The Waitangi Grounds.
OPINION
Waitangi Day tomorrow will be 184 years since Lieutenant Governor William Hobson met with about 40 local chiefs at Waitangi to sign a recently drafted treaty. The Māori version.
He had set aside three days for the chiefs to mull over the draft but was surprised to be summoned by them early. He was required so urgently he did not have time to put on his best naval uniform, turning up in his day clothes but with his plumed hat on his head to add some ceremony to the situation.
The chiefs were waiting. Old James Busby, the former British Resident, acted as usher and began introducing the chiefs to Hobson.
About half the signatories on February 6, 1840, had also signed the Declaration of Independence.
Missionary Henry Williams then later translated the signed Treaty into an English version.
It was presumed that the Māori text and the retranslation into English had the same meaning, but Williams added a cautionary note on the copy of the official text that Hobson sent to Governor Gipps in New South Wales: “I certify that the above is as literal a translation of the Treaty of Waitangi as the idiom of the language will allow”.
By the end of 1840 about 500 other Māori, including 13 women, had signed the Treaty throughout the land. All but 39 signed the Māori version.
For the sake of expedience and efficiency, many copies of the Māori version were made to get it around the country. A huge job in a time when travel was limited to the sea or bush tracks.
The job was done by the end of the year. New Zealand had its founding document. We were now a colony with a treaty between the first people and the incomers, the Tangata Whenua and the Tangata Tiriti.
The Treaty gave the incomers a right to be in the country, a right bestowed by the first peoples. That was not a given.
Most of the missionaries were British, with a smattering of French Catholic missionaries who set up in the Hokianga in 1838. The British missionaries had introduced Māori to English in its spoken and written form and had begun formulating written te reo, of great interest to the chiefs.
One hundred and eighty-four years later here we are. That is not a long time in the scheme of things. Many of you, like me, would have had great-grandparents who were alive in the 1840s.
So in 2024, we have a Government formed that has, to date, managed to disengage a good portion of our population.
Our Prime Minister is constantly being side-lined by the minor parties wanting to take New Zealand back in time to when te reo was a novelty used by Māori and some Pākehā.
Christopher Luxon needs to shut this down. Inferring that this may all go away after the first reading or whatever is not enough. It leaves wriggle room for politicians.
Now we all know Act and New Zealand First could not care less about the disengaged who are upset at the tension they have created. Those people don’t vote for them anyway.
National should be worried. Many National voters want the Government to do stuff, get stuff back on track. Fix the economy, actually build some houses, to sort our creaking health system out.
Walk away Luxon. Take National with you. Act and New Zealand First will toe the line.
It is not only Māori who are vested in the best outcomes for the Treaty. It is all New Zealanders. We all want our country to thrive, and to be at peace with each other.
Rob Rattenbury is retired and lives in Whanganui. He recently published a book about his years with the police.