People, Land and Politics

In the past, many Maori, even those within the Young Maori Party and Ngata’s ‘modernising’ sphere of influence, had assumed that land was integral to ‘being Maori’, that the tangata was inseparable from the whenua, that without rohe-based turangawaewae the future of ‘the race’ was one of inexorable assimilation into the pakeha political economy and culture. But throughout the century, the very many efforts to retain and restore tribal landed bases had not experienced much success until Rata’s legislation, and even with this the impact had been limited. By then, not even the most fundamentalist rural kaumatua believed that Maori would, as a people, generally de-urbanise. The reality was that, however tribal/indigenous they remained in tikanga, worldview, whakapapa-and marae-identification and the like, Maori people had become predominantly an urban-situated ethnic group. If indigenous autonomy could only be based upon an intimate nexus with customary land in the tribal rohe, as some traditionalists still argued, the chances of restoring and enhancing rangatiratanga for most Maori would appear to be bleak.

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As the very fact of the Maori Renaissance indicated, however, after some third of a century of widespread urbanisation, rangatiratanga was far more resilient than might have been suggested by literal interpretations of ‘conventional wisdom’ about the inexorable, physical nexus between land and people. In the final analysis, indigenous societies, cultures and polities centre upon collectivities of people. An ancient tribal proverb asks the listener about the ‘most important thing … in the world’ and answers: ‘He tangata! He tangata! He tangata! … People! People! People!’ Communities continued to assert their rights to and aspirations for autonomy, even if links to the land had been largely or fully severed by loss of ownership or access (or, in the case of pre-1840 migrational or displaced tribes, the people had re-established themselves in new homelands). Certainly, the possibility of land recovery was never lost sight of, however distant or unlikely it may have been, and this often remained a focus for tribal vitality. Alienation of ownership did not necessarily – or, even, often – denote loss of ancestral connection, either. On the contrary, the tangata and the whenua shared whakapapa, in that the land and the ancestors were seen as one and the same thing. This was one key reason why land remained, along with the Treaty, the iconic symbol of the Maori struggle for autonomy. But the principle of collective identity, the pursuit of the present and future well-being of the tangata in its various configurations, was – many Maori confirmed, actually or implicitly – the crucial element in the struggle for autonomy/rangatiratanga.

Tracing this struggle through the twentieth century involves an attempt to unravel a myriad of configurations whose commonality is their ethos of collectivity. In their pursuit of autonomist goals, Maori would alter and adapt their organisation (tribal, sub-tribal, pan-tribal, non-tribal, anti-tribal) and policies to meet the challenges of changing social, economic, cultural and political circumstances. But the bottom line was always that of people working together for goals which involved a future based on group identification and endeavour. Tribally significant sites (even if they had been alienated) and the quest for the return of land loomed large both in the weaponry Maori used and in their goals. The strongest cement of indigeneity, however, was variably said to be found in whakapapa, or the tribe or its subset (s), or shared culture or worldview, or community or institution, or Maoridom – all of these, alone or in combination, in their multiple and changing manifestations and their varying relationships with land or place. Soon, tribes and other groupings would put new life into the traditional institution of runanga, and the pakeha public would hear much more about Maori offices such as that of tohunga, institutions such as the marae and wharenui/meeting house, concepts such as kaitiakitanga and matauranga Maori/indigenous knowledge systems, andpage 183 emergent collectivities in areas such as literary culture (the first Maori Writers’ Conference had been held, for example, in 1975).

Despite its formal and symbolic focus on land, the developing Treaty-based discourse had also (and increasingly) concentrated on Maori culture and on enshrining rangatiratanga in ‘constitutional’ or political arrangements. In the later 1970s, for instance, Hirini Mead weighed up the Maori quest for ‘a better reflection of the agreement in the Treaty of Waitangi’ and posed four alternative futures, all of them options at national level. First, further mainstreaming of Maori into a pakeha-dominated society. This, in line with almost all Maori commentators, he dismissed out of hand: the days of Hunn-type policies were definitively over. Second, he cited the full autonomy of a totally independent state such as Tonga. However desirable this might be in theory to many Maori, Mead believed it was unachievable in New Zealand. His third option was a ‘soft version’ of autonomy by which Maori would gain increasing, but always highly circumscribed, power through reasoned debate, infiltration of the system and gradual influencing of government decision-making. This, he argued, is in essence what had been tried so far, without success.

