Tino Rangatiratanga and localism

My piece for the Saturday papers weekend before last, and now ungated here, went back to a theme that Richard Harman had noticed in the Waitangi speeches. 

Minister Shane Jones argued fuller debate on the meaning of Tino Rangatiratanga is inevitable, saying, “There is a deep, committed view from Pita Tipene and others that article two is a charter for iwi sovereignty. And at some point in time, that debate is going to be flushed out. It’s not a conception that I share. I conceive it to be more localised.”

Prime Minister Luxon said, “We are a party and particularly a government that is actually about making sure there is localism and devolution and that those closest to the problem should solve the problems. …Our fundamental belief is localism and devolution. We do not believe in centralization and control through Wellington.”

It is certainly not for a Canadian economist to weigh in on Treaty interpretation. I have neither the standing nor the understanding.

But one bit of the Canadian experience might be interesting.

Canada’s overall policies regarding its First Nations have been abysmal. But Canada’s First Nations nevertheless have some rights comparable to Canadian municipalities.

Basically, Canada's First Nations Band Councils have powers on reserves comparable to municipalities, except under federal rather than provincial jurisdiction. 

Decades ago, Manny Jules did the work to get band councils the authority to levy property taxes on reserve to fund band council activities. 

And look at this section of the Indian Act - I've bolded the interesting bits.

81 (1) The council of a band may make by-laws not inconsistent with this Act or with any regulation made by the Governor in Council or the Minister, for any or all of the following purposes, namely,

(a) to provide for the health of residents on the reserve and to prevent the spreading of contagious and infectious diseases;

(b) the regulation of traffic;

(c) the observance of law and order;

(d) the prevention of disorderly conduct and nuisances;

(e) the protection against and prevention of trespass by cattle and other domestic animals, the establishment of pounds, the appointment of pound-keepers, the regulation of their duties and the provision for fees and charges for their services;

(f) the construction and maintenance of watercourses, roads, bridges, ditches, fences and other local works;

(g) the dividing of the reserve or a portion thereof into zones and the prohibition of the construction or maintenance of any class of buildings or the carrying on of any class of business, trade or calling in any zone;

(h) the regulation of the construction, repair and use of buildings, whether owned by the band or by individual members of the band;

(i) the survey and allotment of reserve lands among the members of the band and the establishment of a register of Certificates of Possession and Certificates of Occupation relating to allotments and the setting apart of reserve lands for common use, if authority therefor has been granted under section 60;

(j) the destruction and control of noxious weeds;

(k) the regulation of bee-keeping and poultry raising;

(l) the construction and regulation of the use of public wells, cisterns, reservoirs and other water supplies;

(m) the control or prohibition of public games, sports, races, athletic contests and other amusements;

(n) the regulation of the conduct and activities of hawkers, peddlers or others who enter the reserve to buy, sell or otherwise deal in wares or merchandise;

(o) the preservation, protection and management of fur-bearing animals, fish and other game on the reserve;

(p) the removal and punishment of persons trespassing on the reserve or frequenting the reserve for prohibited purposes;

(p.1) the residence of band members and other persons on the reserve;

(p.2) to provide for the rights of spouses or common-law partners and children who reside with members of the band on the reserve with respect to any matter in relation to which the council may make by-laws in respect of members of the band;

(p.3) to authorize the Minister to make payments out of capital or revenue moneys to persons whose names were deleted from the Band List of the band;

(p.4) to bring subsection 10(3) or 64.1(2) into effect in respect of the band;

(q) with respect to any matter arising out of or ancillary to the exercise of powers under this section; and

(r) the imposition on summary conviction of a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding thirty days, or both, for violation of a by-law made under this section.

It is fun to think about what could happen here if iwi had similar authority over building and development on iwi-held land, or Māori land more generally. 

For further fun, look at the 250 page services agreement between Vancouver City and the Squamish First Nation for the Sen̓áḵw development. That development is on Reserve land right next door to downtown Vancouver. 

It's very typical for Kiwi bureaucrats, or bureaucrat-adjacent types, to find the first hurdle that might cause an issue and just give up. Well, here's 250 pages of legal text working through difficulties and finding solutions. 

Back to the column.

A First Nations Band has autonomy over the Band’s land.

It isn’t mere parchment. The listed rights have consequences.

When Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw, the Squamish Nation, finally had five hectares of their land returned to them near downtown Vancouver, the Band had authority over that land. Not the city.

Vancouver has a housing shortage. And Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw wanted to build.

In Auckland, Section H27 of Auckland’s Unitary Plan sets out the Special Purpose - Māori Purpose Zone. A Marae is prescribed by H27.6.2 to be no more than 10 metres in height; height of buildings in relation to boundaries is prescribed by H27.6.3, and even the location of rainwater tanks is prescribed by H27.6.9.

Even if every one of those sections enjoyed the full agreement of every hapū when the rules were written, if a hapū’s needs changed over time, council would have to agree to any change. And City Council issues the consents.

