The government is waging a major attack on Treaty principles in Aotearoa-New Zealand, writes Jayden Rivers, but gains for Maori did not come from the Treaty itself
In November, more than 40,000 people, predominantly Māori, marched on the New Zealand parliament in Wellington as part of a hīkoi (march) from a place called Te Rerenga Wairua at the tip of the north island.
The Toitū Te Tiriti (Honour the Treaty) campaign, led by Te Pāti Māori (the Māori Party) demands that the right-wing Coalition government’s Treaty Principles Bill be scrapped. Māori Party MP Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke led a haka in parliament to protest as the bill was being introduced, tearing up a copy of the legislation.
The Coalition government came to power in late 2023 with the main conservative party National supported by the smaller right-wing libertarian party Act and New Zealand First. The Coalition parties agreed to allow Act’s Treaty Principles Bill to be debated in parliament.
The bill attempts to reverse Māori rights by reinterpreting Treaty principles that were legally enshrined after the 1970s Māori rights movements.
Many people look to the Treaty of Waitangi as a source of progress for Māori. But the truth is that the Treaty has always been a tool of colonisation and accommodation to capitalism. Māori have only made progress through the power of mass working class movements.
The bill is a vehicle for the Coalition’s wider political attack on Māori and the working class.
The Coalition have already dismantled the Māori Health Ministry, cut funding for Māori housing and other programs and are removing Te Reo Māori (Māori language and place names) from public institutions.
For now, the Treaty Principles Bill is unlikely to pass. National has indicated they will vote against it when it returns to parliament. However, there is currently a six month “consultation process” which presents the most immediate danger.
Act have used the consultation process to push for a citizens-initiated referendum, launching a campaign to turn up the level of racism in New Zealand society. The lobby group Hobson’s Pledge, led by former Act politician Don Brash, has said, “We need to deliver the kind of message that the Voice referendum in Australia delivered.”
The Coalition also wants more racial division so they can pursue broader attacks on workers and the poor. For example, at the beginning of 2024 the Coalition repealed the Fair Pay Agreements Act which allowed forms of sector-wide union bargaining.
The right are looking to exploit racism and confusion about Māori rights.
A 2023 Post/Freshwater Strategy poll asked voters if there should be more co-governance with Māori in government decision-making—and 45 per cent disagreed, with only 28 per cent in favour. There was a similar split among voters about whether road signage should be written in Te Reo Māori as well as English: 45 per cent were against compared with only 32 per cent in favour.
The Treaty Principles Bill is part of an ideological attack on Māori self-determination.
Treaty
Many Indigenous people and allies across the world look to the Treaty of Waitangi as a model for how Indigenous people can secure real rights.
The Victorian Labor government is working towards a Treaty with Aboriginal people, and state governments in NSW, SA, Tasmania and the ACT are considering it. But to see the Treaty of Waitangi as a source of progress for Māori is to mistake the map for the land.
The Treaty of Waitangi was an agreement between Māori and the British Crown, signed in 1840 by more than 500 Māori chiefs.
There were two versions of the Treaty, in Māori and in English, that said different things. In the Māori version, the Treaty allowed the Crown to station a governor in Aotearoa while guaranteeing Māori control of land and culture. In English, the Treaty gave the Crown authority over New Zealand and the right to buy land.
Māori did not share the same concepts of land ownership as British settlers. Many Crown purchases were conducted covertly by appealing to individuals, despite land being communally owned.
Māori often agreed to allow settlers the use of their land without knowing that the settlers viewed this as a permanent sale.
Anger at increasing dispossession saw Māori in the North Island organise a series of Kotahitanga (solidarity) movements, aiming to unite Māori, establish an alternative government, and stop further loss of land.
The colonial Land Wars intensified as the Crown sought to break down all barriers to the alienation of land. Disregarding any pretence of Treaty obligation, the Crown confiscated tracts of land and killed thousands of Māori.
New Zealand Chief Justice Prendergast ruled in 1877 that the Treaty was a “simple nullity” with no effect on New Zealand law.
By the 1890s, only 17 per cent of land was left in Māori control. Children were beaten in schools for speaking Te Reo Māori.