Mead advocated (at a Labour Party conference, among other places) a fourth nationwide solution, a ‘hard version’ of autonomy, albeit one that fell considerably short of requiring the formal constitution of a fully independent state. This embodiment of rangatiratanga would come about through a ‘political deal’ under which a council with parliament-type functions would be authorised to both represent Maori and exercise authority over institutions and resources pertaining to Maori alone, such as marae, Maori land and Maori-owned businesses. Such an arrangement would also see a parallel court system and police service run by and for Maori. Areas of government traditionally reserved to the overarching sovereign power, he reassured his audiences, such as defence and foreign policy, would remain the province of the New Zealand Parliament and its political executive.⁴²

While many did not agree with the viability or concept of establishing what would be, in effect, an autonomous Maori Parliament, there was a growing consensus among those advocating significant change which broadly aligned with Mead’s position. There were many variations on the theme. On the 1984 hikoi, for example, Mahuta called for the incorporation of the Treaty of Waitangi into new constitutional and governance arrangements, and that same year Whatarangi Winiata released a paper arguing for a Maori Senate/Upper House in the existing Parliament. Maori proposals often referred to overseas models, with Mead citing Israeli–Palestinian negotiations in his ‘hard’ version of autonomy and later seeking inspiration from the Hawaiian quest for self-determination.

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In the early 1980s, arguments for new political or governance arrangements were being taken considerably more seriously by Crown and pakeha than during even the recent past. Naturally, the government was prepared only to engage with the less radical solutions proffered, and it was still inclined to look to the NZMC for guidance. Not that this proved to be an easy ride for it or its officials. The Maori Council lobbied industriously during and between its quarterly meetings, and there was much activity within the committees under its umbrella – of which there were some 450 in 1982. That year, an NZMC paper on ‘Kaupapa’ had offered the government a solution to addressing rangatiratanga that eschewed Mead’s hard version of autonomy, but which sought to balance Crown sovereignty by Treaty-based fiduciary duties. Such ideas were explored within officialdom, and preparation of a Maori Affairs Bill that attempted to meet some of them was in train by the time of the 1984 election.⁴³

The Labour Party, too, shaken by Mana Motuhake’s campaigning, was by now taking much greater cognisance of Maori issues, and Maori were encouraged when it committed itself to the longstanding demand to make the Waitangi Tribunal’s jurisdiction retrospective to 1840. In July 1984, Labour won the general election, and both liberal pakeha and Maori put great pressure on the new government to address indigenous aspirations. That September, a thousand-strong hui was convened at Kingitanga’s Turangawaewae Marae, after preparatory work by the Maori Ecumenical Council of Churches and other organisations. It had grown out of the hikoi to Waitangi earlier in the year, and was an attempt to produce consensus on the way forward for Maori under the Treaty. After reiterating the need for legislation to implement Labour’s policy of extending the Tribunal’s jurisdiction, the hui went much further, calling for mana motuhake and constitutional change to recognise rangatiratanga. There were signs the new Labour government was starting to listen, and its officials began to investigate possibilities that went far beyond the local ‘self-reliance’ institutions which National had been establishing. When in 1985 the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal was authorised to consider claims dating back to 1840, this was seen as a good omen.

Three years earlier, Race Relations Commissioner Hiwi Tauroa’s Race Against Time, based on a public survey, had noted two commonly held views within New Zealand society. One indicated that the old assimilationist position – that ‘all New Zealanders are one people’ – was still strong, while the other stressed national ‘unity through diversity’. The work concluded that New Zealand was ‘a multicultural nation’ that was still ‘operating on a largely mono-cultural level’, thereby ‘failing to take advantage of the rich diversity of cultural heritage of too many other fellow New Zealanders’, especiallypage 185 tangata whenua. Official institutions, it argued, needed to be in the vanguard of change, something reiterated by the New Zealand Planning Council the following year. In the contest between the old integrationism and the new desire to embrace diversity, Maori were now being given signals by the new Labour government which suggested that they might finally have a chance of seeing their ‘cultural heritage’ and rangatiratanga respected under the Treaty of Waitangi.⁴⁴

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