The fight for Māori rights drew 42,000 protesters to New Zealand’s parliament in the capital, Wellington, on Tuesday.
The nine-day hikoi, or peaceful march, is a Māori tradition, held in protest against legislation that seeks to reinterpret the 184-year-old founding Treaty of Waitangi, signed between British colonizers and Indigenous peoples. I was disappointed. Maori people.
Some people demonstrated peacefully outside the Capitol for nine days before the protests ended on Tuesday.
On November 14, the controversial Treaty Principles Bill was submitted to Parliament for a preliminary vote. Parliamentary proceedings were suspended after Māori MPs disrupted the vote by performing a haka (a ceremonial Māori dance).
So what was the Treaty of Waitangi, what are the proposals to change it, and why has it sparked protests in New Zealand?
Who is Māori?
The Maori people are the original inhabitants of the two large islands now known as New Zealand, and have lived there for centuries.
The Maori arrived on New Zealand’s uninhabited islands from eastern Polynesia in canoe voyages in the 1300s. After hundreds of years of isolation, they developed their own culture and language. Māori people speak Te Reo Māori, and there are various tribes, or iwi, spread throughout the country.
The two islands were originally called Aotearoa by the Maori people. The name New Zealand was given to Aotearoa in 1840 by British colonists who ruled it under a treaty.
New Zealand gained independence from Britain in 1947. But this was after the Māori people had suffered more than 100 years of genocide, land dispossession, and cultural erasure at the hands of colonial settlers.
There are currently 978,246 Maori people in New Zealand, making up about 19 per cent of the country’s population of 5.3 million. They are represented by Te Pati Māori, or the Māori Party, which currently holds six of the 123 seats in parliament.
What is the Treaty of Waitangi?
On 6 February 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi, also known as Te Tiriti o Waitangi or simply Te Tiriti, was signed between the British Crown and approximately 500 Māori chiefs (rangatira). This treaty was New Zealand’s founding document and officially made New Zealand a British colony.
Although the treaty was presented as a measure to resolve differences between Māori and the British, there are actually some notable differences between the English and Te Reo versions of the treaty.
The Te Reo Māori version guarantees “rangatiratanga” to Māori chiefs. This translates to “self-determination” and guarantees Māori people the right to govern themselves.
However, the English translation says that Māori chiefs “absolutely and without reservation cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England all the rights and powers of sovereignty,” without mentioning Māori autonomy.
The English translation guarantees Maori “full, exclusive and unencumbered ownership of land and estates, forests and fisheries.”
“The British draft law says that British settlers have full authority and control over Māori throughout the country,” said Māori community organizer and director of community action group Action Station Aotearoa. one Kathy Hartendorp told Al Jazeera.
Hartendorp says the Te Reo version includes the term “kawanatanga,” which in its historical and linguistic context “offered British settlers the opportunity to establish their own government structures to govern their own people.” “but it does not limit the sovereignty of indigenous peoples.”
“We have never ceded our sovereignty, and we have never surrendered it. We tolerated the new settlers to establish their own government because they were unruly and lawless at the time. ,” Hartendorp said.
However, in the decades after 1840, 90 percent of Māori land was occupied by the British Crown. Both versions of the treaty have been repeatedly violated, and Māori people continue to be treated unfairly in New Zealand even after independence.
In 1975, the Waitangi Tribunal was established as a permanent body to adjudicate treaty issues. The tribunal attempts to remedy violations of the treaty and resolve differences between the two articles of the treaty.
Over time, multibillion-dollar settlement negotiations have taken place over treaty violations, particularly related to widespread seizures of Māori land.
But other forms of fraud are occurring. Between 1950 and 2019, around 200,000 children, young people and vulnerable adults suffered physical and sexual abuse in state and church care, but the commission found that Māori children They were found to be more susceptible to abuse than children.
On November 12 this year, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon issued an apology to the victims, which was criticized by Maori survivors as insufficient. One criticism was that the apology did not take the treaty into account. Although the principles of the Treaty are not fixed and flexible, it is an important historical document that protects Māori rights.
What does the Treaty Principles Bill propose?
The Treaty Principles Bill was introduced by David Seymour MP from the liberal ACT Party, a minor partner in New Zealand’s coalition government. Seymour himself is Maori. The party launched a public relations campaign regarding the bill on February 7 this year.