Rather than protecting Māori control of Aotearoa, the Treaty facilitated the theft of Māori land and the growth of British settlements.
Resurgence
After the Second World War, the state encouraged Māori into urban industries where thousands of Māori and pākehā (Europeans) worked together. While their ancestors had been defeated militarily, working class Māori now had a far greater patu (weapon): the porotū (strike).
Through to the 1970s, many Māori had become well respected trade unionists, fighting for higher pay and conditions alongside pākehā workers. Māori were able to use their industrial mana (authority) to politicise the unions.
For example, unions raised funds for activist group Ngā Tamatoa and supported the 1975 land march. Then in the 1980s unions placed a Green Ban on Māori land at Bastion Point that property developers wanted to use for high-end real estate.
Syd Jackson, Māori student activist and trade unionist, argues, “Trade Union support was vital to the Ngāti Whātua people during their 500 day occupation of Bastion Point… They decided that a green ban should be placed on the whole of Bastion Point, and individual Unions informed contractors of this decision. This had the desired effect of halting development work.”
Trade unionists raised money for the occupation and would mobilise to stop police invasions. It took both police and the military to break the occupation and even then, the green ban remained in place.
A strong base in the working class gave the Māori rights movement the power to win reforms such as the introduction of Māori language into schools, returned land, Treaty settlements and social services.
But rather than admit that working class power is what forced concessions and reform, governments and bosses instead refer to their Treaty obligations.
Counter-offensive
Governments in New Zealand responded to the 1970s Māori rights movement by attempting to absorb it into state institutions and legal claims.
Where there were land occupations, now there was the Waitangi Tribunal, set up to hear claims under the Treaty and making recommendations to government. Where Māori had united to defend their whenua (land) and win it back into communal ownership, now there were individualised shares in land and tribal corporations overseeing assets.
Ngāi Tahu Holdings, for example, is worth nearly $2 billion. Ngāi Tahu members are offered perks like scholarships and housing schemes while the executives of Ngāi Tahu are on six-figure salaries. Indeed, the current CEO of Ngāi Tahu Holdings, Todd Moyle, is not even Māori.
Since the courts had ruled that the Treaty had no force under the country’s law, governments also moved to make some individual pieces of legislation subject to the “Treaty principles”.
While a thin layer of upper class Māori were left like foam on the shores as the movement faded, the vast majority of Māori remain at the bottom of society and continue to face structural racism and disadvantage.
Māori control only 6 per cent of the land. In 2020, Māori made up 52 per cent of the prison population but only 16 per cent of the total population. Māori earn up to 23 per cent less than pākehā and make up 60 per cent of homeless people. In 2019-2020, about 60 per cent of the children entering state care were Māori.
The dominant view of the Treaty expresses a real contradiction. The Māori rights movement rose up in the 1970s in spite of the Treaty. Then the movement receded. But it was never possible for governments to completely wind back the reforms made in response to it.
So people see that Māori have made some progress to reclaim land and culture, and many attribute this to greater respect for the Treaty as the source of Māori rights. But this benefits the establishment through writing out of history the only social force capable of defending Māori rights from the Coalition’s attacks: the organised working class.
In the last election Te Pāti Māori (the Māori Party) vote went up after they campaigned around opposition to spending cuts as well as for raising taxes on the rich.
But there is also a basis for winning wider working class support for Māori through a common struggle against a Coalition government that is attacking the entire working class.
The Coalition’s racist attacks represent the continuation of an agenda which has so far transferred billions of dollars to big business, away from workers.
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and union officials have shown symbolic support for the hīkoi, releasing statements and showing flags at rallies. They have not yet committed to a substantial mobilisation in support of future hīkoi. But there is potential for a united front between Māori organisations and the unions.
While we need to defeat the attacks here and now, Tino Rangatiratanga (sovereignty) can only be secured by ending the rule of the big bosses and politicians who constantly try to divide the working class and take back the wins of our movements.
The fight today must go beyond defending te Tiriti to taking on a system which exploits all working class people, the same system which oppresses Māori.
