The myth of the cession of Māori sovereignty [sic]

A piece from a Dr Luke Fitzmaurice-Brown is doing the rounds again. It's called 'The Myth of the Cession of Māori Sovereignty' -- and argues (unsurprisingly) that "to accept that Māori surrendered sovereignty when they signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840 requires 'a profound suspension of disbelief'."

So I figured I'd fisk the Fitzmaurice-Brown fiction.

Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown [whose opinion piece excerpts appear in blue] is a law lecturer at the university formerly known as Victoria University of Wellington. Unlike him, I'll begin by defining my terms -- or at least the most important one: "Sovereignty":

Sovereignty is the supreme authority of a state or governing body to rule itself without interference from outside powers. It typically includes a few core elements:

• Political authority – the recognised right to make and enforce laws within a territory
• Independence – freedom from control or dictation by other states or entities
• Territorial integrity – authority over a defined geographic area
• Self-determination – the capacity of a people or government to decide their own political status and course

So this is what's contested. And the opinion piece by Fitzmaurice-Brown begins with some of those basic assumption, especially those last four:

Moana Jackson once said that to accept that Māori surrendered sovereignty when they signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840 required “a profound suspension of disbelief.” As he put it, no country anywhere in the world has ever guarded its independence for hundreds of years only to then relinquish it. He argued that “to assume that is what our people did flies in the face of human history, let alone Māori history, where the notion of giving away the authority to make independent decisions is not just culturally inconceivable, it is politically impossible.”

But there's an immediate problem. He talks about a "country" that "guarded its independence." A country? What country? There was no "country" here to claim independence, let alone to guard it. For hundreds of years -- those years that Jackson claims was spent "guarding" independence -- Māori was set against Māori as each tribe, iwi and hapu struggled, not for independence but for safety. For survival. If anything were guarded here it was tribal claims -- and, more accurately, they were not guarded but contested -- heavily contested. Tell the Te Rauparaha of 1820, for example, that he was guarding the independence of these islands and he would have laughed; he was not trying to guard the "country" as he warred his way from Kawhai to Kaiapoi, but to exterminate his enemies. 

In a series of islands with no visible outsiders, even the idea of a "country" would have been absurd -- you might even say it would require “a profound suspension of disbelief.”

There is no historical disgrace in societies contesting territory over each other-- but for the sake of peace and prosperity and everything that's wroth living for, they do need to get over it. For centuries, Europe endured that struggle. The idea of "sovereignty," which Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown leaps over so quickly, came from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) which ended the massively destructive Thirty Years' War in Europe. The idea came from it that religious authority behind a throne, which created these endless wars, must be replaced with something "better": an idea of nationhood in which each state held supreme authority within its own territory — with no higher power (pope, emperor, or otherwise) entitled to override it.

In this idea, sovereignty was not contested, it was recognised -- even in its breach. Inter-tribal or inter-religious battles were replaced with a recognition of some kind of right. And some kind of peace flowed therefrom.

If we drill down a level, that right to rule within a given territorial area came from the idea that the people within that territory were not subjects, but citizens, each of them holding some kind of rights. As this idea became better understood, it was realised that sovereignty is not a primary, freestanding right of "the state" or "the nation" as an entity in itself — it is a derivative right. It exists only because, and only to the extent that it does protect the individual rights of the people living under that government. In other words: Sovereignty is downstream of individual rights, not the other way around.

This has a sharp corollary that we should spell out explicitly: sovereignty is conditional on being a rights-respecting government.

We are already several miles from Moana Jackson's historical assumptions. Territorial authority for him comes not from the consent of the ruled, but from the point of a taiaha. 

But even if we've disproved the idea that there was one "country" here to cede authority, we're still left with his claim that those several tribal leaders who did control territory here -- not by right, but by military power -- would not have given away that gradually crumbling authority. Why would they when they were (apparently) all-powerful within their fiefdoms. Fitzmaurice-Brown cites Margaret Mutu in support of this idea:

Professor Margaret Mutu [he says] has pointed out the huge amount of evidence that casts further doubt on the myth of the cession of sovereignty. She states, for example, that in 1840 the Māori population numbered about 80,000, while the settler population numbered about 2,000. That the former would give up their sovereignty to the latter seems overwhelmingly unlikely. In some parts of the country, there were single-figure numbers of settlers when Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed.

And this is true, of course. And unanswerable ... unless you go back to that realisation that the territorial authority of each tribe and tribal leader was continually contested. Signing Te Tiriti was not simply handing over the sovereignty of 80,000 Māori to 2,000 settlers for unfathomable reasons. It was an exchange: giving up the notion of continuing and ongoing territorial struggle (highlighted by the horrific self-inflicted Butchers' Bill experienced under the Musket Wars) for this new idea promulgated mostly by missionaries (however imperfectly) of peace within a given territorial area.

The rangatira who signed Te Tiriti were the modernisers of their day. As Lyndsay Head explains, their signatures ceding sovereignty were entirely rational:

"In the 1830s northern Māori sought meaning in their post-contact experience through understanding how the foreigners ordered their world. This was a period of rational and intellectual response to European culture in which Christian teaching became a political primer for change. Consciously replaying the conversion of the barbarians, the missionaries taught that peace was the condition of political and social modernity — that is, of a European-style society.
    "This impacted heavily on culture, because tribal histories were almost exclusively histories of war. Fighting was central to the social identity of Māori. [It set] up peace as the condition of modernity ...
    "Their attention to the missionaries, and subsequent support for a treaty with the British, was not without history, but a response to lived change. By this reading, then, a possible basis of Māori citizenship was rational choice.
    "The rationality of the chiefs has been obscured by the rationality of the British side of the Treaty, which entirely dominates the literature."

It would be nice if that rationality were respected rather than brushed over by the likes of Mutu and Fitzmaurice-Brown.

He continues however:

Nevertheless, the idea that Māori ceded sovereignty in 1840 has been unquestioned by many New Zealanders for much of our country’s history. In large part this has been because of the appearance of the term in the English text of the Treaty of Waitangi. Article 1 of the Treaty states that Māori signatories ceded “all the rights and powers of sovereignty” to the ‘Queen of England’. Case closed, right?

Well, no. The English text of the Treaty of Waitangi was never actually signed on February 6 at Waitangi, with every signatory on that day signing their name to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the text in te reo Māori. Subsequently around the country, about 500 Māori leaders added their name to Te Tiriti, but about 92 percent of those leaders signed the Māori text. ...

So, what does the text in te reo actually say?

Instead of mentioning ‘sovereignty’ (as the English text does), article 1 of the Māori text gives the Queen of England the power of “kāwanatanga”, a transliteration of the English term ‘government’ or ‘governance’. Kāwanatanga was likely intended as a far more limited form of authority, primarily aimed at enabling the Crown to control and discipline its own settlers (who were largely beyond the control of the English legal system in Aotearoa).