Meanwhile, the Squamish Nation’s website describing the Sen̓áḵw development explains that “Sen̓áḵw is not part of the City of Vancouver, and is not subject to the City's typical development approval process.”

It appears that, in practice, collaboration with Vancouver City has been required in order to effect interconnection to water networks. But bargaining over such things is a bit different when the Band has real autonomy over its own lands.

The service agreement goes well beyond water of course. The Band Council levies a property tax on Sen̓áḵw to pay Vancouver for other services that Sen̓áḵw residents will enjoy. This stuff can be worked out. 

Localist approaches can be more responsive to local needs.

In 2015, the New Zealand Initiative put up a report on devolution. We argued that, if a local community saw central government’s regulations or policies as being unfit for local purposes, they should be able to negotiate their own carve-out. If the policy experiment proved successful, others could take it up. If it failed, the experiment would have been relatively small. Bespoke devolution options can make more sense where councils vary widely in capacity.

But nothing in that report needed to imply that local or regional councils are the only voices of local community. Devolution to iwi or hapū could also fit within the framework.

New Zealand has a housing shortage. Council zoning and consenting rules have obviously been part of the problem.

Devolving zoning, consenting, and rating authority over iwi-held land to iwi wishing that authority may be a longshot. And it would take a lot of work.

But it seems worth thinking about.

I have no expertise or experience in arguments around Treaty interpretation.

I just find it very hard to believe that iwi leaders signing onto the Treaty believed their descendants would wind up needing to beg a bureaucrat’s permission to build houses on their own land.

Iwi assets

A new report from Phil Barry and his team at TDB highlights some great success in iwi asset management.

We estimate the total assets of the post-settlement entities are now valued at around $6b. This report considers eight iwi - Ngāi Tahu, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, Port Nicholson Block, Rangitāne o Wairau, Tūhoe and Waikato-Tainui - with combined assets of around $4.3b.

Treaty settlements provided substantial assets to iwi. By and large, they've been well managed. The separation between commercial and social arms seems important:

The eight iwi we have reviewed generally have similar corporate structures. While these structures are often complex, typically there is an overarching trust that makes decisions about distributions and the nonfinancial objectives of the group, while a separate commercial entity has been established to manage the group’s commercial assets and to make investment decisions under a commercial mandate.

One side is profit maximising; the other side uses the earned profits to achieve iwi social objectives. Keeping a clean line between the two forces a harder line on asset management. The report notes a bias toward property investment which puts some risk into the portfolio.

And whoever at  Ngāi Tahu negotiated the relativity payments is a genius.

Over the last 10 years, Ngāi Tahu has nearly tripled its asset base, from $561m in 2006 to $1,504m in 2016. With little debt, Ngāi Tahu’s net worth has grown significantly over this period. 2016 was no exception, with the asset base increasing by 12% and net worth increasing by 11%. Ngāi Tahu has received numerous relativity payments from the Crown over the period, with payments in 2013, 2014 and 2015 of $69m, $13m and $29m respectively.

20 years ahead

New Zealand filmmaking inspires Canadians. Here's the Winnipeg Free Press's Randall King:

At the newly launched Bandwidth Theatre on the corner of Sherbrook and Ellice, a new film from New Zealand has the potential to show aboriginal Canadian filmmakers the way.
Since it opened late in 2014, the Bandwidth has been playing an assortment of movies, from low-budget horror to high-minded documentaries. But as it's connected to the Adam Beach Film Institute, it also has an agenda, under the stewardship of founding partners Beach, producer Jim Compton and filmmaker Jeremy Torrie, to inspire young filmmakers, especially young First Nations filmmakers.
In that capacity, The Dead Lands is not just an exciting movie, it's a fine example of how an indigenous culture can tell its stories on film, Torrie says.
"The Maori are 20 years ahead of us as far as cinematic storytelling," Torrie says. "We absolutely should be seeing these kind of films here. We've got all these great locations. The problem is they've had the opportunity to make films; we've not had that opportunity."

The story notes that Torrie's writing a Canadian adaptation of Once Were Warriors.

"In New Zealand, they have a much greater budget with their equivalent of Telefilm Canada, the New Zealand Film Commission," Torrie says. "They also have a language fund in Maori, that organization has been around for 15 years or more and they've become another important equity source for Maori film, whereas we can't do that yet. There's a lot of institutional barriers."

Always interesting to note how other countries see what goes on here.

One cringey and wrong bit, though:

In New Zealand, the remnants of Maori tradition are primarily visible to the world in rugby matches, where the national team, the All Blacks, perform the haka, a dance designed to terrorize opponents, going back to warrior tradition.

The haka would be the bit known outside of New Zealand. Inside of New Zealand, well, it's a bit more than that.

HT: Mom.

