“It is unacceptable that a minister of the Crown should treat Tribunal findings with such off-hand indifference. The Tribunal’s constitutional functions impose reciprocal obligations on the Crown to act honourably in its dealings with the Tribunal.” — Professor Philip Joseph KC.
Read More
“The treaties of the 1840s shared a common foundation. They were instruments of imperial domination, signed under pressure. The Treaty of Waitangi belongs in that company — yet where others withered, it lived on.” — Shane Te Pou.
Read More
“Most of us didn’t learn about Te Tiriti in school — I know I didn’t. But once you start learning, you realise it’s not hard to understand. It’s just been kept from us.” — Roimata Smail.
Read More
“And where was the church, the third party at the Treaty table, as this abusive relationship unfolded? Largely silent, and by its silence complicit. The church became the ally of the coloniser rather than the defender of the colonised.” — Kennedy Warne, reviewing ‘He Tatau Pounamu’.
Read More
“Ratana had publicly committed himself to a political programme for the first time in a speech at Ratana Pā during the Christmas hui of 1923. He would go to London and take with him the Bible and the Treaty of Waitangi, symbolic of the spiritual and social sides of his mission.” — Keith Newman in ‘Ratana: The Prophet’.
Read More
“The Treaty principles bill is highly radical. Act essentially don’t agree with the slow, steady, progressive way the law has evolved in New Zealand.” — Matthew Hooton.
Read More
“Rather than emphasising the differences between the texts, or discarding the English text altogether, reading both texts together is necessary.” — Samuel Carpenter.
Read More
“Before we can be reconciled by the Treaty, we need to reconcile the Treaty to itself and restore its mana.” — Alistair Reese.
Read More
“When there’s a peak in these claims and assertions of Māori privilege, then historically at least, we’ve seen that Māori have lost things.” — Peter Meihana.
Read More
“A change in mindsets and attitudes is needed if people in Aotearoa New Zealand are to grasp the revolutionary shifts that have occurred and continue to evolve.” — Claudia Orange, in ‘The Story of a Treaty/He Kōrero Tiriti’.
Read More
“Māori expected Te Tiriti to be the start of a new relationship with Britain — one in which they would have an equal role. They expected that the kāwanatanga of the first article would enable officials in New Zealand to control troublesome Europeans.” — Claudia Orange.
Read More
“Although Pākehā ‘enjoy’ the political, social, and economic advantages of a dominant people, in the deep area of our identity, we are insecure and somewhat challenged.” — Alistair Reese, Pākehā theologian and historian.
Read More
“’You will honourably and scrupulously fulfil the conditions of the Treaty of Waitangi . . .’” — Lord Stanley, the Colonial Secretary in London, to Governor George Grey in New Zealand, after Grey asked him how far he had to abide by the Treaty.
Read More
“If we look to what I now think is the historically-correct context — the Treaty as a genuine attempt at a relationship-building exercise — then it opens the possibility of doing things better in our society today.” — Professor David Williams.
Read More
“The Māori text simply makes more explicit what was already implicit in the English text and well understood on the British side — that Māori self-government (rangatiratanga) can co-exist with Crown sovereignty (kāwanatanga).” — Ned Fletcher.
Read More
“Despite its historical and cultural significance, the fourth article of the Treaty, the oral, has often been neglected.” — Alistair Reese.
Read More
“Just as there is no transfer of tino rangatiratanga, there’s nothing in Te Tiriti that would prevent hapū Māori from controlling their own borders, from directing their own foreign policy, or from entering into new international treaties.” — Dr Arama Rata.
Read More
“Just as colonisation began in the mind — as a set of ideas based on racial and cultural superiority — so must decolonisation begin with a mental deconstruction of those ideas.” — Kennedy Warne.
Read More
“We need to acknowledge that this is a partnership that we can move further forward — and that there still needs to be an open-mindedness in government, and in the public at large.” — Claudia Orange.
Read More
“The early plans for a British colony envisaged a Māori New Zealand in which settlers would somehow be accommodated,” writes Claudia Orange. But, by 1840, there’d been a shift in thinking, reflecting “reluctant official acknowledgement that the tide of British colonisation could not be held back forever”.
Read More
“Overall, a key issue is the need for the government to provide Māori and Pacific whānau with ‘choice and control’ rather than ‘forced and compulsory’ isolation management.” — Dr Elana Curtis.
Read More
“Māori own the water because our customary native title has never been extinguished.” — John Tamihere.
Read More
New Zealand’s response to the short-term Covid-19 crisis should guide our response to the long-term issues facing us, writes Kerensa Johnston.
Read More
“Regardless of personal politics or wealth, as Pākehā we all benefit from the dispossession of Māori. There are no exemptions from Pākehā privilege.”
Read More
“We want to work shoulder to shoulder with this government rather than head-to-head headbutting.” — Ngahiwi Tomoana, Kahungunu leader.
Read More
“If someone had said to me in 2008, I’d be turning the Whanganui River into a legal person — or parliament would be — I would have laughed.” Chris Finlayson, former Treaty negotiations minister.
Read MoreE-Tangata is an online Sunday magazine specialising in stories that reflect the experiences of Māori and Pasifika in Aotearoa.
We welcome submissions or inquiries to:
editor@e-tangata.co.nz
Sign up for our email newsletter and get the latest E-Tangata stories sent straight to your inbox.
SubscribeYou can support E-Tangata’s kaupapa by contributing through PressPatron. With your help, we can tell more Māori and Pacific stories.