Mr FB is right, of course. Rangatira signed the te reo text, after they heard an explanation of it by the translator Henry Williams. Several of those rangatira were readers, but even those wholly reliant on Williams would have heard him say, in describing the Treaty's Article 1, that "the chiefs shall surrender to the Queen for ever the Government of the country, for the preservation of order and peace." That was from the description of his translated speech which Henry Williams wrote about to Bishop Selwyn, 12 July 1847 [reproduced in Hugh Carleton's The Life of Henry Williams]. 

Of course, they would have heard it in te reo, in which Williams translated the word "Government" as "kawanatanga katoa."  That little word katoa is rarely mentioned by today's revisionists. And with good reason. Because, as Ewen McQueen observes, "it means complete, all-encompassing, totally, without exception." 

It’s no wonder [that in 1840] it focussed the minds of the chiefs on the issue of Crown authority. ...  

    Nowhere in the historical records do we find any indication that either the chiefs or the Pākehā protagonists understood anything other than that Kāwanatanga katoa meant the Crown was being established as the pre-eminent governing authority in the land. ...

    Te Kawenata Hou' (the 'Māori New Testament') ... would have had significant influence on how the chiefs understood the Treaty. ... In 'Te Kawenata Hou' the term rangatira is a general term for leadership. In contrast kawana is a very specific term used to denote governors who represent the authority of kings.   To use [the] example of Pilate – as the kawana (governor) he represented the sovereignty of the Roman empire in Jerusalem. He had the authority to tax and to execute judgement. The local Jewish leaders who wanted Jesus crucified had to get his permission. Those leaders are described in Te Kawenata Hou as rangatira. From this the chiefs at Waitangi would have quickly understood what was being proposed in the Treaty. And it certainly did not involve them retaining 'absolute sovereignty'."

But, as everyone from Hugh Kawaharu to Matthew Hooton to Margarat Mutu to Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown would counter, what about "Article 2 of the te reo text [which] guaranteed that Māori would continue to be able to exercise 'tino rangatiratanga' over their whenua, kainga, and taonga katoa – translated by Sir Hugh Kawharu as their lands, their villages, and all their treasures. 

This is the closest the te reo text gets to mentioning sovereignty [says Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown], but in the te reo text it is a power reserved for Māori, not for the Crown.

Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown lectures in law, but appears ignorant of even the first principles of the subject. In law, an earlier Article (which often sets the fuller context) generally takes precedence over later articles. And if Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown were to read that earlier Article, he would see those words "kawanatanga katoa," i.e., complete Government, which the te reo text (as translated by Te Tiriti's first translator) says "the chiefs shall surrender to the Queen for ever." 

Why would they do that? As answer, the Article continues: "For the preservation of order and peace."

If you don't have Hugh Carleton's Life of Henry Williams (and why would you, it's poor reading even for historians) you can read Williams's transliteration of the te reo text on page 481 of Ned Fletcher's tome. Perhaps Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown could read (or re-read) it? Because it contains in only a few words the counter to the first two of his opinion piece's main points.

He continues however. 

The evidence against the cession myth is further bolstered by another document, signed in 1835 – He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tirene: the Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes of New Zealand. Generally referred to just as He Whakaputanga, it is an assertion of Māori mana, sovereignty, and independence, addressed primarily to an international audience ...

This is a pathetic claim, evidence only of the ability to grasp at straws. The Declaration was the idea of James Busby, the British Resident here desperate for something to do. Written by him, signed by thirty-four northern chiefs, it was formally acknowledged by the Crown in May 1836.  

What did it say? 

It asserted that sovereign power and authority in the land (‘Ko te Kingitanga ko te mana i te w[h]enua’) resided with Te Whakaminenga, the Confederation of United Tribes, and that no foreigners could make laws. Te Whakaminenga was to meet at Waitangi each autumn to frame laws ....

Te Whakaminenga, the Confederation of United Tribes, in which sovereignty was supposed to reside, never met to "frame laws" -- in fact it never met again. As the NZ History site acknowledges, For many,  the Declaration was primarily a matter for Ngāpuhi, who were ninety percent of the signatories. For any other rangatira to travel to Ngāpuhi territory for any reason in 1835 was still to take your life in your hands, so it's not surprising no more came of it. Historian Paul Moon sees it as a ‘regional goodwill agreement rather than a national document of truly constitutional significance.'" 

It's only significance, having been recognised by the British Crown, was to ensure that any lingering claim to sovereignty derived from the Declaration was firmly expunged by Te Tiriti -- which is precisely the opposite of Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown's argument.

Persistent as ever, however, he continues:

More recent scholarship suggests the cession of sovereignty (in the sense of all-encompassing power, including over Māori) may not have even been intended in the English text. That is a debate for another day ...

Indeed, that alleged "recent scholarship" by Ned Fletcher is when I entered that debate in two opinion pieces at Newsroom not so long ago.

... but in the meantime, the myth of the cession of sovereignty persists. ... To return to Moana Jackson’s words about the suspension of disbelief, I would add that believing Māori ceded sovereignty in 1840 also requires a suspension of humanity. Put yourself in the shoes of the actual rangatira who signed Te Tiriti. If you assume the humanity of those leaders, if you assume they were intelligent, competent, and humane, you can’t possibly reach the conclusion that they just gave away everything that mattered to them and their people. It’s hard to think otherwise unless you believe Māori were unintelligent, incompetent, and inhumane.

Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown began his opinion piece essentially suggesting that to see Māori ceding sovereignty made you dumb. To that he now adds that it makes you racist. What a vile person he must be.

If you assume the humanity of those leaders, if you assume they were intelligent, competent, and humane [he says, to repeat], you can’t possibly reach the conclusion that they just gave away everything that mattered to them and their people.

And of you think otherwise, he implies, you're a racist. Is this the lowest of the low? Of course an honest person can reach that conclusion. To cite just Lyndsay Head above, she argues it was precisely the intelligence, competence, and humanity of these modernising rangatira that recognised Māori citizenship within a British legal paradigm was, in 1840, a completely rational choice. 

Does Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown answer that? Of course not.

Lyndsay Head's argument is only reinforced by what the signatories themselves were reported to have said in that first signing (as we can read in Colenso's account), and what they said about their signing two decades later in Kohimarama -- what Claudia Orange once called the renewal of a Covenant.

The Kohimarama Conference began with then Governor Gore Browne recalling to those assembled (including more than 100 rangatira from Ngāpuhi in the north to Ngai Tahu in the south, who by then were mostly competent in English, and who could also enjoy translations into to reo):

On assuming the Sovereignty of New Zealand Her Majesty extended to her Maori subjects her Royal protection, engaging to defend New Zealand and the Maori people from all aggressions by any foreign power, and imparting to them all the rights and privileges of British subjects; and she confirmed and guaranteed to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand, and to the respective families and individuals thereof, the full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates, forests, fisheries, and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess, so long as it is their wish to retain the same in their possession.
    In return for these advantages the Chiefs who signed the Treaty of Waitangi ceded for themselves and their people to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty which they collectively or individually possessed or might be supposed to exercise or possess.

