrate, in 1980 the top 1% of Americans shared about 8% of national wealth while the bottom 50% shared 18%.  Today the top 1% share over 20%, and the bottom 50% share less than 13%. 

Are wealth and income inequality rising to the same extent in New Zealand? Last year, Treasury reported that while there are inequalities here, they haven’t increased in twenty years.  Of course that is cold comfort to those with whom the Salvation Army work.  

The fact is that we don’t have access to the kind of data that Hanauer uses. The only in-depth report ever done on wealth distribution in New Zealand was completed in 2004, and the annual Household Economic Survey doesn't capture wealth and income inequalities at all.  So we must rely on informal indicators and our own intuition.

For example, the Salaries Interactive app shows the top annual salary earned in New Zealand by an individual last year was almost $5million.  But we know the average income for individual full-time workers was only $45,000.  We also know that during the same period, the average income of beneficiaries was a mere $13,000 per annum, including allowances.  

Although they are informal, those are all very powerful indicators of inequality.  But how can they be resolved?

Because middle class consumers are far greater job creators than wealthy entrepreneurs like himself, Hanauer argues that he and his fellow plutocrats need to give higher median incomes to the workers rather than lower tax rates to the wealthy.

Although it sounds simplistic, a living wage is the pivot to addressing the poverty and inequality cycles which Hanauer knows must be broken.  However, if the plutocrats do not address the growing inequality at all, he predicts the inevitable destruction of the middle class and an uprising against the wealthy class that will match the French Revolution in ferocity.

He is right.  No free and open society can long sustain rising economic inequality.  It has never happened.  There are no examples.  You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state or an uprising.  

While the inequalities here are not as bad as those in America, they are similar, and so too will be the results if the plutocrats do not heed the prophets.  Pitchforks.  

CULTURAL SETTINGS

Because we have always lived with and amongst all the different cultural traditions in our rohe, Tangata Whenua are multi-cultural.  No matter how closely those traditions run together, or how often they intersect with others, they each retain their own uniqueness within our jurisdiction.  And that is the defining essence of multi-culturalism.

However there is another definition of multi-culturalism which a few Tangata Tiriti have tried to foist on us.  At its most benign, it is something that over-rides our culture.  But at its most malign they use it to try to control and constitutionally disempower us. 

Nowadays we see it in action from the way racism against us is tolerated and trivialised in the mainstream media, through to legislative theft by Parliament of our resources.

Possibly as a result of this twisted version of it, some of us have rejected multi-culturalism as a concept, preferring bi-culturalism instead.  But just because a few haters twisted and used it against us, does not require us to abandon our multi-culturalism, or any other culturalism for that matter. 

To understand how and why that is, we need only check our cultural settings.  Culture is socially defined, not biologically fixed.  When we are at least bi-lingual we are not limited to being mono-cultural.  However, when we are in a mono-cultural setting we could describe ourselves as mono-cultural.  So too can we describe ourselves as bi-cultural when we are in bi-cultural settings. 

To illustrate, in 2011 Miria Simpson, known as a Taniwha of the reo, was asked by a reporter what it had meant to her to be fluent in te reo all her life.  The then 79 year old answered, “When I compare myself with people who do not have the language, then the only explanation I can give is that I am whole, W-H-O-L-E.  Because I know what it is like to be able to do both things [speak te reo and English] I consider myself absolutely both bi-lingual and bi-cultural.” 

Experience tells us that when we are well-grounded in at least two cultures, we are also able to experience true multi-culturalism in its setting.  The recent tangihanga of Ta Ranginui Walker was a wonderful example of that, and it simply could not have been wholly appreciated within a mono-cultural setting. 

The beauty of cultures is that they can be learned by the willing.  One outcome of the cultural exchange between Ngati Kahu and Shanghai is the sharing of our languages.  Some of us are also learning New Zealand Sign Language.  Already we appreciate how much we miss in those cultural settings without their respective languages, and we love the learnings.

As heirs of the Rangatira who declared sovereignty in He Wakaputanga oTe Rangatiratanga o Nga Hapu o Nu Tireni 1835 and reaffirmed it in Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840, we embrace our multi-culturalism in its true form.

And as successors to Taniwha like Miria Simpson, we remain whole, regardless of our cultural settings.

  

SPURRING ON TRANSFORMATION

In the introduction to the report of Matike Mai Aotearoa – the Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation, Moana Jackson wrote, “What some might see as an ‘unrealistic’ discourse, [is] in fact an expression of a deeply-held understanding about what was promised in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.”

For te rangatiratanga of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the reality that is being lived now is therefore never seen as a straitjacket that inhibits discussion.  Rather it is a spur to imagine and work towards something different. 

Yes, we know that any constitutional change of the magnitude we envisage will require time, but we also know that seeking constitutional transformation is simply the tika thing to do, and so we will do it.

Matike Mai Aotearoa’s report was released on 5^th February, less than four weeks ago.  Since then we have been provided with more spurs to not only ‘imagine something different’ in the constitutional arrangements between us and te kāwanatanga, but to also do it.

For example, in 2013 te kāwanatanga changed its law regards burials at sea, putting that activity under the consenting authority of the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA].  At the time Ngāti Kahu reissued its consistent statement to the EPA and all other government agencies reminding them that they do not have authority to issue any consents for any activities in a rohe without the express consent of the relevant hapū, and that anyone seeking to action such a consent will be dealt with directly by the hapū.   In short, kāwanatanga laws do not override rangatiratanga sovereignty.

It generally takes a little time for kāwanatanga to action its laws, so we will fast forward to today. This particular law is now being rolled out under the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects—Burial at Sea) Regulations 2015. 

Yesterday (Monday 29^th February 2016) we were alerted by a Radio New Zealand reporter that under those regulations, one of the five places the EPA will give consents for burials at sea to take place is an area 38 kms northeast of Rakaumangamanga (Cape Brett).  That was news to Ngāti Kahu.

How did we not know before yesterday what the EPA was up to?  It didn't consult us, that’s how.  Instead it consulted with a group called Te Hiku Fisheries Forum which, according to the EPA, represents Ngāti Kuri, Te Aupōuri, Ngāi Takoto, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Kahu.  That was also news to us.  We are not a member of that forum, and our hapu never authorised it to represent us.  Additionally, that had already notified the EPA of our position. 

We know none of our whanaunga from the other iwi consented to this, because the area 38kms northeast of Rakaumangamanga is not in any of their hapu rohe, it is in ours. 

 

So why has this kāwanatanga agency chosen that area without consulting us?  We can only surmise that it is either not yet capable of imagining and doing something different in its relationship with te rangatiratanga, or that it has chosen to deliberately thumb its nose at that relationship. 

Either way, it is spurring on transformation.