Maori denied rights, UN man told

Ngai Tahu CEO Tahu Potiki (left) makes a point to Professor Rudolfo Stavenhagen in Christchurch. Picture / Simon Baker

A United Nations human rights official has been told Maori have been systematically blocked from self-determination.

UN special rapporteur Rudolfo Stavenhagen attended a hui at visibly impoverished Parihaka - the Taranaki pa of 1860s passive resistance and spiritual leaders Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi - on Saturday.

He attended another arranged by Ngai Tahu in Christchurch yesterday.

The hui were arranged so he could hear the representations of indigenous peoples on the status of their human rights for a report he will present to the UN Human Rights Commission.

The Foreshore and Seabed Act was repeatedly raised at the hui, which were attended by a couple of hundred people in total.

Treaty Tribes Coalition chairman Harry Mikaere, who attended both, summed up what it meant for most speakers as "the most grievous breach of our human rights in recent times. But it is not unique. The act is simply an undiluted example of the wider situation of Maori in New Zealand".

That situation - based on the on-going resistance to Maori organising politically, economically and socially as Maori - was epitomised by widespread socio-economic disparities, health care and educational disadvantages and the loss of taonga such as the language, Professor Stavenhagen heard.

Welcoming him to Parihaka, veteran te reo activist Huirangi Waikerepuru said: "We are merely clutching at the remnants of this culture."

Mr Mikaere said the seabed act saw land confiscation, the hallmark of colonialism, become a "contemporary reality".

"In 1870, the Chief Judge of the Maori Land Court had said: 'I cannot contemplate without uneasiness the evil consequences which might ensue from judicially declaring that the foreshore of the colony will be vested absolutely in the natives if they can prove certain acts of ownership, especially when I consider how readily they may prove such and how impossible it is to contradict them.' "

Mr Mikaere said the "evil consequences" were the rights protected under international law, yet last year those rights were extinguished.

"Why? Underneath the raft of Crown rhetoric - the need for certainty, the ability to regulate, and public rights - is the lasting fear of these same 'evil consequences' - Maori exercising customary authority - possessing actual decision-making capacity."

Ngati Kahungunu spokesman Moana Jackson criticised the lack of time given to iwi by Government officials, who organised the programme, to meet the visitor.

Professor Stavenhagen would hear about the substantial inequities and inequalities Maori continued to endure and the "continued denial and misrepresentation of our rights and authority".

With Te Rarawa, Ngati Kahungunu sought the UN man's support for the need to constitutional change.

In Christchurch Fred Te Miha, speaking for the eight Te Tau Ihu iwi from the top of the South Island who initiated the foreshore case in the courts, said the tribes had spent years going through all the proper legal channels, only to be told within two days of the foreshore decision that the Crown would legislate the rights away. This was a typical experience.

Wellington School of Medicine lecturer in Maori health Tim Rochford said Maori still died about 10 years earlier than their non-Maori cohort.

The argument there was something wrong with Maori did not hold up because other indigenous peoples experienced the same health problems, despite genetic and cultural differences. Colonisation was the only common link, he said.

Ngai Tahu chief executive Tahu Potiki said the way the foreshore legislation was managed had led to a significant rift between Maori and Pakeha "which we're struggling to heal".

The convention

* In 1969, the UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination came into force. By 1990, it had been ratified or acceded to by 128 countries - more than three-quarters of the UN membership. 

Countries pledge:

* To engage in no act of racial discrimination against individuals, groups or institutions, and to ensure public authorities and institutions do likewise.

* Not to sponsor, defend or support racial discrimination by persons or organisations.

* To review government, national and local policies and to amend or repeal laws which create or perpetuate racial discrimination.

* To prohibit racial discrimination by persons and organisations.

* To encourage integrationist or multi-racial organisations, and to discourage anything tending to strengthen racial division.