The Treaty on the Ground: Where we are headed, and why it matters

THE TREATY ON THE GROUND

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THE TREATY ON THE GROUND Where we are headed, and why it matters

Edited by Rachael Bell, Margaret Kawharu, Kerry Taylor, Michael Belgrave & Peter Meihana

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First published in 2017 by Massey University Press Private Bag 102904, North Shore Mail Centre, Auckland 0745, New Zealand www.masseypress.ac.nz Text copyright © individual authors as acknowledged, 2017 Images copyright © Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, 2017 Design by Kate Barraclough Cover photograph: Gil Hanly. Demonstrators with Te Kotahitanga flag. Te Hikoi ki Waitangi, 6/02/1984, PH-2015-2-GH540-3, Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum The moral right of the authors and photographer has been asserted All rights reserved. Except as provided by the Copyright Act 1994, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner(s) and the publisher.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand Printed and bound in China by Everbest Printing Ltd ISBN: 978–0–9941300-5-1 eISBN: 978–0–9941363–0–5

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Ko Te Tiriti o Waitangi Te Kawenata mō tō tātau motu Aotearoa He Kawenata whakahirahira e tautoko ana i te noho kotahitanga ā te Māori me te Pākehā Ka ū tonu tōna mana me ōna puāwaitanga; Rangatiratanga, Wakaritenga, Kaitiakitanga, Mahi Tahi me te Ngākau māhaki Ko te Māori me te Pākehā e mahi tahi ana mō ngā tangata katoa Haare Williams Amorangi, Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum

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CONTENTS 9 Foreword

Kerry Taylor and Roy Clare

17 Introduction: The Treaty at the Coalface

Rachael Bell

29 The Treaty of Waitangi: Māori Magna Carta

David V. Williams

53 The Storm Before the Calm: The Treaty of Waitangi Since the 1960s

Michael Belgrave

73 From Human Rights to Māori Sovereignty: Māori Radicalism and Trade Unions, 1967–86

Cybèle Locke

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91 Political Utility: ‘Privilege’ Without End

Peter Meihana

111 Coming of Age: Transformation and the Treaty Settlement Process

Michael Dreaver

133 Te Ara Whanaunga: Relations on the Ground at Waitangi Tribunal Hearings

Te Kawehau Hoskins

151 New Grounds, Old Battles: The Kurahaupō Settlement

Peter Meihana with Richard Bradley, Mark Moses and Judith Macdonald

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169 Unconditional Rather Than Reciprocal: The Treaty and the State Sector

Kim Workman

189 Change and Inertia: 40 Years of Māori Struggle to Protect the Environment

April Bennett

209 Towards Treatybased Management: Treaty Discourses and ‘Everyday Work’ in Planning

Biddy Livesey

255 Schools and the Treaty: The Courage to Step Up

Richard Green

297 Measuring Progress: Reflections on The Treaty on the Ground

Margaret Kawharu

313 Kia Kaha, e Hoa Mā: The Treaty in the Pākehā Everyday

Damian Skinner

322 About the Contributors

233 The Treaty of Waitangi and Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum

Elizabeth Cotton and Edwina Merito

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FOREWORD Kerry Taylor and Roy Clare

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his book is a welcome and, I think, important step in a journey. In simple terms, the journey is to find ways to enable the conversations surrounding, and prompted by, the Treaty of Waitangi to be meaningful and natural for all parties concerned. Equally, there is a need to turn conversation into action for mutual benefit.

At face value, this volume may seem a typical product of an academic process: hold a conference, produce a book — job done! Hardly the sort of thing, some may say, to contribute to this important journey. Those of us involved in the Treaty on the Ground conference, held in 2016, and with this publication, do not see it this way.

The conference came about after several years of planning and dreaming.

This was a process of sharing and learning from each other. Around the table were historians, museum curators and managers, even an anthropologist. Half of the group were women, and there was a roughly even number of Māori and Pākehā. Some were based in Auckland; others journeyed, or Skyped in, from Palmerston North for the meetings. Some were from Massey University, others from Auckland War Memorial Museum.

The diversity in the conference planning group was extended to the brief for who should speak. We wanted multiple voices with different views: academics, policy managers, educationalists, activists, museum people, young and old, regional and metropolitan, Māori and Pākehā. Some, but not all, of the diversity we sought was achieved in the event. Some, but not all, of those who spoke at the conference are represented in this book. This is why this volume is but another step in the journey, and why ongoing and more expansive dialogue is essential.

Foreword

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Many people refer to the Treaty in partnership terms. I am one such person, although this notion may be unpopular with those who see the Treaty as an historical relic with little or no relevance to the twenty-first century. Many partnerships are unequal, and in practice the Treaty partnership has frequently left the burden of action on Māori. If we are to make conversation around the Treaty an everyday and natural thing, then Pākehā, too, need to become more active in the dialogue as we reframe our culture with the Treaty as a central part, both for the present and the future.

That this is a challenging process is acknowledged by all who have sought to advance the conversation. That it is an important one is confirmed by the many perspectives and stories recounted in this book. The contributors are all to be congratulated for sharing often direct experiences, or the product of deep research. I feel enriched from having been a part of this process.

Treaty on the Ground, both the conference and this publication, is the outcome of a number of partnerships. Most importantly it comes from a rich and growing collaboration between Massey University, through the W. H. Oliver Humanities Research Academy, and Auckland Museum. That this relationship has deepened in the process of creating the conference and book has been one of many very positive outcomes from the experience.

Another partner has been Massey University Press and publisher Nicola Legat. Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, has also supported us in innumerable ways.

