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Maori and the State: Crown-Māori relations in New Zealand/Aotearoa, 1950-2000

Millennial Debates

Millennial Debates

By the end of the twentieth century, few Maori could be under any illusion that, unless there was to be a revolutionary overthrow of the state (and verypage 272 few ever seriously suggested that this was desirable, much less possible), rangatiratanga could be achieved other than by arrangements acknowledging the Crown’s supreme and interventionist authority. So long as the Crown held fully to the doctrine of indivisible sovereignty, moreover, proposals for reform of the ‘official’ body representing Maoridom, for the establishment of unified collectivities powerful enough to be meaningful partners with the Crown, and for Maori organisations to be able to carry out significantly devolved or state-like functions would all inevitably lead to little. All that could be expected was the creation of more Crown-franchised bodies whose existence and operations would be subject to surveillance, intervention and, if they became too challenging to the Crown, abolition. The best that could be done, at least for the foreseeable future, was to negotiate as high a threshold as possible before state scrutiny and control came into play.

Stated so baldly, little had changed since 1950 – or, indeed, since the Maori councils of 1900. As Lange put it, New Zealand could have ‘a democratic form of government or … indigenous sovereignty’, but not both; for the Crown, there was no contest between the former and what it perceived as an inherently ‘undemocratic’ latter. All the same, the situation in 2000 was a far cry from that of half a century before, as Lange also indicated when declaring that ‘the exercise of degrees of Maori autonomy’ had now become acceptable. In a sense, such cautious acceptance of rangatiratanga, but acceptance nevertheless, summed up the debate insofar as it impacted on actual policy development as the century neared its end. While the situation was nowhere near ideal for the proponents of rangatiratanga, it constituted a huge advance on the 130 years of assimilation policies and practices which had preceded the three decades from 1970.

The problem remained, however, of securing agreement on the extent and types of ‘degrees’ of autonomy. This was rendered more difficult than it might have been because of the use by many parties of terminology which obfuscated or impaired understanding and progress (and which allowed a generally ethnocentric media to indulge in sensationalist reporting from time to time, contributing to pakeha backlash). The Waitangi Tribunal’s former chairperson E T J Durie has argued that demands for indigenous ‘sovereignty’ are counter-productive, their polarising effects drawing attention away from achievable forms of ‘autonomy’ in which Maori could ‘determine their own policy, manage their own resources, develop their own structures of representation, and … negotiate policy affecting them with the state’. Others were also arguing in the later 1990s that although the Crown had made no concession on the notion of full sovereign indivisibility, its continuing preparedness to envisage at least some devolution of power indicated that, if the quest for formal Maori sovereign partnership with the Crown were to be set aside, appropriate ways of embedding rangatiratanga into the body politic might be negotiated.24

page 273

Discussions between Crown agencies and Maori leaders at many levels increased as the approach of the new millennium concentrated minds upon the future of New Zealand society, its political economy and its ethnic relations. In 1998, TPK published a report, Closing the Gaps, which confirmed that some of the socio-economic disparities between Maori and pakeha had widened since the introduction of free-market economics. Its proposals, insofar as they aimed to provide Maori with a more secure social and economic base, were widely viewed as a way of enhancing rangatiratanga. The National-led government adopted their thrust on public good grounds, and when it lost office in November 1999, its Labour-led successors continued the same strategy.

Labour had long ago cast off the new-right ideologues of the Rogernomics years, and policies on closing gaps fitted neatly into the classical social democratic approach of promoting ‘equality’ of all types, especially socio-economic. In August 2000, in fact, the Labour government attempted to add further ‘building blocks’ to the ‘closing the gaps’ edifice. These included a new way of supporting rangatiratanga, by which Maori would ‘become the managers and controllers of their own development’. A ‘Capacity Building’ programme would ‘substantially boost … the ability of whānau, hapū, iwi, Māori organisations and Māori communities to control their own destiny’. Through this programme, the Ministry of Maori Development was ‘charged with building a partnership’ between the ‘state sector’ and the many organisational manifestations of Maoridom. The Crown would proactively encourage independent ‘bottom-up’ initiatives in order to produce stronger and better resourced Maori communities; along with Maori, the whole nation would benefit.

