Moving forward with Matike Mai

With the Treaty principles bill disposed of, many are keen to turn towards more positive and constructive conversations about Te Tiriti.

The work of Matike Mai Aotearoa, convened by Moana Jackson and undertaken over six years, lays out a blueprint for progress.

In a three-part series for E-Tangata, legal expert Carwyn Jones takes us through the Matike Mai report, explaining what’s in it, and why it’s more relevant than ever. 

 

It was incredibly heartening to see the strength of opposition to the Treaty principles bill, as reflected in the record-breaking numbers of those who turned out for the hīkoi mō Te Tiriti last year, and the hundreds of thousands of people who took the time to make a submission to the select committee.

It was important that the opposition to the bill was overwhelming, so that ACT’s coalition partners weren’t tempted to continue to support it. Aotearoa understood the assignment and delivered — and then some!

The emphatic rejection of the Treaty principles bill should not be seen as a signal that people are afraid of having a conversation about Te Tiriti. Quite the opposite.

Of course, nobody wants a discussion about something as important as Te Tiriti to be grounded in lies and driven by a fringe party intent on creating division for political gain. But many of us would like to continue and extend the constructive and collaborative conversations about Te Tiriti that have been taking place in our communities for decades.

The report of Matike Mai Aotearoa (the Independent Working Group on Constitutional Transformation) is a great basis for furthering the discussion about Te Tiriti and what it means for us in Aotearoa today and into the future. That report suggests key values and models that could help guide meaningful discussion about Te Tiriti and our constitutional future.

I will examine the values and models further in the second and third pieces in this series. First, though, I think it’s helpful to explain a little bit about the context of the work done by Matike Mai and the process that the working group adopted.

The context

The Matike Mai working group was established by the National Iwi Chairs’ Forum in 2010. It was convened by Moana Jackson, chaired by Professor Margaret Mutu, and made up of people with a range of backgrounds, experiences, and expertise. This included kaumātua such as Huirangi Waikerepuru, Hone Sadler, Lily Wilcox, and Vapi Kupenga, as well as prominent Māori thinkers, advocates, and activists such as Mike Smith, Mereana Pitman, Ani Mikaere, and Maria Bargh, among others. Veronica Tawhai led a strand of activity, which focused on working with rangatahi.

The terms of reference set by the National Iwi Chairs’ Forum directed the working group to “develop and implement a model for an inclusive Constitution for Aotearoa based on tikanga and kawa, He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Niu Tireni of 1835, Te Tiriti o Waitangi of 1840, and other indigenous human rights instruments which enjoy a wide degree of international recognition”.

It’s notable that the working group was not directed to simply find an appropriate place for Te Tiriti within the constitution, but instead to develop a constitution based on Te Tiriti and He Whakaputanga.

The working group quickly determined that the first step towards developing any constitutional models ought to be to hear from as many Māori as possible about their consitutional aspirations.

Identifying the aspirations of tangata whenua would provide the basis for subsequently broadening the conversation to include tangata Tiriti.

The working group held 252 hui between 2012 and 2015, and the rōpū rangatahi held 70 wānanga. These hui included all kinds of Māori groups and organisations. Some were organised through iwi, hapū, or marae, others through professional or kaupapa-based groups. The hui ranged in size, from 10–15 people, up to 100 or more participants.

Moana Jackson attended and facilitated almost all of those hui. Like many other members of the working group, I attended only a handful, alongside Moana. However, participating in those hui was a profound experience. People wanted to have those conversations. And they were ready and waiting for the opportunity to discuss the issues.

One of the first hui we held was in Wairoa. It was a Monday evening on a cold and dreary winter’s day. We weren’t expecting huge numbers to come out to discuss constitutional issues. When we arrived at the iwi offices, we were pleased to see a few kuia there. But it wasn’t long before more people began to arrive. It wasn’t a big venue, but it quickly filled up with people of all ages — kaumātua, rangatahi, māmā with their tamariki.

As you might expect, people weren’t necessarily excited about the language of “constitutional transformation”. But they were interested in talking about how decisions that affect their lives get made, who gets to make those decisions, how decision-makers are accountable, and how whānau and hapū can be more self-determining, exercising greater control over decisions that affect them.

The kōrero at that hui, and all the others I attended, reflected genuinely deep thinking. More than that, it was clear that people had not only spent a lot of time thinking about these issues, but also talking about them, and reading about them. These were issues that were important, that mattered.

As the report explains, we can think of a constitution as “the kaupapa or set of rules that a community sets about who can make the rules and how the people should abide by them and live amicably together. They may be written or unwritten, and they give expression not just to the ways of government in terms of structures and procedures but the values that a community think should underpin them.”

In talking about the idea of a constitution in this way, much of the discussion inevitably focused on the values that should underpin the rules for how we make law and determine who gets to exercise decision-making authority.

The values identified in the report of Matike Mai Aotearoa will be discussed in the second piece in this series.

Dr Carwyn Jones (Ngāti Kahungunu) is Pūkenga Matua (Lead Academic) of Ahunga Tikanga (Māori Laws and Philosophy) at Te Wānanga o Raukawa, and Honorary Adjunct Professor, Te Kawa a Māui (School of Māori Studies) at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.

E-Tangata, 2025