The ACT Party argues that the treaty has been misinterpreted for decades, leading to the creation of a dual system for New Zealanders where Maori and white New Zealanders have different political and legal rights. Mr Seymour says a misunderstanding of the meaning of the treaty has effectively given Māori special treatment. The bill seeks to end “racial divisions.”
Seymour said, for example, that the principle of “ethnic quotas in public institutions” violates the principle of equality.
Although the bill aims to provide specific definitions of the principles of the Convention, it is currently flexible and open to interpretation. These principles will apply equally to all New Zealanders, whether they are Māori or not.
According to Together for Te Tility, an initiative led by Action Station Aotearoa, the bill would require the New Zealand government to govern all New Zealanders and treat all New Zealanders as equal before the law. It is said that it will be possible to do this. Activists argue that this would effectively disadvantage Māori, as they have been historically oppressed.
Many, including the Waitangi Tribunal, argue this will lead to an erosion of Māori rights. A statement from Action Station Aotearoa said the principles in the bill “do not in any way reflect the meaning” of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Why is this bill so controversial?
The bill is strongly opposed by New Zealand’s political parties on both the left and right, and has been criticized by Māori as undermining the treaty and its interpretation.
Gideon Porter, a Maori journalist from New Zealand, told Al Jazeera that not only historians and legal experts, but also most Maori people, believed the bill was a result of “decades of intensive research and understanding of what is Maori. “This is an attempt to redefine the negotiated understanding of what constitutes ‘principles’.” Treaty”.
Mr Porter added that critics of the bill believe that “the ACT Party in this coalition is trying to engineer things so that Parliament can act as judge, jury and executioner”. He added that he believed that.
In the eyes of most Māori, he said, the ACT Party was “just masking racism behind the guise that ‘we are all New Zealanders with equal rights'”.
The Waitangi Tribunal released its report on August 16, stating that the bill “violates the Treaty principles of partnership and reciprocity, active protection, good government, equity, redress and…the guarantee of rangatiratanga.” It was confirmed that there is.
Another tribunal report obtained by the Guardian said: “If enacted, this bill would constitute the worst and most comprehensive breach of the Convention in modern times.”
What process does this bill have to go through?
For a bill to become law in New Zealand, it must go through three rounds in Parliament. First, a bill is introduced, then MPs propose amendments, and finally the amendments are voted on. The total number of MPs is 123, so the bill needs at least 62 votes to pass, David McDonald, a political science professor at Canada’s University of Guelph, told Al Jazeera.
In addition to the Maori Party’s six seats, the New Zealand Parliament includes 34 seats held by the New Zealand Labor Party. Aotearoa Green Party has 14 seats. The National Party holds 49 seats. The ACT Party holds 11 seats. New Zealand First held eight seats.
“The leaders of the National Party, including the Prime Minister and other ministers, and the leaders of the other coalition party (New Zealand) First, have all said they will not support this bill beyond the committee stage. It is highly unlikely that it will receive support from any party other than ACT,” Mr McDonald said.
During the bill’s first hearing in Parliament this week, Māori Party MP Hana Rawhiti Maipi-Clark tore up a copy of the bill and led a ceremonial haka dance.
Is this bill likely to pass?
Porter said the bill has “zero chance” of becoming law.
He said ACT’s coalition partners were “absolutely committed” to rejecting the bill at the next stage. All opposition parties will also vote against the bill.
“They just agreed to allow this to happen so they could govern as part of their ‘coalition agreement,'” Porter said.
New Zealand’s current coalition government was formed in November 2023 following elections held a month earlier. It is made up of the National Party, ACT and New Zealand First.
Although right-wing parties have not given specific reasons for opposing the bill, Hartendorp said New Zealand First and the New Zealand People’s Party are likely to vote in line with public opinion, which largely opposes the bill. said.
Why are people protesting when this bill is destined to fail?
The protests are not just against this bill.
“This march is a protest against many of the Coalition Government’s anti-Māori activities,” Mr Porter said.
Many believe that the Conservative Coalition Government, which took office in November 2023, has taken steps to eliminate “race-based politics”. Maori people are not happy with this and believe this will undermine their rights.
These measures include the removal of laws that gave Māori a voice in environmental matters. The government also abolished the Māori Health Authority in February this year.
Although the bill is likely to be defeated, many believe that by simply allowing the bill to be tabled in Parliament, the Coalition government has caused dangerous social divisions.
For example, Conservative former prime minister Jenny Shipley said the mere introduction of this bill was sowing division in New Zealand.