The astute reader will notice that these are almost exactly the words to which Mr Fitzmurice-Brown objects -- that is to say, almost a recapitulation of the Treaty terms. No one rose to object.

The Conference itself concluded on 10 August 1860 with rangatira gathered there giving unanimous agreement that:

the several Chiefs, members thereof, are pledged to each other to do nothing inconsistent with their declared recognition of the Queen's sovereignty and of the union of the two races ... [16] 

It was Apirana Ngata six decades later who reminded Māori that

The Government placed in the hands of the Queen of England, the sovereignty [mana] and the authority to make laws. ... it made the one law for the Maori and the Pakeha. If you think these things are wrong and bad then blame our ancestors who gave away their rights in the days when they were powerful.
    Those ancestors were not stupid. They knew what they were about, and and had a pretty fair idea of what they were promised.

But perhaps they knew less about what they were agreeing to and signing than geniuses like Mr Fitzmaurice-Brown, and the intellectual giants who are sharing his work on social media.

"Is the concept of personal responsibility foreign to Maori? I don’t believe it is.

"The latest 'Salvation Army State of the Nation Report 2026' presents a litany of excuses for the sorry state of New Zealand’s social statistics, in particular, those relating to Maori. ...

"'The over representation of Māori tamariki and rangatahi in state care [is said to] reflect ... the enduring impacts of colonisation and breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi ... disproportionate inequities are due to current systems and the lasting impacts of colonisation ... and institutional racism...'
    '[T]angata whenua experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness, ... disrupts connections to te ao Māori and limits the ability to exercise tino rangatiratanga. ...'
    'Colonial policies, land alienation and the imposition of state justice systems that do not represent partnership have had long‑lasting effects that continue to shape Māori experiences in the criminal justice system today.' ...

"The [report's] 'Maori lens' response run to pages. ... 

"[I]s the concept of personal responsibility foreign to Maori? I don’t believe it is. ...

"In the face of this report the best response the government could make is to defund the Salvation Army for being part of the problem."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'A litany of excuses'

"It’s NZ’s own Emancipation Proclamation!"

Good to see more folk acknowledging that Waitangi Day should also be recognised as NZ's Emancipation Day. 

Posted on the 6th, by David Farrar, was this:

Today we celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi – a day which should be called Emancipation Day. ....

We should celebrate 6 February 1840 as the day slavery was made illegal in New Zealand and tens of thousands of Maori slaves gained the rights of British citizens.

Yes, we should. After all, as someone has been saying for a while now:

It’s NZ’s own Emancipation Proclamation! 

At dawn

Hobson's grave, at the end of K Rd, beside Grafton Bridge.
Worth a dawn visit on Feb 6?

At dawn tomorrow an assorted rabble of politicians, protesters and hosts will make an appearance up at Waitangi.

I might do something different.

At dawn (to be fair, it will almost certainly be more like morning-tea time) I might head along the road to the grave of William Hobson, New Zealand's ailing first governor who died after barely two years in office. I might head along there to his forgotten resting place and, on the anniversary of perhaps his only political triumph,  pay him due respect.

It's the least I can do.

Now, while Hobson was a dashing sea captain, and one of the best at clearing slavers and pirates out of the Caribbean — his daring exploits were the basis of a Hornblower-like novel by Michael Scott (1789–1835), several of Frederick Marryat's naval stories— eat your heart out Johnny Depp—his appointment as consul here is yet another data point in the theory that everyone will eventually be promoted one job above their level of competence.

He was awful. He knew little of the treaty he co-authored. He battled metaphorically with settlers and govt finances. He suppressed newspapers who criticised him. His small staff, the dregs of the NSW administration cunningly offloaded onto the political naif by the NSW governor, exploited his naivety to line their own pockets. And he left his own family in dire financial straits at his death.

But he did leave behind the rudiments of and respect for the Rule of Law. And he was an instrument, and a powerful one, in removing pirates from the world’s trade routes and eradicating slavery. 

Michael Joseph Savage has as his sainted memorial a whole beautifully-presented mausoleum overlooking the Waitemata Harbour. The late governor Hobson deserves more than to be forgotten about under a disrespected bridge beside a busy motorway.

'Power-sharing' in the classroom

"Across New Zealand, schools are declaring that they will 'give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi.'

"Many parents assume this means teaching New Zealand history or acknowledging Māori culture. In reality, in modern policy language, it means something far more structural.

"To 'give effect' to Te Tiriti generally means embedding Treaty principles into governance, leadership, and decision-making. It often involves redefining power-sharing arrangements, treating Māori as governance partners, and redesigning institutional systems around Treaty-based frameworks.

"This is not merely education. It is a constitutional and governance shift. The idea of 'partnership' is modern — not original. New Zealand did not operate as a partnership state for most of its history. The modern concepts of 'partnership,' 'principles of the Treaty,' and co-governance emerged largely in the 1980s through court decisions and Waitangi Tribunal reports. These ideas are not written into the original 1840 texts.

"What is happening now is not preservation of an old system. It is the adoption of a modern constitutional interpretation that remains highly contested within public debate."

~ Judy Gill from her post 'What “Giving effect to Te Tiriti” means in schools – and how zoning denies parents real choice'

Seeking to find a te reo word to describe the unfamiliar concept of property rights has made for a disastrous confusion

"Article Two of Te Tiriti promises to preserve tino rangatiratanga; courts have interpreted this in various ways to mean that chiefs (Rangatira) retain some kind of chiefly power. But Te Tiriti itself fails to fully clarify of what that power consists. Lawyers since have taken full advantage of this imprecision ... 

"In seeking to find a te reo word to describe the unfamiliar concept of property rights, [Te Tiriti's authors have] unfortunately conflated a legitimate recognition of an individual right to property with an analogy to feudalism and a non-existent claim to a collective right. But feudalism is a busted flush. And "the expression 'collective rights' is a contradiction in terms.”

"This then makes for a disastrous confusion. Confusion, because the intent of Article Two is to impart property rights, an individual right. But the reference to "chieftainship" makes the promise about collective tribal rights over land with the tribes' rights embodied in a chief.  Disastrous because Te Tiriti should have treated all Maori as individuals instead of as members of a tribe. But it really does nothing of the sort except by implication.

"Instead, as written, it cemented in and buttressed the tribal leadership and communal structures that already existed here —encouraging the survival of this wreck of a system until morphing, as it has today, into this mongrelised sub-group of pseudo-aristocracy: of Neotribal Cronyism. 

