The claim is now being made that co governance, self determination for Maori people and ‘By Maori for Maori’ policies are all required under the Treaty of Waitangi. Those who claim this are ignoring the fact that one of the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi is that of ‘Active Protection’.
The Waitangi Tribunal in WAI11, the Te Reo Claim 1986, found the Crown was in breach of the Treaty by not actively protecting the Maori language. This is even though Māori people in the 1860’s took a petition to parliament to stop the missionaries teaching Maori children in Maori and to not allow them to even speak Maori in school. They did this because they wanted their children to learn English.
Educational resources had been translated in to Maori and teachers had learnt Maori so they could teach Maori students in Maori but the Maori parents stopped this. As the Waitangi Tribunal states it was primarily the Maori parents who prevented their own children from speaking Maori at home, because they wanted them to become proficient in English, that was the single most influential factor that led to the near demise of the language. These actions by the Maori people in stopping their children from being allowed to speak Maori in school and at home are a great example of self-determination and ‘by Maori for Maori’ and led directly to the near demise of the language as determined by the Tribunal. The Crown in reversing its decision to teach the Maori children in Maori because of the petitions and the urging of Maori politicians is also a great example of co governance.
It was the colonisers who wanted to keep the language alive by teaching Maori children in Maori and the Maori parents who did not want this. The Tribunal ruled that it was not alight for the Crown to let the Maori people self-determine the language they spoke, and it was required to provide active protection and prevent Maori people doing what they wanted to do. So, to the present day the Crown is unable, if it is to honour the Treaty principle of active protection, to allow Maori self-determination. This is because the only conclusion one can draw from Wai11 is that the Maori people of today, in taking the claim, believe the Maori people of yesterday were wrong in what they did, and they believe the Crown should have stopped them and not allowed the level of self-determination for Maori people that they had. So obviously the Crown must be cognisant to the probability that Maori people in the future might regard actions taken by Maori people today to be wrong and harmful to themselves and that the Crown has a responsibility to ensure that actions they take today are not harmful to themselves or could be viewed as having been harmful when looking back in 160 or 300 years from now. They cannot allow self-determination if they are required to honour the Treaty principle of active protection because to be able to actively protect someone you must have control over them after all. You must be able to tell them what to do and what not to do.
If the Maori people of New Zealand want the Treaty of Waitangi honoured they must be prepared to be under the control of the state in a way that non Maori would not be, and that means no co governance, no self-determination and no ‘By Maori for Maori’. If they want the same level of self-determination non Maori people have they should consider consigning the Treaty of Waitangi to history and getting on with their futures free from the shackles of a restrictive treaty that treats them all like children.
Robin Grieve, a tutor, orchardist and retired farmer, is Chairman of Pastural Farming Climate Research HERE.