In the latest instalment of her series for Newsroom on constitutional issues, governance, the Treaty of Waitangi and democracy, Dame Anne Salmond argues the time is right to explore arrangements that make leaders more truly accountable
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On October 8 1823, the missionary Samuel Marsden talked with the leading Northern rangatira Hongi Hika, urging him to make himself a king and put an end to the inter-tribal wars that were raging. Hongi replied that the other rangatira would never agree to this, and “that when he was at war he was feared and respected, but when he returned home they would not hearken to anything he might say”.
While some early European visitors considered that the rangatira had absolute power over their people, those who spent any time in New Zealand saw matters differently.
In 1857, Francis Dart Fenton wrote, “No system of government that the world ever saw can be more democratic than that of the Maoris. The chief alone has no power. The whole tribe deliberate on every subject, not only politically on such as are of public interest, but even judicially they hold their ‘komitis’ on every private quarrel. In ordinary times the vox populi determines every matter, both internal and external. No individual enjoys influence or exercises power, unless it originates with the mass and is expressly or tacitly conferred by them.”
As Vincent O’Malley has observed, the first British Resident James Busby found this participatory, egalitarian approach frustrating, and tried to set up a Confederation of the Chiefs of the United Tribes of New Zealand as a precursor to a system of indirect rule. This led to He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni (the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand) in 1835, signed by a number of Rangatira, mainly from Northland, in defiance of a perceived threat of French intervention.
From the very early days of European settlement, efforts were made to establish structures of governance based on Western models, although as Busby observed, “It was . . . extremely difficult to get the Chiefs to separate themselves from their connexions, and to form themselves into anything like a regular assembly”. In many ways, Te Tiriti o Waitangi was the next step in this process, when Britain sought to establish sovereignty over New Zealand by consent of the Rangatira.
What Britain gained in fact was a lesser power, that of kāwanatanga or governorship, an absolute gift from the Rangatira over their lands to Queen Victoria in the first Ture (article) of Te Tiriti. In Ture 2, the Queen agreed to te tino rangatiratanga (the absolute chiefly powers) of the Rangatira, the hapū (kin groups) and “nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani” (all the inhabitants of New Zealand) over their lands, dwelling places and all of their taonga (ancestral treasures). In Ture 3, the Queen promised to care for “nga tangata maori” (the indigenous inhabitants) of New Zealand, and to give to them tikanga (right and just ways of doing things) absolutely equal to those of her subjects, the inhabitants of England.
After the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, when New Zealand became a Crown colony, it was ruled by a governor or kawana as the Queen’s representative. Under Te Tiriti, the rangatira were entitled to participate as equals on the Executive Council and the Legislative Council appointed by the governor, but these groups had no Māori members.
When the first House of Representatives was established in 1853, a requirement that electors were male land owners excluded most Māori men, who had use rights to land through whakapapa and occupation, not as individual property. Under ancestral tikanga, Māori women had rights to leadership and land, but these were also disregarded. Four Māori seats in Parliament were established in 1867, in the midst of the New Zealand Wars and the land confiscations; and Māori men were given the right to vote, while Māori and other women did not gain the franchise until 1893.
Apart from these gestures, there was little or no attempt to craft the governance of New Zealand in ways influenced by tikanga maori (indigenous “right ways” of doing things), or to give “Rangatira maori” (indigenous leaders) and “nga tangata maori” (ordinary, indigenous individuals) equal rights and roles with the incoming settlers.
This was a fundamental affront, because apart from taurekareka or war captives (whose mana had been largely cancelled), nga tangata maori cherished and vigorously upheld their mana and tapu. As Fenton and other European settlers observed, the dignity of individuals and their right to participate in decision-making was prized in ancestral tikanga; and under Ture 3 of Te Tiriti, their personal equality with the incoming settlers had been guaranteed by the Queen .
In frustration, Māori leaders appealed to Queen Victoria, and made a series of efforts to establish structures that were capable of engaging with the government. These included the Kīngitanga (the King movement), the Kotahitanga and various efforts to set up Māori parliaments. They drew heavily on European models, and were often at odds with the irrepressible autonomy of hapū and their members. Current proposals to establish parallel governance arrangements (including a Māori senate) under He Puapua can be seen in the light of this long history.
The irony is that governance based on ancestral tikanga was in many ways more democratic than its European counterparts, with its strong emphasis on the free will of individuals in relation to their leaders, and its kin-based flexibility. In a system in which persons could affiliate with the hapū of any of their grandparents (with a preference for senior descent links, and for male links in some regions), but had to actively participate to have those ‘rights’ recognised, hapū could wax and wane according to their mana, or success in practical affairs.
This is still true in contemporary times, although that kin-based flexibility has been compromised by a legislative loss of the requirement for active participation, in use rights to land for example. Most recently, a Crown requirement that ‘Post-settlement Governance Entities’ be established at the iwi level to receive Treaty settlements and a redefinition of taonga as ‘property’ has seen a further erosion of tikanga, alongside the imposition of Western governance models on kin groups, and this has often been divisive.
None of this fits well with the promises in Te Tiriti for ‘tino rangatiratanga’ for the rangatira, the hapū and ‘nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani’ (all the inhabitants of New Zealand), and for “nga tikanga rite tahi” (absolutely equal tikanga) for nga tangata maori (ordinary, indigenous persons). “Nga tangata maori” have perhaps lost the most in these Crown-led reshapings of ancestral kin-based arrangements. From Busby onwards, these restructurings have aimed to “get the Chiefs to separate themselves from their connections” in land dealings and other exercises of power.
If there is now a concerted effort to honour Te Tiriti in governance structures, it would be timely to revisit the original Ture 3 promise of “nga tikanga rite tahi” (exactly equal tikanga) for “nga tangata maori” and the incoming settlers, to explore arrangements that make leaders more truly accountable, and that empower rather than disenfranchise ordinary people in New Zealand.
At present, with the creation of ever more centralised, top-down bureaucracies and corporations, the Government is establishing ever more powerful and distanced elites. This generates dangerous disaffection, and a mistrust in democratic institutions.
As Kingi Potatau once said, “Kotahi te kohao o te ngira e kuhuna ai te miro mā, te miro pango, te miro whero” (There is only one eye in the needle, through which the white thread, the black thread and the red thread must pass). Questions of governance affect all strands in our society, and it would be timely for an open, inclusive and mutually respectful debate about constitutional matters.
A new look at more egalitarian, participatory approaches that honour the tino rangatiratanga of “nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani” (all the people of New Zealand) might be a useful corrective to rising inequality, at a time when many Western democracies are in danger of decline and failure.
[Note: This article revisits reports commissioned by the Waitangi Tribunal and drawing on collaborative research with Dr Merimeri Penfold and Dr Cleve Barlow in 1992, and 2010 a, b and c]
