The Waitangi Tribunal in 2012. The Tribunal has been around for 48 years. Photo / NZME
The Waitangi Tribunal in 2012. The Tribunal has been around for 48 years. Photo / NZME
OPINION
It must be an election year because suddenly we have NZ First’s Shane Jones is jumping back into the political arena with an all-too-predictable call for tougher sentences and stoking groundless fears over Māori aspirations and desire for control over own destinies.
In his rush to jump on thelaw and order bandwagon and ‘wokeism’, Jones follows a well-worn political strategy of feeding the baser instincts of those who see Māori progress and development as being a zero-sum game involving a corresponding loss to Pākehā.
His vision for the future, in my view, is as frightening as it is disappointing.
In his Herald column, Jones trots out tired slogans using appalling Māori statistics to justify adding to them. That Jones is willing to throw his own people to the wolves does immeasurable harm and disservice to what previous generations – including his own tūpuna – fought their whole lives for.
Te Arataura Chair Tukoroirangi Morgan. Photo / Supplied
He takes aim at the Waitangi Tribunal, comparing its current lifespan to a period 30 years before its creation and ending five years before the first significant Treaty settlement.
He equates its workings to being like a “magic carpet”. Believe me, if there were a magic carpet, we wouldn’t be flying back to a maara (garden). We’d be flying forward to a future where Māori were in control of their futures, had a part in decision-making, and were more than, as one ex-prime minister predicted, mere tenants in our own land.
In one sense, I agree with Jones – the fact that we still have a need for a Waitangi Tribunal 48 years after its creation is a travesty and a testament to just how long and difficult the road has been for successive generations to obtain redress for the wrongs of the past. And the fight continues.
What is of more concern is that Jones will find the audience he seeks. Māori academic Moana Jackson once observed in a 2017 speech that “the effect of neoliberalism over the last 30 years has been to make this a much more vindictive society”. Jones confirms that vindictiveness is alive and well, and thriving.
Former Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speaks during an opening ceremony. Photo / Myjanne Jensen
Kīngi Tāwhiao once famously said, “without vision, the people are lost”. Our vision is simply for Te Tiriti o Waitangi to be observed. We just want what was signed up to in good faith – control over our lands, forests and fisheries and the right to govern ourselves, in a partnership with Pākehā. It is no accident that this is the arrangement that existed up until 1858. Once Pākehā gained numerical superiority, things changed rapidly.
Why is there so much deep-seated Pākehā distrust and antipathy to this vision for tino rangatiratanga? Why, in 2023, do Jones and his mates still find a ready audience of those who feel threatened at the prospect of Māori taking a seat at the decision-making table?
Did Māori create a society where owning your own home is but a distant dream? Did Māori create society where around 224,000 children (19.4 per cent) are living in income poverty and one in nine people live in an overcrowded house; Where the median individual net worth of Pākehā is $151,000 and Māori just $42,000? Where the top 10 per cent of New Zealand households own approximately 50 per cent of New Zealand’s total household net worth? Are Māori responsible for nearly half our rivers being unswimmable?
Let me assure readers that Māori have no intention of “doing unto Pākehā what Pākehā have done to us”. The addition of Māori values of kaitiakitanga, of community, of mahi tahi (cooperation) of taonga tuku iho (of treasures to be handed down) in governance decisions would almost certainly lead to better outcomes for all New Zealanders, not just a select few.
In 2021, a research report entitled “Whakatika: A Survey of Māori Experiences of Racism” found that 93 per cent of Māori experienced racism every day. Articles like the one penned by Jones show just how easy it is in today’s political climate to play to racial stereotypes that are simplistic, divisive, and ultimately destructive to finding ways for Māori and Pākehā to work together, for the betterment of all.
Tukoroirangi Morgan is a former politician and broadcaster. He is the chair of Tainui Iwi and helped spearhead the Waikato River settlement claim with both the Labour and National governments alongside the late Lady Raiha Mahuta.