Immigrants

The Head of Maori Studies at Auckland, Professor Margaret Mutu, called this weekend for restrictions on immigration of people of European ancestry:

A Maori academic says immigration by whites should be restricted because they pose a threat to race relations due to their "white supremacist" attitudes. The controversial comments come in response to a Department of Labour report, obtained exclusively by the Sunday Star-Times, which found Maori are more likely to express anti-immigration sentiment than Pakeha or any other ethnic group. Margaret Mutu, head of Auckland University's department of Maori studies, agreed with the findings and called on the government to restrict the number of white migrants arriving from countries such as South Africa, England and the United States as they brought attitudes destructive to Maori. "They do bring with them, as much as they deny it, an attitude of white supremacy, and that is fostered by the country," she said.

The survey results are no particular surprise, at least as far as ethnic differences go:

Maori were the least likely to consider New Zealand a welcoming place and the most likely to want less migration. Maori were the most likely to disagree with positive statements about immigration and most likely to agree with negative statements. These results are backed up by other studies which have reported less positive attitudes towards migrants and immigration by Maori. The negative statement that Maori are most likely to agree with is Migrants take jobs away from other New Zealanders with almost half of Maori (45 percent) agreeing with this. This is higher than those agreeing with the statements around immigration being a threat to New Zealand’s culture, suggesting that the reasons for the more negative views of Maori have an economic basis. This is likely to be because migrants are seen as a threat in the job market, particularly during a recession.  

The ethnic differences correspond with what I've found in the New Zealand Election Survey. Here are some results from the 2008 NZES. Note that the researchers oversampled Maori and youth; results presented here haven't corrected for the oversampling. But as we're mostly interested in whether immigration sentiment has an ethnic correlate, the oversampling ought only increase the precision of the estimate unless the oversample draws disproportionately from segments more heavily anti-immigrant.

A few cross-tabs results.

The NZES asks whether New Zealand ought to increase or decrease the number of immigrants (zimmig). Among those providing a response (excluding the roughly 5% of both groups that say "don't know"), the median person not claiming New Zealand Maori background says immigration levels ought to remain the same; the median respondent claiming New Zealand Maori background says immigration ought to be reduced "A little". But look at the difference in the cross tabs here:

Increase or decrease immigrants	Not Maori	Maori
Increase a lot	4%	2%
Increase a little	13%	5%
Same	36%	23%
Reduce a little	26%	25%
Reduce a lot	20%	45%

The results really don't change much if you use different ethnicity measures.

On the whole, there's not much support for increasing immigration, which is pretty disappointing. Maybe this is driven by the 2008 survey's having been conducted at the time of the global financial crisis. But, the figures from the 2005 survey, at the height of an economic boom with a massively overheated labour market, aren't a lot different. Among non-Maori, support for reduced immigration drops from a total of 46% (2008) to 40% (2005). But 48% of Maori respondents in that 2005 survey replied "Reduce a lot", with another 25% saying "Reduce a little". So, during a boom time, Maori opposition to immigration was higher than it is now. A couple quick regressions on the 2008 data suggest the ethnic divide remains very strong after controlling for ideology, urban/rural status, income, education, age, employment status, owning your own home, household finances as compared to a year ago, having children, and a few other things. 

So that there's a rather strong ethnic divide on immigration desirability seems reasonably robust.

Now, the 2008 survey doesn't ask the question, but the 2005 survey does: "Is immigration good for the economy?" The Department of Labour survey suggests concern about economic effects of immigration as driving ethnic differences. The raw data suggests the same in the NZES (2005). Among those not claiming Maori descent, over 60% agreed or strongly agreed that immigration is good for the economy. Among those claiming Maori descent, only 35% did. But if we look at correlates of policy views in the 2005 dataset, and include a whole whack of control variables I'm not going to bother mentioning (huge kitchen sink), the coefficient on Maori ethnicity is only cut by roughly twenty percent if you control for views on whether immigration helps or hurts the economy. So Maori anti-immigrant sentiment isn't just driven by differences in views of how the economy works.

And so it's odd then to see calls for Margaret Mutu's resignation. 

"As a Maori, I welcome white immigrants," [Ngapuhi leader David] Rankin said. "They are the ones most likely to bring employment opportunities for our communities, and we don't see the sort of racism Margaret refers to."

Rankin said Mutu has no place working at a university.

"I think Auckland University are scared of her," he said. "And so they lack the courage to deal with her, but I think after this episode, they will be having another look at her position and the harm she is bringing to Auckland University."

Rankin said Mutu was a "champagne radical" who turned up to a foreshore and seabed hikoi in her "Armani suit".

"What she doesn't realise is she's actually pulling Maoridom apart - she's an absolute trouble maker."

Rankin said he didn't think Mutu believed a word she said and would probably "hide behind" a section in the Education Act that affords her the right to speak as the "critical consciousness of society".  

Mutu's controversial comments came in response to a Department of Labour report which found Maori are more likely to express anti-immigration sentiment than Pakeha or any other ethnic group.

I'm totally with Rankin on the desirability of immigration. But Mutu's views are hardly idiosyncratic among Maori, at least as far as the NZES data suggests. 

And I get worried when employment protection accorded academics when acting in a critic and conscience role is called "hiding behind" a section of the Education Act. Especially since much of what appears on this blog enjoys that status.