One of the ironies of David Seymour, the Act party leader who’s insisting on a referendum on “co-governance” between the crown and iwi, is that one of his own ancestors was a signatory to Te Titiri o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi). That doesn’t quite make Seymour a hypocrite, and nor does it necessarily make him a disloyal descendant, instead it reveals one of the contradictions at the heart of New Zealand politics: that few politicians can agree on quite what our founding document means. At one end, Te Pāti Māori (the Māori party) and the Greens pursue the textual meaning of Te Tiriti, the Māori language version reaffirming Māori sovereignty while carving out modest powers for the crown. At the other end, Act and the National party pursue the textual meaning of the English language treaty where the chiefs who sign apparently surrender their sovereignty to Her Majesty.
What Act and parts of the National party ignore, of course, is that few chiefs signed the English language version, rendering “the Treaty of Waitangi” a dead document. The courts deal with that fact in an admirably centrist manner, choosing to ignore both language texts in favour of extracting “principles” like “partnership” – which is an approximation of co-governance – and “active protection”. But the academic and activist consensus is increasingly critical of that compromise. Few historians and legal scholars would disagree that the relevant language version is the Māori Te Tiriti.
Fewer still would disagree on what that text means. “Rangatiratanga”, or sovereignty for iwi (tribes) and hapū (subtribes), and a subordinate power, or “kāwanatanga” (governorship), for the crown. On this reading, Te Tiriti o Waitangi promises nothing short of a constitutional revolution.
That probably alarms David Seymour and the 5 or so percent of New Zealanders he represents – the exhausted rearguard of New Zealand conservatism. But, in truth, that constitutional revolution is already in motion with the force of more than 30 years of changes. Co-governance, to take Seymour’s own example, is an orthodox policy under both Labour and National governments. Under former prime ministers John Key and Bill English co-governance arrangements were made with iwi over Te Urewera national park, the Waikato and Waipā rivers, and the Whanganui river (which is also a legal person). Instead of ripping apart the fabric of New Zealand society, these arrangements passed without much notice, and none of its opponents can point to a single governance failure in the years since.
Which is telling. And perhaps it suggests that the source of opposition to co-governance isn’t some fidelity to good public policy but simply an opposition to Māori. In the years after former National party leader Don Brash’s Orewa speech, where the then leader of the opposition launched an undisguised attack against Māori “privilege”, gaining 17 points in the polls and overtaking the governing Labour party, opposition politicians from Phil Goff to Seymour have sought out that last refuge of the scoundrel: anti-Māori rhetoric. What Goff, Seymour, and former National party Judith Collins forgot, though, is that Brash lost the election a year later. Re-reading the Orewa speech is to inspect a loser’s score sheet. As one example, on “Māori wards” Brash lost the argument with 27 councils and counting implementing dedicated representation for Māori in local government.
And the same is surely true for Seymour – on co-governance, he’ll lose. It’s possible to argue he might have already lost. The Labour government is taking tentative steps toward acknowledging that the Māori text of Te Tiriti matters with Te Arawhiti, the agency for Māori-crown relations, releasing a cabinet circular in 2019 centring both the principles and the text. This is a tentative departure from the last Labour government where the principles were taken as the relevant standard. And it’s a step further than the last National government where Key and English preferred negotiated outcomes with iwi rather than a rigid adherence to the meaning of the principles or the text. It’s worth pausing to note, though, that “negotiated outcomes”, often with pan-iwi institutions like the Iwi Leaders Forum over issues like freshwater management, arguably constitute a moderate form of co-governance anyway.
The momentum, then, is against Seymour and his 5 %. He might find a temporary friend in National party leader Chris Luxon, who delivered an embarrassing lesson on the Treaty of Waitangi on Māori TV, but the safer bet is National eventually returns to form and negotiates outcomes with iwi on an issue-by-issue basis. Luxon is likely a pragmatist and won’t fancy fighting Māori on his left and right flank. Why? Because as governments from the British warlord George Grey’s administration to John Key’s know, Māori aren’t going anywhere. And Te Tiriti isn’t either. Seymour might get his referendum. But he won’t get his win.
Morgan Godfery (Te Pahipoto, Sāmoa) is a senior lecturer at the University of Otago and a columnist at Metro