"This is not what was aimed at, but it is what was written. But the law cannot protect a non-existent right. As [former Chief Justice] William Martin wrote in 1860, in seeking to understand the intent of the authors,

'This tribal right is clearly a right of property… To themselves they retained what they understood full well, the "tino Rangatiratanga,""full Chiefship," in respect of all their lands…"'

"This is not trivial. This is why sovereignty, was ceded. This is what we must understand. Tino rangatiratanga ('a right of property') under kāwanatanga katoa (the 'complete Government') of the British Queen.

“'EVEN THE 'TINO' OF the Māori version is better understood in this context,' argues [Ewen] McQueen. 'It does not mean that the chiefs’ authority is unqualified in a government sense. Rather it is Henry Williams’s translation of how the chiefs would retain possession of the lands, forests and fisheries. The English version emphasised such possession would continue ‘full exclusive and undisturbed.’ Williams has rendered this concept as ‘tino’ rangatiratanga. It is about Māori retaining full agency over their land and resources. It is not a statement about unqualified political sovereignty.' [Emphasis mine.]

"So 'rangatiratanga' relates to ownership. 'Tino' gives force to this relationship, giving it the force of a property right."

~ Yours Truly from my post 'Rangatiratanga means "Ownership"'

Rangatiratanga means "Ownership"

IT MIGHT SURPRISE YOU to know, since so much hangs upon it, that the Treaty's term 'tino rangatiratanga' is 'a missionary neologism'—one of many. [1] Its root word is ‘rangatira,’ which was of course an original te reo word meaning ‘chief.’ This new word coined by Williams then stresses the power, authority, and agency of the chief.

Article Two of Te Tiriti promises to preserve tino rangatiratanga; courts have interpreted this in various ways to mean that chiefs (Rangatira) retain some kind of chiefly power. But Te Tiriti itself fails to fully clarify of what that power consists. [2] Lawyers since have taken advantage of this imprecision by arguing that it means some kind of chiefly sovereignty (although not over the whole country, since each iwi only extended so far). Ned Fletcher and others have argued since that the English text agrees with this idea, saying that the sovereignty ceded by the Treaty was “compatible with ongoing tribal self-government,” suggesting then that “tino rangatiratanga” means Māori self-government. 

His view is both an expansion and a clarification of the mainstream view of what “tino rangatiratanga” might mean.

Context is important. Like most law, Te Tiriti is hierarchical. Article One focusses on sovereignty; Article Two has a focus on land and resources. There was a logical progression from one Article to another, with the first Article, logically and in law, taking precedence. Sovereignty first, then clarifying what that sovereignty is for.

So with this context then, what is chieftainship about? Answer: It is primarily about ownership — about ownership of that land and those resources. But it is ownership in a "chiefly" sense, analogising the control of a chief over a tribe's land and resources to that of a property right. In his book One Sun in the Sky, author Ewen McQueen explains why Williams's translation reverts to the collective to offer this guarantees:

It is true that in translation Henry Williams has taken an approach that better aligns with the more [collectivist] Māori world-view, rather than the more individualistic European outlook. As such the Māori version does not refer to individuals holding exclusive possession of property. Instead we find chiefs exercising “chieftainship over the lands, villages and all their treasures. [3]

In seeking to find a te reo word to describe the unfamiliar concept of property rights, Williams has unfortunately conflated a legitimate recognition of an individual right to property with a non-existent claim to a collective right. "But the expression 'collective rights' is a contradiction in terms.” [4]

This then makes for a disastrous confusion. Confusion, because the intent of Article Two is to impart property rights, an individual right. But the reference to chieftainship is about collective tribal rights over land.  Disastrous because Te Tiriti should have treated all Maori as individuals instead of as members of a tribe. But it really does nothing of the sort except by implication.

Instead, as written, it cemented in and buttressed the tribal leadership and communal structures that already existed here —encouraging the survival of this wreck of a system until morphing, as it has today, into this mongrelised sub-group of pseudo-aristocracy: of Neotribal Cronyism. 

Nonetheless, as [former Chief Justice] William Martin wrote in 1860,

"This tribal right is clearly a right of property… To themselves they retained what they understood full well, the ‘tino Rangatiratanga,’ ‘full Chiefship,’ in respect of all their lands…’” [5]

This is not trivial. This is why sovereignty, was ceded.

“EVEN THE 'TINO' OF the Māori version is better understood in this context,” argues McQueen. “It does not mean that the chiefs’ authority is unqualified in a government sense. Rather it is Henry Williams’s translation of how the chiefs would retain possession of the lands, forests and fisheries. The English version emphasised such possession would continue ‘full exclusive and undisturbed.’ Williams has rendered this concept as ‘tino’ rangatiratanga. It is about Māori retaining full agency over their land and resources. It is not a statement about unqualified political sovereignty.” [Emphasis mine.]

So “rangatiratanga” relates to ownership. “Tino” gives force to this relationship, giving it the force of a property right.

NOTES:

[1] Paul Moon, The Path to the Treaty of Waitangi, David Ling Publishing, (2002) p. 147

[2] Hugh Kawharu back-translates te tino rangatiratanga as 'the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship,' which doesn't quite clarify things, although the next phrase tries, the Queen guaranteeing "to protect the Chiefs, the subtribes and all the people of New Zealand in the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures ..."
    In Ned Fletcher's reconstructed English text, the corresponding phrase is "full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates, Forests Fisheries and other properties ... "

[3] Ewen McQueen, One Sun in the Sky, Galatas Press (2020), p. 42-43. 

[4] Ayn Rand, ‘Collectivized Rights,’ in The Virtue of Selfishness, New York, Signet, June 1963

[5] William Martin, The Taranaki Question, The Melanesian Press(1860), p. 9.

[This post is based on the 2024 post at my NZ History blog: 'POSTSCRIPT 2: Rangatiratanga as Ownership'

RELATED:

• It's still the "chieftainship" that is the problem — NOT PC
• Kawanatanga katoa > tino rangatiratanga — A POLITICALLY INCORRECT HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND
• When was sovereignty properly established here?  — A POLITICALLY INCORRECT HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND
• Ned's Puzzling Treaty — NEWSROOM

"The modern trend of cultural self-flagellation is not justice—it is neurosis."

"In no other Western democracy does the ordinary citizen so enthusiastically offer themselves as a sacrificial vessel for the errors of their rulers. In no other civil society are people so eager to drape themselves in guilt not their own, speak in a borrowed tongue they do not understand, and recite protocols they do not believe—just to win the favour of cultural gatekeepers they neither elected nor dared challenge. In modern New Zealand, this is not called confusion. It is called reconciliation. And it is strangling the 'republic of reason.' ...

"The average New Zealander believes they are good, fair-minded, and kind. And yet, they are told constantly that they live on stolen land, speak a colonial language, and benefit daily from the suppression of an indigenous people. This contradiction is unbearable. It creates a psychic tension that must be resolved—not with critical thinking, but with compensatory behaviour.

