“The drafters of the bill were appallingly ignorant,” writes historian Vincent O’Malley. (Photo supplied)
Historian Vincent O’Malley on the end of the Treaty principles bill.
The odious Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill has finally been consigned to the dustbin of history, where it firmly belongs. It won’t be the end of race-baiting politicians seeking to stir up division for the sake of a few points in the polls. But it is an an important milestone in rejecting what was nothing less than an outright attack on Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
I was one of those fortunate enough to be invited to present an oral submission on the bill. I noted during my evidence that teaching Aotearoa New Zealand history would in the longer term help end the intergenerational cycle of ignorance around our past, making it more difficult for mis- and disinformation around Te Tiriti to flourish in the future.
For more than 30 years now, I’ve worked as a professional historian, researching and writing on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the New Zealand Wars and related matters.
I drew on this background and expert knowledge of the topic matter in making my submission, which strongly opposed the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill.
As multiple other experts have pointed out, it was a bill which, while purporting to define the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, in fact, bore next to no relationship to that document. It is hardly necessary to labour the point since this has been examined at length by the Waitangi Tribunal and others.
Tellingly, I don’t know of a single credible professional historian who publicly endorsed the bill as accurately reflecting the nature of the agreement entered into between the Crown and Māori in 1840.
The first proposed principle contained in the bill stated that the executive government of New Zealand has full power to govern, and parliament has full power to make laws in the best interests of everyone in accordance with the rule of law and the maintenance of a free and democratic society.
It is obvious here that the drafters of the bill were not only appallingly ignorant, deliberately or otherwise, of Aotearoa New Zealand history, but also British history.
In 1840, Great Britain was not a democratic society, and the ruling classes were generally appalled at the prospect that it might ever be, resisting with all their might, including armed suppression, the Chartist movement that called for a people’s charter. After the Reform Act of 1832, just one in five adult men were eligible to vote.
The British weren’t exporting democracy to New Zealand because they didn’t have it at home to export anywhere.
More seriously, Article 1 of Te Tiriti o Waitangi — the definitive te reo Māori Treaty document under international law — does not grant the Crown unbridled power to govern all.
The “kāwanatanga” it accorded the Crown was instead limited. As the Waitangi Tribunal concluded in its 2014 report He Whakaputanga me te Tiriti:
“In February 1840 the rangatira who signed te Tiriti did not cede their sovereignty. That is, they did not cede their authority to make and enforce law over their people or their territories. Rather, they agreed to share power and authority with the Governor. They agreed to a relationship: one in which they and Hobson were to be equal — equal while having different roles and different spheres of influence. In essence, rangatira retained their authority over their hapū and territories, while Hobson was given authority to control Pākehā.”
The second proposed principle in the bill declared that the Crown recognises and will respect and protect the rights that hapū and iwi held under Te Tiriti at the time they signed it but that if such rights differed from the rights of everyone, this would apply only if such rights had been agreed in the settlement of a historical Treaty claim.
This was a wilful and egregious attack on Article 2 of Te Tiriti on multiple grounds. Firstly, it actively ignores the tino rangatiratanga promised the chiefs and their people in 1840. One party to a treaty cannot unilaterally alter its terms in such an unconscionable way.
Secondly, Māori rights cannot be confined to those conferred through Treaty settlements. The kāwanatanga secured by the Crown under Article 1 is constrained by the Article 2 promise to recognise and respect the rangatiratanga of Māori communities.
The third proposed principle emphasised the equality of all before the law. Again, this bore no relationship to the actual contents of Article 3 of Te Tiriti, which guaranteed all the rights and privileges of British subjects to rangatira Māori and their people. As anyone with even a passing acquaintance with New Zealand history knows, references to “New Zealanders” in 1840 referred solely to Māori.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed between the Crown and various rangatira Māori on behalf of their people. It was agreed in a particular context — one in which 80,000 Māori outnumbered and dominated the 2,000 non-Māori resident in these islands, not just demographically but also militarily, economically, and culturally.
That history has been examined and explored at length by multiple respected historians over recent decades. ACT’s Treaty principles bill shunned any engagement with this history, or the actual contents and context of Te Tiriti, in favour of a shallow, unconscionable political stunt that did incalculable damage to our nation.
Prime Minister Luxon erred grievously in agreeing to support the Treaty principles bill to first reading. But the people he governs have ended the charade. Our nation has rejected this bill emphatically. Now we must turn to trying to heal some of the many deep wounds it has caused.
For more from Vincent O’Malley, see his newsletter Unsettling: Aotearoa New Zealand History
Vincent O’Malley has gained recognition and awards for his extensive research and publications on the New Zealand Wars. His works include The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800–2000 (BWB, 2016), The New Zealand Wars/Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa (BWB, 2019), and Voices from the New Zealand Wars/He Reo nō ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa (BWB, 2021).
Among his many awards are the 2022 Ockham New Zealand Book Award for non-fiction, the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement, and Royal Society Te Apārangi’s Humanities Aronui Medal. Dr O’Malley is a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi and a founding partner of HistoryWorks, which specialises in Treaty of Waitangi research.
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David Seymour claimed that the debate he opened up with his Treaty Principles Bill would be good for the country, and I for one was always of the opinion that he was right about that. However the outcome of that debate was not at all what Seymour had planned or anticipated. For him it was a complete disaster. In opening up the constitutional question he has exposed the previously unrecognized strength and power of New Zealand nationalism (which cannot be differentiated from rangatiratanga or “Maori nationalism”). I do not believe that this is a time for “healing wounds”. We have suffered none to speak of in the course of this controversy. We have come together. We have grown stronger. Now we need to use the momentum gained to pursue our destiny as a people through rangatiratanga, mana motuhake and kotahitanga. It is a time for developing and deepening rangatiratanga forms of organisation as the constitutional foundation of Te Whakaminenga o Aotearoa.