Prime Minister Chris Hipkins shares a hongi with Ngāti Rēhia leader Nora Rameka during a housing announcement in Kerikeri. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins shares a hongi with Ngāti Rēhia leader Nora Rameka during a housing announcement in Kerikeri. Photo / Peter de Graaf
With any luck, common sense will have prevailed at Waitangi today and the new Prime Minister will be allowed to speak at the pōwhiri for MPs on the Treaty Grounds.
There could be no more fitting place for a new Prime Minister to make a speech about what the Treatyof Waitangi should mean in 2023 than where it was signed 183 years ago.
It would serve as a preamble to the crucial decisions that will be made in the weeks and months ahead in the reset of Government policy, including Three Waters.
The Waitangi National Trust, which is ultimately responsible for the official celebration and the Treaty Grounds, apparently did not want the pōwhiri to become political and it did not want speeches in English.
It has set up a political forum for parliamentary parties to be held in the meeting house, Te Whare Runanga, after the pōwhiri.
The trouble with that is manifold, not least because Chris Hipkins is there as the Prime Minister. He is there representing the Crown, as head of Government. He is not there as Labour Party leader. He is not there on equal terms with Christopher Luxon, or Rawiri Waititi.
And it beggars belief that the group organising Treaty celebrations should be endeavouring to take politics out of Waitangi. How ridiculous.
Joey Rapana of Kaihoe welcomes Governor-General Dame Cindy Kiro to the Whare Runanga on the Upper Treaty Grounds. Photo / Tania Whyte
The trust will not be asking the speakers hosting the pōwhiri to avoid criticism of the Government, and nor should it be preventing the head of Government from responding and setting out a much-needed vision for the way forward.
Big debates over who could and couldn’t speak surrounded events at Te Tii Marae for many years. But Te Tii is a working and private marae that is entitled to make its own rules.
Te Whare Runanga is a national marae built in 1940 on the magnificent Treaty Grounds, a national treasure for all New Zealanders.
To prevent the head of Government from speaking is a funny way to demonstrate partnership.
And it is certainly not tikanga when his predecessor was allowed to speak during the pōwhiri, albeit from the porch. It worked. Why attempt to fix what wasn’t broken?
Carvings outside Te Rau Aroha Museum, which was opened in 2020.
It would be entirely acceptable for the trust to make it clear to manuhiri that the pōwhiri was not the appropriate place for crass party political broadcasts and leave it at that.
It is not acceptable to force a Prime Minister, new or old, to join a political forum afterwards, instead of being given a platform to speak to the country.
Hipkins’ most senior Māori minister, Kelvin Davis, suggested on Friday that Hipkins would speak anyway because hosts can’t dictate who manuhiri put up to speak.
But that was just the anger speaking. Hipkins is not going to add fuel to the fire by speaking when he doesn’t have the blessing of the organisers.
The organisers, the Waitangi National Trust, have done a brilliant job in recent years of improving the Treaty Grounds. It added the To Kōngahu Museum in 2016; it added Te Rau Aroha Museum in 2020, which acknowledges Māori contribution to world wars. The cultural experience is great and the café makes great coffee.
It appeared to have done well to put the debacles of Te Tii Marae behind us and established a new normal and dignity in formal proceedings for politicians.
It needs to correct its mistake before the Sunday pōwhiri begins.