"So, they compensate. They sprinkle their speech with Māori words, not out of fluency but as offerings. They attend pōwhiri and pretend to understand its form. They sit on plastic chairs in air-conditioned government buildings and bow their heads solemnly as karakia are recited before reports on bus routes and waste disposal. The absurdity of the context is ignored, because the ritual is not about meaning—it is about atonement. Every mispronounced 'kia or'” is an apology. Every silent moment of reverence at a public hui is a plea: Please don’t judge me for history. I am one of the good ones. ...

"It is tempting to see this as mere virtue signalling. But that phrase, while accurate, is too casual. This is something more pervasive: a psychological restructuring of identity around perpetual apology. ... In New Zealand, citizens protect the ideological system that burdens them with cultural obligations not their own, because the alternative—standing up and saying 'this is not my guilt to carry'—would isolate them from polite society. They would be called racist. Or coloniser. Or worse: ignorant.

"And so, they consent. They normalise. They absorb the new rites with grim enthusiasm. ...

"The cost is not only borne by those who dissent. It is borne by the entire citizenry, who are denied the right to speak as equals—not because someone silences them, but because they silence themselves. ...

"This [cost] is not metaphorical. It is embedded in local government planning, where iwi consultation must be undertaken not by the Crown, but by the ratepayer. It is found in education, where Māori epistemology is presented not as one knowledge system among many, but as sacred truth. It is found in law and medicine, where cultural considerations override evidence, and where failure to understand tribal expectations becomes a professional liability. These are not expressions of biculturalism. They are acts of bureaucratic displacement—where the Crown shrugs off its historic responsibilities and says to the public: you carry this now. ...

"But the cruelty of this pact is that it can never be fulfilled. The shame does not diminish. The obligations do not reduce. The expectations only grow. Because the more one proves loyalty, the more one must keep proving it. The performative must become perpetual....

"What is needed now is not defiance, but clarity. Citizens must recover the ability to distinguish between respect and self-erasure. Between cultural inclusion and ideological submission. Between historical accountability and personal guilt. The Treaty may impose duties upon the Crown—but it does not impose them upon every individual who happens to be born here. One can honour history without inheriting its sins. One can affirm Māori dignity without abandoning civic equality. ...

"[T]he modern trend of cultural self-flagellation is not justice—it is neurosis. It is the psychological aftershock of a nation that has lost confidence in itself."

~ Zoran Rakovic from his post 'The Altar of Atonement: How New Zealanders Came to Worship Their Own Submission'

Legal Privilege: Politicians not Treaty

"Politicians eagerly do what the Treaty of Waitangi does not: they dispense [political] favours and [legal] privileges to Māori.
    "They want to establish 'partnerships' not because the Treaty demands them, but because they claim to be invoking 'principles' established more than 100 years after the treaty’s signing."

~ Bob Edlin from his post 'No, it’s not the Treaty which grants privileges to Māori – it’s politicians'

"Treaty of Waitangi politics intrude ever more conspicuously into many areas of our society and our public life." Including internet access!

"Treaty of Waitangi politics intrude ever more conspicuously into many areas of our society and our public life. 

• "Even New Zealand’s left-leaning mainstream media have picked up on the University of Auckland's compulsory indoctrination-rich Waipapa Taumata Rau course
• "Janet Dickson’s challenge to the Real Estate Authority over their compulsion on estate agents to undertake a compulsory professional development module called Te Kākano (The Seed)
• "another example in tertiary education concerns efforts to decolonise [sic] the Massey University BA degree ...

"Such examples barely lift the lid on the extent of Treaty indoctrination across the public service, the education and research sectors, businesses and professional regulatory bodies. For example, 

• the Midwifery Council’s Scope of Practice
• the cultural safety requirements imposed on practitioners by the New Zealand Psychologists Board, and 
• the Treaty-centric competency standards for New Zealand pharmacists ...

"A very heavy focus on one population is evident in the charters, mission statements and constitutions of many organisations in New Zealand. ... [I]t seems that even the Internet cannot escape the current identity politics. ... [even if s]uch technology is universally available to the entire world and, by its very nature, is not exclusive to any one ethnicity. In fact, it is one of the most democratising of any technology ...

"[And yet] the InternetNZ Council [which operates the regional registry for New Zealand, i.e, the .nz Register]... has on its agenda the ... overarching Strategic Goal of 'Centring Te Tiriti o Waitangi' as a Strategic Priority, and ethno-centric preferences that dominate five Strategic Goals and 13 out of 25 sub-goals [including] ...  

• Implement Ngā Pae: Pae Kākano | Horizon 1....
• understand what it means to InternetNZ | Ipurangi Aotearoa Group to be Tiriti-centric....
• embed Te Tiriti through our strategies, policies, practices, people capability to achieve digital equity, digital inclusion and access for Māori ...
• [ensure] a Te Tiriti o Waitangi perspective guides everything we do. ...
• [ensure] investment priorities are guided by clear objectives that promote equity, align with priorities identified by Māori in the sector.

"It is perfectly reasonable that effective engagement with Māori, as with all stakeholders, should be part of the mission of InternetNZ. However, by declaring that it will be Te Tiriti-centric, InternetNZ, like our universities, is implicitly taking a political stance, when as a user-focused organisation it should remain entirely neutral....

"The stated goals stand at odds with the principles of [worldwide] internet governance as identified, for example, by the global Internet Society[which undertakes] the global management of the Internet.  ...

"As a critical facility for Internet access for New Zealanders, InternetNZ needs simply to recommit to the fundamental principles of a globally interconnected world, that demonstrate no preference for any particular ethnic, religious, social, economic, national, cultural or racial grouping. ... 

"[W]e must avoid even the remote possibility that access to a .nz domain name could be frustrated because the user may not support one or more of the strategic goals outlined above, or New Zealanders’ rights and responsibilities being differentiated by race."

~ John Raine and David Lillis from their post 'In Case You Were Wondering – InternetNZ and the Treaty'

Vale Bruce Moon (1930-2025)

Renegade historian Bruce Moon passed away peacefully yesterday morning. Many NOT PC readers will be aware of his work, perhaps from his contributions to the books 'Twisting the Treaty' or 'One Treaty, One Nation' (to which I also contributed), or from one of his many articles, letters, or submissions to Parliament.

Roger Child's obituary below gives us a glimpse of the man we have lost. 

The passing of leading historian Bruce Moon

By Roger Childs

"Of all the fake history with which New Zealand is swamped today, nothing is more

blatant than the claim that “Aotearoa” is, or was, the Maori name for our country."