In the event, the capacity-building policies did not come to significantly enhance rangatiratanga. Moreover, with the government promoting a ‘millennial debate’ on the type of nation New Zealand should become, many pakeha were thinking about a future in which ‘race harmony’ prevailed – and sizeable numbers of them were tending to equate this with a rejection of all or many forms of what was often depicted as ‘Maori separatism’. National had once promised to resolve all Treaty grievances by 2000, and now that that goal had proven far too optimistic, many people seemed to see outstanding claims before the Waitangi Tribunal as part of a broader ‘Maori problem’.

Commentators were noticing both a discernible ‘Treaty fatigue’, and a general lack of public understanding that appropriate Treaty-based relational arrangements had yet to be forged. Even the ‘closing the gaps’ programme was soon to be clawed back, following a pakeha backlash against ‘special treatment for one group in the population’. It was reconceptualised as ‘Reducing Inequalities’ throughout all ethnicities and classes in society. On the other hand, the new Labour-led government’s increasing interest in ‘nation-building’page 274 did see it promote New Zealand’s bicultural lifestyle and policies as integral to the identity of the nation. Biculturalism was celebrated as both a distinctive and healthy aspect of ‘brand New Zealand’ (along with multicultural diversity and inclusivity).25

For any given Maori collectivity, the quest for autonomy had always involved differential progress in securing Crown recognition of rangatiratanga according to the issues involved. As the new millennium approached, some Maori groupings had opted to explore co-management regimes with the Crown where these seemed practical, on the grounds that further gains might later follow. Some sought or achieved ways by which they could ‘exercise tino rangatiratanga in cultural and spiritual terms’ over taonga or resources highly significant to them, for example. In seeking a co-management partnership with the Crown over their river, the Whanganui tribes were thereby asserting new ways of exercising kaitiakitanga over waters integral to their identity, in ‘a custodial exercise of rangatiratanga’.

The quest for Crown recognition of rangatiratanga continued to take many and varied forms. Around the turn of the new millennium, many leaders were now exploring partnerships with local government, leading to satisfactory results for some tribal or other Maori groupings. After wide consultation with its Maori constituents, the Taranaki District Health Board was to agree (in 2002) to work with its eight regional iwi to ‘support tino rangatiratanga and Maori aspirations for self-determination’, and to commit to assist them to build ‘Maori capacity through a network of competent and well-resourced “by Maori for Maori” health providers’.

Along with comprehensive Treaty settlements, such developments, while falling well short of securing te tino rangatiratanga (and not always working smoothly in practice), represented socio-political progress towards embodying indigenous autonomy in practical ways. They were often viewed, in essence, as precursors for much more significant future developments – developments being canvassed in the extensive, nationwide debate about which direction(s) New Zealand should take in the new millennium. While the prospects for Crown recognition for te tino rangatiratanga were not ideal in the year 2000, they were far better than those which had prevailed half a century before.26

24 Graham, ‘The Treaty and Treaty Negotiations’, in Clark, Margaret (ed), The Bolger Years, 1990-1997, p 166; Lange, David, ‘Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture: Inaugural Lecture’, Maidment Theatre, Auckland, Nov 2000, available online: http://www.brucejesson.com/JessonLecture_2000.pdf [accessed June 2008], p 9 (for ‘a democratic form of government’ and ‘the exercise of degrees’ quotes); Durie, Edward T, ‘Maori autonomy: preventing power games’, Stimulus, 6(2), May 1998, p 41 (for ‘determine their own policy’ quote); Quirke, Michelle, ‘Maori varsity to flout the rules’, Evening Post, 23 Dec 2002.

25 Te Puni Kokiri, Kōkiri Paetae, issue 29, Sept 2000, p 1 (for ‘boosting the ability’ and ‘become the managers’ quotes, italics removed); Te Puni Kokiri, Te Puni Kokiri’s role in Capacity Building, pamphlet, Wellington, nd (for ‘charged with building’ and ‘bottom-up’ quotes); Te Puni Kokiri, ‘Capacity Building’ (website) http://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/Capacity_Building/index.htm [accessed November 2000] (for ‘building blocks’ quote); Orange, An Illustrated History, p 246 (for ‘special treatment’ quote); Maaka and Fleras, The Politics of Indigeneity, p 135ff.

26 Young, David, Woven by Water: Histories from the Whanganui River, Wellington, 1998, p 261 (for ‘custodial’ quote), p 264 (for ‘exercise tino rangatiratanga’ quote); Humphreys, Lyn, ‘Board signs up to Maori health plan’, Daily News, 20 Sept 2002 (for ‘support tino rangatiratanga’ and ‘Maori capacity’ quotes).