Posted on March 6, 2024
By Judge Anthony Willy. Anthony Willy is a Barrister and Solicitor, who served as a Judge on four Courts: District, Environment, Tax, and Valuation. He is a former Lecturer in Law at Canterbury University.
He presently acts as an Arbitrator, a Commercial mediator, a Resource Management Act Commissioner, and is a Director of several companies.
“On a plain reading of the treaty document anything less conducive to the notion of a partnership between the signatories is difficult to imagine.
It is therefore necessary to look elsewhere to find what breathes life into this myth.
There is much talk among Māori activists and their camp followers that there is legal authority for the proposition that the treaty document constitutes a “partnership” between an indeterminate group of those claiming Māori antecedents and our sovereign government.
The case relied on is the 1987 decision of the Court of Appeal in the State-Owned Enterprises case.
It is therefore important to understand what that [court ]decided.
Five judges sat.
Cooke R
Richardson J Somers J
Casey J Bisson J
Their judgement ran 77 pages.
Each Judge gave an individual judgment. Some mention the word ‘partnershp’ but only by way of analogy.
They agreed on the outcome.
[In summary of what those 5 judges said, Judge Willy says ] “None held that it is a “principle” of the treaty that on its signing in 1840 a partnership came into existence between the Queen Victoria and the Māori inhabitants of New Zealand.”
Judge Anthony Willy’s Conclusion After Reading the 77 page document:
Judge Willy goes on to say: “It is therefore clear beyond any doubt that the State-Owned Enterprises case is not authority for the proposition that a partnership as understood in our common law exists between the Crown in Parliament and some innominate group of people of Māori extraction.
Shorn of this blatant misreading of the case the activists (including our Prime Minister Chris Luxon) are left with only their wish list of wanting to share in the governance of New Zealand.
Given that these claims are devoid of principle, common sense, or any legal basis it is beyond time that our Parliamentarians stopped pandering to such blatant self-serving nonsense.
It is clear that David Seymour’s bill in whatever form it finally emerges will go a long way towards putting an end to this racially divisive nonsense.
It is deserving of the wholehearted support of the coalition government.
If that results in a round of buttock bearing and threats then so be it.
Wiser heads among the Māori tribes will soon prevail, and they will get on with what they do best, running their businesses. “
To the British in 1840, setting up parallel governments / going into partnership with Maori would have been unthinkable.
David Lange (left) agrees. He said:
“Did Queen Victoria for a moment think of forming a partnership with a number of signatures, a number of thumb prints and 500 people? Queen Victoria was not that sort of person. We can have a democratic form of government or we can have indigenous sovereignty. They can’t coexist and we can’t have them both.”1
Winston Peters is of the same mind. He said “Does the Treaty mean Partnership? It is truly staggering that a claim of partnership for Māori is being made based on the Treaty of Waitangi, when Queen Victoria was not in partnership with anyone, in the UK, or the British Empire, on the day before the 6th of February 1840, or the day after.”2
Retired District Court Judge and Canterbury University law lecturer Anthony Willy (left) noted that “Maori and the Crown are not partners in any sense of the word. It is constitutionally impossible for the Crown to enter into partnership with any of its subjects.”3
Why did Lange, Willy, and Peters say what they said? Answer? Separatism is the
1 https://www.donbrash.com/after-politics/what-partnership/
2 Winston Peters speech, Warkworth Town Hall, August 21s, 2022
3 Winston Peters speech, Warkworth Town Hall, August 21s, 2022
antithesis of democracy, and democracy was the type of government installed by the British at Waitangi.
We could rightly say, then, that when Maori activists and MPs like Chris Luxon talk of the Treaty being a partnership, they are completely wrong. They are wrong for three reasons.
First, the five judges in the State Owned Enterprises case did not say it was a partnership.
Second, significant other public figures such as Lange, Peters, and Judge Willy say it was not a partnership.
Third, the Treaty itself makes it clear that a partnership was not formed between the British and Maori.
Maori became British citizens. All citizens were therefore, before the law, made equal.
If the Treaty was a partnership between Maori and the British, then that would have made Maori superior to all other citizens in the country. i.e. There would have been three groups: The Crown, Maori, and the rest. In a democracy, their can only be two groups: government and citizens.
The idea of partnership in the Treaty creates a contradiction that can’t be overcome. Maori can’t at one and the same time be the same as everyone else, and superior to everone else.
This is a juxtaposition of opposites, if you like. An antithesis. A contradiction. An ambiguity. Whatever term we use, the thought is the same. Maori cannot superior to everyone else and at the same time be the same as everyone else.
Think about this also. If Maori and the Crown are partners, then MP’s in Parliament (who represent the crown as the other partner in the Treaty) must also be superior to everyone else. See how silly the argument becomes when we say the Treaty is a partnership?
Let’s be clear.
The Treaty of Waitangi is not a partnership between the British and Maori. It never was and never will be.