~ Bruce Moon

Sadly I never met Bruce Moon face to face, but we did exchange scores of e-mails. Like Waikanae’s John Robinson, Bruce was a mathematician and scientist who came to history later in life. Like many of us, he couldn’t believe how many so called “respected historians” like Anne Salmond, Jock Phillips and Vincent O’Malley twisted elements of our country’s story, notably the history of Maori-Settler relations, and of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Bruce was a stickler for evidence-based history—taking notice of what people who witnessed the actual events had to say. (In his writing he was meticulous in citing his sources.) He rejected “presentism” and the dishonesty of many Maori activists and their fellow-travelers in looking back at events from a one-sided point of view, often without quoting references.

He was also dismayed at the obsession of the mainstream media in promoting the view that Natives/New Zealanders (only called “Maori” from the 1840s), had been given a hard time by settler governments, when in the Treaty of Waitangi —and in subsequent legislation like the establishment of four special seats in parliament and votes for women —they had been treated humanely.

No Maori land was “stolen,” his writing argued, and confiscations only occurred when forewarned tribes rebelled against the government. Compare the Maori’s experience of colonisation with Aborigines in Australia, the black tribes of South Africa and Native Americans in the United States.

A distinguished career

Bruce Moon was born in Christchurch in 1930 and after attending Southland Boys High School he took his degree at Otago University, majoring in mathematics. He pursued a career in computer science, working in this field in England, Australia and New Zealand. In 1981 he became General Manger of Business Computers Limited. He was a Past President of the NZ Computer Society.

Later he lectured in mathematics at Canterbury University, rising to become Associate Professor. After retiring he taught mathematics and science in a mission school in Vanuatu; was a volunteer in an Indian village for disabled people; and taught English and physics to Tibetan refugees.

When he started looking closely at New Zealand history late in life, he was amazed at how some historians twisted the truth,  basing their conclusions too often on unreliable oral history.

Bruce was also appalled at Maori academics making connections between modern-day events and past treatment of Maori.  In commenting on the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attacks, for example, Waikato University’s Leonie Pihama and Tom Roa claimed that Maori had been victims to acts of terrorism in Aotearoa in the past. Bruce took them to task in a long open letter which ended: "I accuse you of using the tragic events in Christchurch for an inexcusable attempt to advance a racist political agenda and in contempt of the fine principles of scholarship which a university should stand by."

Speaking the truth to all

For some people, Bruce Moon was a man to fear! Some years ago he was scheduled to speak on 'Twisting the Treaty and other Fake History' in Nelson, but the Council was worried there would be trouble, so would not allow one of their venues to be used. The talk now called 'A Jaundiced View of the Treaty' was held later with no problems. Not surprisingly, the House Full sign went up.

The fight at Rangiaohia [sic] for the recovery of McHale’s body, February 21 1864 (excerpt, colourised), by L.A. Wilson

A few years back Stuff made the ludicrous decision to apologise to Maori for nasty things Stuff-owned papers had said in the past. These articles, claiming to correct untruths of the past, used as their sources people like  tribal leaders and "woke" historian Vincent O’Malley. One article repeated the lies about a “massacre” at Rangiaowhia in 1864. Quite independently, Bruce and I protested in letters to the paper. Unsurprisingly neither was published.  [One of Bruce's articles on which his letter is based is here. My own piece on the incidents at Rangiaowhia, and some of their context, is here. - Ed.]

When Hamilton’s Bishop Stephen Lowe preached a sermon in 2021 about the “massacre,” he also wrote to the Catholic bishops of New Zealand. In the letter he explained the truth about General Cameron’s largely peaceful occupation of the town, and dispelled the myths about a “massacre.” In Bruce’s words, the bishops addressed had neither the courtesy nor the courage to reply.

Bruce will be greatly missed

It is wonderful that Bruce lasted into his mid-nineties. To the end he remained a staunch advocate for getting our history right, and ensuring that our children are taught the truth.

He was a contributor to the excellent Tross publication One Treaty, One Nation with articles on 'There is Only One Treaty' and 'A Very Greedy Tribe – Ngai Tahu.' He also assembled the best of his writings and letters in a collection titled New Zealand: The Fair Colony.

A stickler for truth, evidence, honesty and fairness, Bruce will long be remembered as one of New Zealand’s greatest historians— one with courage and integrity and decency.  He was truly both a gentleman and a scholar.

* * * * 

Roger Childs is a writer and freelance journalist. 

He is a former history and geography teacher, who wrote or co-authored 10 school textbooks. 

His article previously appeared at the Waikenae Watch website.

More rights for Māori, says Māori Party co-leader

Q: "To be totally clear do Māori have more rights than non-Māori New Zealanders?"
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: "Māori have rights as tangata whenua because we're indigenous ..."
Q: "...and so so those are more rights, right?"
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: "I think those are, um, more also responsibilities and obligations ..."

Q: "So I just want to be really clear here: you're Māori, I'm not Māori, do you have more rights than me in New Zealand?"
Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: "I have more obligations and I think I do also have more rights with those obligations, absolutely afforded under Tiriti. ...

Q: "So so do you think then if if Te Tiriti guarantees a carve-out for Māori-specific rights, do you think that if we are to form modern New Zealand on a constitutional basis around Te Tiriti O Waitangi, that we have different standards of citizenship?"

Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: "We have different expectations and different rights, absolutely. ... Extra rights absolutely are afforded because we are indigenous, but everyone else gets to be consulted in kaupapa [per our principle/our philosophy]." 

~ Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer from her TVNZ interview 24 Nov 2024

 

"Seymour is only doing openly what Māori nationalists and their Pakeha allies have been doing, quietly, for the past 50 years."

"David Seymour is right. His bill might be killed at its Second Reading, but the issues he has raised will not die. ...
    "David Seymour’s great sin has been to offer an alternative to this covert effort to change the constitution of New Zealand by changing the Treaty’s historical meaning. Those who argue that the Treaty Principles Bill is a blatant attempt to re-write the Treaty are quite right. What they omit to say, however, is that Seymour is only doing openly what Māori nationalists and their Pakeha allies have been doing, quietly, in legal chambers, common-rooms, and public service offices for the past 50 years.
    "The critical difference, of course, is that Seymour was proposing to give the rest of us a vote on his version."

~ Chris Trotter from his post 'Beyond Question?'

"Parliament said in 1975 that the Treaty has two texts, when it does not, and justified recourse to 'principles' of the Treaty because of the fiction that the Treaty has two texts."

"[T]he idea that the Treaty has principles first surfaced publicly in Labour’s manifesto for the 1972 general election. It subsequently gained legislative status by its inclusion in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. ... giving the Waitangi Tribunal jurisdiction to make recommendations based on findings that actions were contrary to or inconsistent with the principles of the Treaty, rather than findings that actions which were a breach of the Treaty itself. 

    "[The reason for this, it was argued,] was that the treaty has two texts, one in Māori and the other in English. ... But as I have shown there is only one text, the one that was signed at Waitangi. There are two texts only because the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 said that there are. ....

