Treaty law expert Dayle Takitimu. File photo Photo: RNZ / Paul Bushnell
A Māori lawyer who spoke at the national hui at Ngaaruawaahia says that there needs to be a clarification about Māori rights under the Treaty, not a debate.
Dayle Takitimu is an expert on the Treaty of Waitangi. She told Ingrid Hipkiss on Morning Report that the coalition government was deliberately misreading the relationship between iwi Māori and the Crown.
"My message at the hui was that the Treaty of Waitangi forms the constitutional basis between iwi Māori and the Crown, and that that needs to be properly honoured.
"The latest steps by the government demonstrate their commitment to continuing to misread and misunderstand that relationship, and we need to get that back on track."
Following the hui, Māori would be mobilising among themselves in terms of "retaining our truth around that constitutional arrangement and leaning into each other so that we can decrease vulnerability [from] a Crown that so far is committed to misunderstanding us".
There still needed to be education about the Treaty among Māori and New Zealand as a whole, she said. "But there [also] needs to be some direct discussions with our Treaty partner [the Crown] at some point around that."
Minister of Māori Development Tama Potaka, who attended the hui, earlier told Morning Report that a debate about the Treaty of Waitangi was needed, but the proposed referendum on Treaty principles would be divisive and unhelpful.
Dayle Takitimu delivers the opening kōrero at the nationwide hui at Ngaaruawaahia. Photo: RNZ/ Ella Stewart
However, Takitimu said there was no legal basis for a debate.
"It's not a debate that needs to occur; a discussion and a clarification needs to occur because the Crown - having entered into the Treaty - has spent 184 years committed to then skewering that into a different agenda that they've been promoting in regards to sole sovereignty in this country and ... they don't actually have the legal basis to be doing those things."
New Zealand as a whole was not ready for a debate, she said.
"And we've seen that even by the voting in of this government, on the back of very racist election promises.
"The population needs to be ready for that discussion first. By pitching it as a debate, [it presents] the Treaty as renegotiable, when we've got one side of the Treaty partnership saying, 'Actually, the words of that document suit us just fine.'
"[The te reo Māori version of the Treaty] says 'full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their lands, forests, fisheries and all other taonga', and so there's not necessarily a debate around that that needs to occur because those things are now non-negotiable.
"But the government has been presenting things as debatable because they think those things can now be unravelled away from the original Treaty agreement."
In response to Potaka telling Morning Report today that the Treaty was the country's foundational document, "past, present and future", Takitimu said it was asking a lot of Māori "to trust the government on anything at this point".
"Why has National allowed it, in this coalition agreement, to get this far? Because it's creating unrest, uncertainty, it's creating a whole lot of misinformation amongst the general population that is problematic.
"And now we're cast in this role of having to hold the government's feet to the fire to make sure the rights of our grandchildren are not run roughshod over, and that's not leadership in my mind.
"If National want to say now, 'We'll commit to the Treaty' - well then do that, honour that, implement that. It would be a great start if [National] would read [the Treaty], and actually understand the nature and extent of our rights here."
Hipkiss asked Takitimu if it was premature to judge the new government on its commitment to the Treaty, given that National had said it would not support David Seymour's bill beyond its first reading in Parliament.
"The criticism is not premature because it's not limited to National," she said.
"It's applicable across [governments] - even when Labour were in power, because the institutions of power in this country have been established incorrectly because they're based on the Doctrine of Discovery which is now highly criticised and debunked internationally.
"This government is built on that; that's the very foundation of the British Crown being here and establishing Houses of Parliament. So it's not premature to critique that at all, because it's not relative just to National; it's relative to the system that is upholding mistruths about what the constitutional arrangements here are."
Takitimu said following the gathering in Ngaaruawaahia, there would continue to be hui across the motu on that scale "because it's so important to us".
"We are seeing this as a critical juncture for the protection of our rights - and particularly for our mokopuna - so it's not something that Māoridom are going to walk away from.
"If anything, the momentum is building for some sort of mature discussion about how we realign this country, so we don't have an oppressed underclass in our own nation.
"This will continue to build - I'm sure of that."