All of those involved in the conference and book process have my thanks and, I say without hesitation, admiration. I do, however, wish to single out two individuals who have worked above and beyond the call of duty in achieving our goals in both the event and book form of Treaty on the Ground. First, Margaret Kawharu, from whom I have learnt a great deal personally, and who also helped us ground our activity with a consciousness of Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei — we were, after all, operating in their backyard. And secondly, Massey lecturer Rachael Bell, who has driven the publication process with energy, charm and determination. Without Rachael, this book would not have seen the light of day.

Kerry Taylor Director, W. H. Oliver Humanities Research Academy Massey University

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The Treaty on the Ground

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Mā te āhuatanga o mua E arataki te huarahi Hei haere whakamua.

By the lessons of the past We are guided into the future.

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s New Zealanders, whether inter-generational or new arrivals, we each have a shared responsibility to educate ourselves about the Treaty of Waitangi and its histories, so that we can confidently contribute to its future narratives and fully participate in the progressive shaping of our Treaty nation.

Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum has a legislative obligation to observe and encourage the spirit of partnership and goodwill envisaged by the Treaty of Waitangi. The case studies in the chapter ‘The Treaty of Waitangi and Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum’ provide examples of how we at the museum ‘observe and encourage’ in practice.

The chapter also highlights the potential for institutions such as museums to educate New Zealanders and international visitors about the Treaty, in both historical and contemporary contexts. Museums can help the exploration of multiple meanings, can reveal experiences of the Treaty settlement process, and can examine impacts across all frameworks — cultural, social, environmental, economic, political — at all levels, both close in and further afield.

Our partnerships with other research and learning institutions are

Foreword

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instrumental to this, and we acknowledge our close and productive working relationship with Massey University. Together we have much to contribute to the ‘dialogue and response’.

On behalf of Auckland Museum, I invite you, Māori and Pākekā, New Zealander and global citizen, to read this book by well-respected authors, many of whom participated in the discussions at the conference. They explore a rich variety of perspectives and case studies. The shared expertise and the insightful analyses are beacons for further reflection for all of us.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa.

Roy Clare Director, Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum

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Introduction The Treaty at the Coalface Rachael Bell School of Humanities, Massey University

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n 1940, as Pāhekā New Zealand set out to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi — or more particularly, perhaps, a century of formal British settlement — Sir Āpirana Ngata famously described the misgivings of those on the other side of the settlement coin: ‘I don’t know of any year that the Māori people approached with so much misgiving as the New Zealand centennial year. In retrospect, what did the Māori see — lands gone, the powers of the chiefs humbled in the dust, Māori culture scattered, broken . . .

What remains of all the fine things said then?’1 In 1972, as an increasingly contested and problematic view of the Treaty began to permeate Pākehā society, historian Ruth Ross, in a groundbreaking appraisal of the Treaty text, attacked the ‘woolly-mindedness’ that had allowed it to become all things to all people: ‘To each one of us — the politician in Parliament, the kaumatua on the marae, Nga Tamatoa in the city, the teacher in the classroom, the preacher in the pulpit — the Treaty of Waitangi says whatever we want it to say. It is a symbol, of Pakeha self-righteousness, of Maori disillusionment . . . To persist in postulating that this was a “sacred compact” is sheer hypocrisy.’2 Yet despite the concerns of Ngata and Ross, the Treaty has grown dramatically in importance in New Zealand society, and in ways that perhaps they could not have foreseen more than 75 and 40 years ago. As the basis now for redressing grievances such as Ngata identified, and the subject — through a wealth of publications, investigations, reports and theses — of the deep critical analysis that Ross had desired, the Treaty sits at the heart of not only Crown–Māori relations, but also of government, public and institutional life. It serves as our

Introduction

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founding document, certainly, but also as a guide to the present and a potential blueprint for the future.

As Ngata’s comments suggest, anniversaries are times for reevaluation, and in 2015 the 175th anniversary of the Treaty signings provided a timely framework in which to ask ourselves about the place of the Treaty in New Zealand today, and the future we might envision for it in the 25 years leading to its bicentennial. To this end, the W. H. Oliver Humanities Research Academy at Massey University joined with researchers and curators from the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira to convene a conference, at the museum, that would draw on current ideas and experiences of the Treaty and bring them together. Our team — a conscious mix of Māori, Pākehā, male, female, provincial and metropolitan — hoped to reflect this same diversity in our conference presenters.

As discussions progressed, it became clear that our collective goal was that of capturing practical experience — gathering together views of the Treaty ‘on the ground’, to borrow a phrase from Ross’s article above, from those who encountered and applied it in their everyday lives: ‘practitioners’ who, through their jobs or their tribal or community affiliations, or through decisions made from a personal perspective, walk the Treaty talk. In a committee replete with historians, we did, of course, want to give historical context to the Treaty, but only in as much as it assisted its location in the present day, to show the Treaty as a contemporary force rather than to perpetuate a notion of it as a primarily historical document whose application lay in the past.

We set our time frame from the end of World War II to give recognition to the very significant changes that have taken place in Māori demography from that period, and state responses to them. Our conference title, The Treaty on the Ground: Dialogue and Difference, Crisis and Response, captured, we hoped, the great sense of turmoil, challenge and agency that accompanied debates surrounding the Treaty, and Māori rights generally, from the late 1960s on. As we settled on a format — two days of invited speakers, followed by a one-day ‘allcomers’ colloquium for new and emerging researchers — we began to shouldertap possible presenters from as broad a field of experience as we could draw.

Their responses were inspiring, the diversity of their experiences remarkable.

Along with the academic disciplines of law, history, anthropology, sociology, social policy, education, town and environmental planning, geography and art history, we had represented among the contributors Waitangi Tribunal

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