"So, the situation is that Parliament said in 1975 that the Treaty has two texts, when it does not, and justified recourse to 'principles' of the Treaty because of the fiction that the Treaty has two texts. ...
    "The solution to the problem Parliament created must be either to undo what was done in 1975 upon the basis that what was done was based on flawed reasoning, or to accept that what has been done is done and to remedy the 1975 omission, by Parliament’s doing what it could have done in 1975 and defining the principles to be applied by the Waitangi Tribunal, the courts, and those agencies which are required in some way to observe the principles."

~ Gary Judd from his post 'Treaty of Waitangi “principles” — only one text'

"It has only just been revealed that the judiciary invented their own set of Treaty Principles..."

"The Treaty Debate is great. We've just found out, courtesy of our King's Counsels, what has broken the economic back of this nation. It has only just been revealed, thanks to their letter to the PM, that the judiciary invented their own set of Treaty Principles. ...
    "Most of us had heard about the 'principles' before, but until the Treaty Debate was opened recently, we had no idea that they were so embedded [by lawyers and judges] into our Constitutional arrangements.
    "Many countries have affirmative action programs. However I know of no country that has [embedded within it] a constitutional requirement of 'outcomes,' not opportunities, being equalised amongst the citizenry, other than maybe a few Communist States that failed & no longer exist. ...
    "[O]ur Judiciary seem not have the foggiest idea of the practicalities of the problem. Once you put equitable outcomes, not opportunities, in a Constitution, you're requiring governments to raise massive tax revenues to achieve equalisation. You're shifting taxation powers from elected officials to judges. Let's at least be grateful to our King's Counsels for explaining why NZ's standard of living has been falling, harming the livelihoods of all ethnicities."

~ Robert MacCulloch from his post 'Now We Know how NZ's economy became broken: The Judiciary wrote a Communist-style Constitution without Consultation; without People Knowing.'

Kawanatanga katoa > tino rangatiratanga

"'There’s no doubt that both Māori and Pākehā in 1840 understood tino rangatiratanga to be a bigger deal than kāwanatanga” [says an idiot called Hooton]. However whilst this is undoubtedly the modernist position on how we should interpret the Treaty, the historical evidence suggests something very different.
    "Article One of the Treaty states that the chiefs agreed to 'give absolutely to the Queen of England forever, the complete Government (Kāwanatanga katoa) over their land' ...
    "[T]hat little word katoa ... is rarely mentioned. But it means complete, all-encompassing, totally, without exception. It’s no wonder [that in 1840] it focussed the minds of the chiefs on the issue of Crown authority. ...
    "Nowhere in the historical records do we find any indication that either the chiefs or the Pākehā protagonists understood anything other than that Kāwanatanga katoa meant the Crown was being established as the pre-eminent governing authority in the land. ...
    "'Te Kawenata Hou' (the 'Māori New Testament') ... would have had significant influence on how the chiefs understood the Treaty. ... In 'Te Kawenata Hou' the term rangatira is a general term for leadership. In contrast kawana is a very specific term used to denote governors who represent the authority of kings. To use [the] example of Pilate – as the kawana (governor) he represented the sovereignty of the Roman empire in Jerusalem. He had the authority to tax and to execute judgement. The local Jewish leaders who wanted Jesus crucified had to get his permission. Those leaders are described in Te Kawenata Hou as rangatira. From this the chiefs at Waitangi would have quickly understood what was being proposed in the Treaty. And it certainly did not involve them retaining 'absolute sovereignty'."

~ Ewen McQueen from his post 'Kāwanatanga katoa was the fundamental question at Waitangi'

Mush ado about ACT's (revised) Treaty Principles Bill.

 

Cartoon by Nick Kim

We now have our first look at the wording to be used in ACT's proposed Treaty Principles Bill. 

You'll recall that the aim of the Bill is not for Parliament to redefine Te Tiriti, which lacks too much to ever become a fully-founding document in any case, but to define —for the first time — the Principles that Geoffrey Palmer and followers began inserting into law without definition, and without any guidance to the courts. Which left the courts (and the self-serving Waitangi Tribunal) to simply make them up. And has transformed Te Tiriti into a welfare cheque for tribal leaders.

The Bill's proposed wording is grouped under three headings, to match the three Treaty/Tiriti articles: 

1. Civil Government; 
2. Rights of Hapu and Iwi Māori; and
3. Rights to Equality.

David Farrar has helpfully laid out the proposed wording against both ACT's initial proposal and the official "Kawharu" translation of Te Tiriti. It's quickly apparent that the weasel words of "partnership" and "participation" haven't been slipped in. And that "protection" only occurs in association with the word "rights," as it did in the original document. But also that a whole lot of precision has been lost. Much has been added to dilute the impact of the previously clear exposition of principle. Politically-necessary mush perhaps, but mush is mush, gumming up the finely-grinding machinery of law.

And what's been lost, I think, is the clear Lockean principle of the Treaty: i.e., that tribal sovereignty was being ceded in return for protection of natural rights, including the right to private property. In which case, is anything to be gained by the Bill?

Let's have a look article by article ...

The First Article is the sovereignty article. About who governs. Which this says, in so many words. But in bending over backwards to avoid the 's' word, a whole lot of mush has been added. Remember that good, objective law should be rights-based, and allow you to know in advance what you can and can't do by law — and since law is, or can be, a matter of life and death, one needs to know with precision. So what the hell does "in the best interests of everyone" mean precisely? How will the courts decide (since it is they, and the Waitangi Tribunal who will interpret this in their own best interests) what should be done for "the maintenance of a free and democratic society."

The Second Article used to be known as the Property Article. The recognition of the property held by tribes and tribal leaders,  and the insistence that government agents would have a coercive monopoly in buying it from them. So, about property rights, and how they're transferred. The Bill however now suggests the principle to be drawn from this clause is one about rights in general. Which is a different thing (especially since bogus "rights," requiring the labour of others, are being constantly added and expanded).

"The Crown recognises the rights that hapū and iwi had when they signed the Treaty." What were those rights? More mush. The Bill would again require the courts and Waitangi Tribunal to decide — oh, and they will! And remember that these are phoney collective rights, not individual rights. (And to thrive here as equals, as I've said before, we need to take off our collectivist lenses.)

And what's this? "Those rights differ from the rights everyone has a reasonable expectation to enjoy ..." Really? Oh: " ... only when they are specified in legislation, Treaty settlements, or other agreement with the Crown."  Ah: meaning that any explicitly race-based legislation etc. has to be explicit in its racial favouritism. Which is probably about as much as one can now expect, but much less than one would have hoped for. 

And, as everywhere else in New Zealand law, property rights have disappeared.

This Article has suffered the least damage in the re-write. And as an added bonus, the concept of "duties" has been lost, and "protection" clarified to be about protection by law, an equal protection, not about unspecified welfare claims for "ordinary New Zealanders," i.e., Māori (which is how this clause has begun to be interpreted by activists and the Tribunal). So maybe an improvement through the added mush — though a clear contradiction with the second article: how, for example does one enjoy "the same fundamental human rights without discrimination" if government can legislate for collective 'rights' for hapū and iwi that "differ from the rights everyone [else] has a reasonable expectation to enjoy"?

