Like the Treaty itself, Treaty principles bill is drafted to mislead

“We’ve come a long way as a country, and we can go even further. Let’s not give up now. Te Tiriti o Waitangi is between Māori and the Crown — mana to mana. The Treaty provides a foundation for us all to work together. Let’s not change it; that would harm us.”
Opinion: These were words spoken by the late Kiingi Tūheitia at the 18th anniversary of his coronation shortly before he died. I felt incredibly moved and inspired by the coverage of his tangihanga and the election of his daughter as the new head of the Kiingitanga movement. The grief gave way to the joy in the faces of the young people, as she was elevated to this role. Kuini Nga wai hono i te po represents a future for our nation that makes me feel incredibly optimistic.
Waking to the news that the Act Party’s Treaty Principles Bill would be proceeding was deeply disappointing, because David Seymour continues to display an ignorance of its history. Although, having read recent commentary published on the website of his former boss the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Canada, I concede that ignorance is feigned. This is a very deliberate campaign, and one designed to undermine any attempts to resolve the reality of colonisation in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States.
Even with a tweaking of the words, the plan to introduce legislation to rewrite the underpinnings of a Treaty that has been more honoured in the breach ever since it was signed is evidence of an intention to support the assimilation it was designed to secure. It only takes a reading of the reason why certain hapū came together to form the Kiingitanga movement in the first place to understand this.
Although Act does not have the numbers to pass it, with National and NZ First explicit in their undertakings not to support the bill after the first reading, considerable damage will be done in the meantime.
Given it is not going to proceed, inviting submissions would be a mistake. It would be useful instead to have the select committee invite a range of presentations so as to build understanding and to inform a debate about our history and the impact it has had. There is so much to learn.
As a student again, I have been studying a range of subjects, the latest being the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I have been researching the background to the international treaties that would restore cultural heritage to the places from where they were taken. The museums of former European colonial powers are full of indigenous cultural heritage, which seem out of place knowing what we know today.
I remember asking a volunteer about a sarcophagus in a private museum whether it belonged there. “He paid for it,” was the reply.
The Benin Bronzes and the Parthenon marbles receive a lot of publicity as Nigeria and Greece, respectively, seek their return, but there were many other taonga taken from the first peoples who lived in what were to become colonies.
But discovering our own Canterbury Museum has in its possession 17 Benin artefacts, including bronzes and ivory works, I have tried to look at the question of ownership and belonging not through a Western lens but an indigenous worldview different from mine. International law offers some hope of restoring these cultural heritage items to the people and the places from where they came, but – as I am finding out – not very much.
This led me to read Loot by Barnaby Phillips. It’s about Britain and the Benin Bronzes.
I was shocked to discover that before what became known as the Benin Massacre and the looting of the palace, the Oba (king) had been tricked into signing a Treaty with Queen Victoria which was framed as a request from the Oba that the territory (the Kingdom of Benin) would come under her “gracious favour and protection”. This came at a cost and that was sovereignty, although this was certainly not understood by the Oba, and the Treaty was only written in English. It was a choice between war or peace. The Oba chose peace.
A punitive expedition, after an ambush and killing of the acting British consul general and his party, led to the devastation of Benin, which included the looting and pillaging of the Oba’s palace. There is a bloody history to the Benin Bronzes that grace our museum alongside others.
It is interesting that when the Treaty was signed at Waitangi some 50 years before the Benin Treaty, it was written in Māori as well as English. The words didn’t match, and it wasn’t a mistake of interpretation. Rather than using the word ‘kīngitanga’ to represent sovereignty as had been the case before with the Declaration of Independence, the word ‘kāwanatanga’ was chosen instead. I didn’t know that, but when it is considered in the light of what happened in other places such as Benin, it creates a question about intention, the truth of which lies in the use of a word designed to mislead.
And that’s why I say we need to better understand our history, because we can’t change that. It is our inheritance. It is only through a shared understanding of this history that we can ensure our path to the future is secure. The proposed Treaty Principles Bill, the words that it contains deliberately chosen to mislead, and the international agenda that supports it will put us on shaky ground indeed.
As Sir James Hēnare said: “Kua tawhiti kē tō haerenga mai, kia kore e haere tonu. He nui rawa ō mahi kia kore e mahi tonu’ – we have come too far not to go further. We have done too much not to do more.”