One New Zealand Foundation Inc.

Reply to Rawiri Waititi. The Dominion Post, Wednesday, July 28, 2021

Rawiri Waititi asks, “Have we really, ever upheld the Tiriti o Waitangi in the first place”?   (Dominion Post. 28 July 20210).  The answer is Yes, the document has been around for 181 years, but can we really blame the Tiriti o Waitangi for Maori being worse off in health, educational achievements, homelessness, and incarceration?   

The Tiriti o Waitangi asked, “Tangata Maori to give up their kawanatanga/government and in return, they would become British Subjects with the same rights as the people of England” and that is exactly what happened. Maori have had the same rights as any other New Zealand Citizen to our hospitals, education system, homes and being incarcerated if they break the law, so it cannot be what was promised in the Tiriti, it must be something else that I guess, only Maori can answer!  Perhaps it’s too much time learning a language that only a few Māori’s can speak or understand or not adapting to the changes in all our lives over the last 181 years, such as getting a good education, looking after ones health and not breaking the law.

Tangata Maori have intermarried of their own free will with other races until today, they are all a mixed race of people just like most other New Zealand citizens, but most other New Zealanders have not taken one part of their ancestry and expected it to be treated as special. 

Yes, tangata Maori did own New Zealand/Nu Tirani once, but due to the intertribal wars before the Tiriti was signed, over 2/3 of New Zealand was sold by the chiefs with hundreds of “legal” Deeds of Sale still held in the New South Wales Supreme Courts. It was only due to British intervention asked for by 13 Ngapuhi chiefs, that this land was returned to the chiefs who had sold it, by the Colonial Government without compensation or a Waitangi Tribunal to lodge a claim for the return of this confiscated land to the European buyers. 

In 1840, tangata Maori agreed to British rule/law over New Zealand. British law is based on democracy, “The majority rules”. Before the Tiriti o Waitangi, New Zealand was made up of hundreds of tangata Maori tribes continually at war with each other and completely out of control. It is estimated over half the Maori population was killed after Hongi Hika, Ngapuhi smuggled over 800 muskets into New Zealand from England and went on the rampage south killing thousands of his unarmed country men women and children for the fun of it and the feasts that followed. This started the Musket wars of the 1820’s/1840’s. 

Rawiri, you say, the Tiriti o Waitangi was never about the democracy process in this country, but wait a minute, when each chief signed the Tiriti at Waitangi on the 6^th February 1840, Lt Governor Hobson repeated, “He iwi tahi tatou – We are now one people” to which your tangata Maori ancestors gave 3 hearty cheers. This is democracy, we are now all one people with equal voting powers.

The Tiriti o Waitangi did mention sharing for the good of both races, but under one flag and one law, irrespective of race, colour, or creed. You mention, “It should, however, be all about our right”, but there was no mention of the tangata Maori having special rights in the Tiriti o Waitangi, your tangata Maori ancestors agreed to, “The same rights as the people of England”. 

Democracy is not about them and us, it about treating all citizens being treated the same. If Maori are succeeding under kura kaupapa, kohanga reo and Whanua Ora, then what’s the problem?

I agree, what is happening today is not about hatred, but it is about division and apartheid, them and us and completely contradicts what your tangata Maori ancestors expected from the Tiriri o Waitangi when they signed it in 1840.

Calling New Zealand Aotearoa was a fairy tale named used in a fairy tale story in the 1890’s and shows how little Rawiri knows about New Zealand/Nu Tirani’s true history. Over 500 chiefs agreed and accepted Nu Tirani as the tangata Maori name for New Zealand in the Treaty of Waitangi. No mention was made of Aotearoa before, during or after the Tiriti o Waitangi.

Rawiri, the funniest part of this whole article is your comment, “Will you go with the sunrise into tomorrow and so naturally as the tide change, or will you be left behind, in the archaic dark age, and struggle to stay afloat against the changing tide”. 

Rawiri, this is what your whole article is about, today’s part-Maori being left behind in the archaic dark age, and struggling to stay afloat against the changing tide, while the rest of New Zealanders, “Continue to go with the sunrise into tomorrow”!                             

As for Mr Smith, National MP, he should be asking for an investigation into National’s past Prime Minister, Hon John Key sending Hon Pita Sharples to sign the United Nations Declaration on Rights of the Indigenous Peoples without a mandate from Parliament, the people of New Zealand, forensic evidence, or a government definition of who are the Indigenous people of New Zealand.

“What any man, whoever he may be, orders on his own, is not law“. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, book 11, Chapter 1, Treatise of Social Contract, 1763.

Ross Baker, Researcher, One New Zealand Foundation Inc. Est: 1988.

Email, ONZF@bigpond.com.au