The answer, of course, is at the back of the next Tribunal report. Just under the money-amount awarded to claimants.

Remember that the words "the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi" have been inserted at the heart of every second bill that's passed through Parliament, so any mush injected here would infect every second law everywhere.

And it's now full of mush.

That's not an improvement.

The Bill may not be successful by the standard of "will it be passed into law." But it's already wildly successful by the standard of "let's talk about these made-up principles, and about what they should be."

But I'm not sure these re-writes should be part of law.

"It has sometimes been mentioned that the Chiefs did not have sovereignty to cede ... "

"A debate has recently begun between the Government and the Maoris regarding sovereignty ... That debate is incoherent and unnecessary and I will explain why. ...
    "Cede means 'give up (power or territory)' ('Oxford Concise Dictionary'), which entails that they must first have it. The Treaty itself says, the chiefs 'give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government [kawanatanga katoa] over their land' (trans. I.H. Kawharu). That does not require that they give up their chiefly power or territory. The problem with the debate is that it does not allow for an arrangement whereby both the Queen's power of sovereignty and the chiefs’ power of rangatiratanga could exist together.

    "It has sometimes been mentioned that the Chiefs did not have sovereignty to cede. ... '[N]ational sovereignty ... was absent from the Maori communities in the country,' [explains Paul Moon in his 2002 book The Path to the Treaty of Waitangi] 'so the British were essentially asking for permission to acquire a type of sovereign rule which Maori would not have to sacrifice, as they did not possess it. This is distinct from the superficial interpretation ... in which Maori arbitrarily surrendered all their sovereign rights and powers to the Crown.'

    "So, by Article 1 of the Treaty, the chiefs did not cede sovereignty but instead accepted sovereignty; that is, they agreed that they would be subject to the Crown. That does not necessarily mean that they relinquished their chieftainship (tino rangatiratanga). That suggests an arrangement similar to the Magna Carta in which the Barons are subject to King John. The Barons were still barons with the dignity and estate of a barony, but as such they are subject to the Crown. ...

"Maori chieftainship was not like British sovereignty. The sovereignty (kawanatanga katoa) referred to in Article 1 is with respect of all of New Zealand whereas chieftainship is with respect of an individual tribe. There were about 100,000 Maori at the time of the Treaty which about 500 chiefs signed and others did not, so the tribes were quite small and on average each comprised around only 200 people at most. Chieftainship therefore entailed much less authority over a much simpler social structure than the government (kawanatanga katoa) of the entire country that was proposed and subsequently implemented by the British. It is not just a matter of degree; they are categorically different and provide very different outcomes of evolutionary significance."

~ Barrie Davis from his article 'Seeding Sovereignty in the Spring'

"...in exchange for such protection, Māori agreed to being governed by an authority - maybe not necessarily 'sovereign' - but at least one promoting a common law and order? Isn't that identical to John Locke's idea...?"

"On the Treaty, isn't the argument, even of Te Pāti Māori and its supporters, that it was framed to protect and guarantee the private property rights of Māori? That, in exchange for such protection, Māori agreed to being governed by an authority - maybe not necessarily 'sovereign' - but at least one promoting a common law and order? Isn't that identical to John Locke's idea that 'humans, though free, equal, and independent, are obliged under the law of nature to respect each other’s rights to life, liberty, and property.' That we should 'agree to form a government in order to institute an impartial power capable of arbitrating disputes and redressing injuries.' Locke held that the obligation to obey civil government under the social contract was conditional upon the protection of our natural rights, including the right to private property. Whether it was John Locke and the US Constitution, or the Treaty of Waitangi, aren't we all talking similar ideas with similar aims in mind?"

~ Robert MacCulloch. from his post 'Why does Professor Anne Salmond Defend the Treaty by Attacking Liberty? Don't we all, Māori and non-Māori, want to be free & our property rights protected?'

Lange: "The treaty itself contains no principles which can usefully guide government or courts.”

 

“It is with no disrespect for Maori feeling for the treaty that I have to say it means nothing to me. It can mean nothing to me because it has nothing to say to me. When I was in office I understood that the government had succeeded to certain legal and moral obligations of the government which signed the treaty, and that in so far as those obligations had not been met it was our responsibility to honour them. But that is the extent of it.
    "The treaty cannot be any kind of founding document, as it is sometimes said to be. It does not resolve the question of sovereignty, if only because one version of it claims one form of sovereignty and the other version claims the opposite. The court of appeal once, absurdly, described it as a partnership between races, but it obviously is not. The signatories are, on one side, a distinctive group of people, and on the other, a government which established itself in New Zealand and whose successors represent all of us, whether we are descendants of the signatories or not. The treaty cannot even resolve the argument among Maori themselves in which one side maintains that you’re a Maori if you identify as such, and the other claims that it’s your links to traditional forms of association which define you as Maori.
    "As our increasingly dismal national day continues to show, the treaty is no basis for nationhood. It doesn’t express the fundamental rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and it doesn’t have any unifying concept. The importance it has for Maori people is a constant reminder that governments in a democracy should meet their legal and moral obligations, but for the country taken as a whole, that is, and must be, the limit of its significance.
    "Here I come to the dangers posed by the increasing entrenchment of the treaty in statute.
    "The treaty itself contains no principles which can usefully guide government or courts. It is a bald agreement, anchored in its time and place, and the public interest in it is the same as the public interest in enforcing any properly-made agreement. To go further than that is to acknowledge the existence of undemocratic forms of rights, entitlements, or sovereignty.
    "The treaty is a wonderful stick for activists to beat the rest of us with, but it could never have assumed the importance it has without the complicity of others. It came to prominence in liberal thought in the seventies, when many who were concerned about the abuse of the democratic process by the government of the day began to see the treaty as a potential source of alternative authority. It’s been the basis of a self-perpetuating industry in academic and legal circles. Many on the left of politics who sympathise with Maori aspiration have identified with the cause of the treaty, either not knowing or not caring that its implications are profoundly undemocratic." 

~ former Labour Prime Minister David Lange from his year 2000 Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture. Quoted by Gary Judd in his post 'Treaty is a bald agreement, anchored in its time and place,' in which he concludes by reciting Lange's accurate observation that "The treaty itself contains no principles which can usefully guide government or courts.” 

"In the real world," Gary points out, "there are no principles of the Treaty. They exist only in a fantasy world created by the 1972-1975 Labour government’s Treaty of Waitangi Act. The magical possibilities of this fantasy world have expanded since then to the point where ordinary New Zealanders feel threatened by those who would claim on the basis solely of their identity, or who they identify with, that they have a superior place, and that democracy must be relegated to a subordinate position."