Tribunal names Crown’s trickery and deceit
“When the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill was resoundingly defeated at its second reading in parliament, it seemed like Te Tiriti was safe. It was not.” — Jack Potaka.
Read More
Tag: Waitangi Tribunal
Philip Joseph: The minister’s failure to act honourably
“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
Te Tiriti duplicity: honoured abroad but dismissed at home
“The Crown cannot easily look a High Court judge in the eye and argue that statutory Treaty obligations are vague, unworkable, or a threat to democratic certainty when the executive branch has formally executed international documents telling the UK and EU the exact opposite.” — Nicola Hoobin.
Read More
What’s happening with the Waitangi Tribunal review?
“Behind the review lie some questionable assumptions about the tribunal, including that it has overstepped its role … by actively scrutinising contemporary government policy.” — Carwyn Jones on the government review of the Waitangi Tribunal.
Read More
Fifty years of the Waitangi Tribunal
“In this 50th anniversary year, the Tribunal and Te Tiriti are under a sustained attack from perhaps the most anti-Tiriti government that we’ve seen since the Tribunal was established.” — Carwyn Jones.
Read More
Covering Te Kerēme
“I will always treasure the memories of people who came together for a dream of justice, not just for themselves but for their descendants and for the lifeblood that is the earth and water.” — Saige England on covering the Kāi Tahu claim as a young Pākehā journalist.
Read More
The $53m cost of losing our reo
“Cultural harm was no longer just ‘sad but unmeasurable’. It had become economically quantifiable. We’d created a bridge between how we understand our losses and how legal systems work.” — Atawhai Tibble.
Read More
‘If I had the choice again, I would not fight in that war’
“I look back and I ask: ‘Was it worth it?’ The cream of our race lie overseas while we continue to struggle against the Crown to this very day.” — Tā Robert Gillies to the Waitangi Tribunal in 2016.
Read More
Tearing the Crown-Māori relationship apart
“The Bill would introduce new principles that have no legitimacy, and this would undermine the founding document in our constitutional arrangements, bringing into question the legitimacy of the Crown and its institutions.” — Caren Fox.
Read More
Waitangi Tribunal: Treaty bill should be abandoned
“These policies are consistent with an alarming pattern of the Crown using the policy process and parliamentary sovereignty against Māori.” — Dr Caren Fox, Chair of the Waitangi Tribunal.
Read More
Hanging an axe over the Waitangi Tribunal
“What these types of comments do is hang an axe over the Waitangi Tribunal which threatens to drop if they behave and exercise their powers in a particular way. This has a potential chilling effect.” — Natalie Coates.
Read More
A Treaty principles referendum is already irrelevant
In November 2014, the Waitangi Tribunal “abandoned the great pretence that the English text had legitimacy. Therefore, there was no longer a need for Treaty ‘principles’”. — Moea Armstrong, a Pākehā Tiriti educator.
Read More
What if the Treaty had been honoured?
“’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
Māori Women: Caught in the Contradictions of a Colonised Reality
“The continued determination to negotiate with Māori men while ignoring Māori women, 154 years after the signing of the Treaty, is the gravamen of a claim recently lodged against the Crown before the Waitangi Tribunal.” — Ani Mikaere.
Read More
The Roaring Wind: Joe Hawke
“When Joe Hawke was born in 1940, the only land remaining to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei in the entire Tāmaki isthmus, over which they had exercised their mana for some two centuries, was just 12½ acres of land at Ōkahu Bay.” — Professor David Williams.
Read More
Imagining an even better deal for Māori
“Despite the fact that ‘mānuka’ is a Māori word, not an Australian word, the UK IP office backed Australia’s claim that it also produces ‘mānuka honey’. The UK FTA will cement in those legal tests.” — Moana Maniapoto.
Read More
The spectrum — the battle to reclaim a taonga
“It’s been a 30-year journey to get to this point, and the knowledge that has driven us is the knowledge that the spectrum is a taonga.” — Piripi Walker.
Read More
Moana Jackson: Covid and the pandemic of colonisation
“Vaccination is a necessary protection against Covid, but dealing with a living history and the ongoing discriminatory actions of the Crown requires more than just an injection in the arm.” — Moana Jackson.
Read More
Towards a truly equitable health system
“The indisputable fact that the Crown funds the primary health care system inadequately is a key reason for the extent of inequity that Māori continue to suffer.” — Waitangi Tribunal report on Stage One of Hauora claims.
Read More
We must be brave and use the reo
“Everything I say in the courtroom now is said in te reo Māori. All of my submissions, every written document.” — Alana Thomas.
Read More
Justice Joe Williams: Let’s try and get it right
“Both sides are saying: ‘We want to do it a different way.’ It’s just no longer right to say evil nasty Crown, good angel iwi. It’s not like that at all.” — Supreme Court judge Sir Joe Williams.
Read More
Settling Ihumātao
“One of the perceived political difficulties to arriving at a settlement that will attract broad public support is that ‘private land’ is involved. But this is a red herring that misleads and distracts us from the relevant and important questions.” — David Williams.
Read More
Haare Williams: A child of the community
“’Whatever you do, remember, you’ll never be a Pākehā.’ Everyone then wanted their children to grow up in a Pākehā way. Speaking English was the norm, the wanted thing.”
Read More
Restoring mana and confidence
“We want to work shoulder to shoulder with this government rather than head-to-head headbutting.” — Ngahiwi Tomoana, Kahungunu leader.
Read More
Ngāti Kuri takes flight
“Our Māori knowledge is thousands of years old. It ties in every element and aspect of the world — it can teach us a lot about the planet in this age of climate change and environmental sustainability.”
Read More
Moana Jackson: Colonisation and the suffering of children
It always requires a certain courage to speak the unspeakable. The increasing number of Māori men...
Read More
