Mike Butler
Mike Butler wrote ‘The Treaty: Basic Facts,’ which is available at trosspublishing.com
What is this thing called “rangatiratanga” that only Maoris have and is the Act Party trying to erase it?
Writing in a Stuff publication, a 34-year-old activist named Max Harris said that the Act Party is “threatened by tino rangatiratanga – the absolute authority for Maori over their taonga, promised in te Tiriti. And the ACT Party wants to cement in its place private property rights for all”. (1)
Age is relevant here because this “rangatiratanga” is something that was quietly created shortly before Harris was born and flowered as Harris bloomed.
We can know Harris’s age because of a hagiography about him published, again by Stuff, in 2017, which shows that he was born in 1989. (2)
New Zealanders of Harris’s age have been groomed into a specific view of the treaty through their entire education. I know this because our offspring are around Harris’s age and I have seen what they have been exposed to at every stage of their education.
What is “tino rangatiratanga – the absolute authority for Maori over their taonga, promised in te Tiriti” and where did it come from?
Harris says that it is in the treaty – Te Tiriti, the Maori text that is – and looks no further.
Now here is where I’m asking you to read more Maori words than you’ll ever be exposed to on a woke news bulletin. But stay with me. It’s easier than you think.
Since the treaty was drafted in English and translated into Maori, what English word did the word “rangatiratanga” translate?
If you put the English text of Article 2 next to the Te Tiriti Article 2, you will see that “te tino rangatiratanga o o ratou wenua o ratou kainga me o ratou taonga katoa” translates “the possession of their lands, dwellings and all their property”.
So “te tino rangatiratanga” translates “the possession”.
So where does Harris get his phrase “the absolute authority for Maori over their taonga, promised in te Tiriti”?
He does not say, but it looks like it comes from a retranslation into English of Te Tiriti done by Waitangi Tribunal member Sir Hugh Kawharu around 1985. That was when I was the age that Harris is now.
Kawharu translated “te tino rangatiratanga o o ratou wenua o ratou kainga me o ratou taonga katoa” into “the unqualified exercise of their chieftainship over their lands, villages and all their treasures”.
On that point, Kawharu asserts (in a footnote) that “’unqualified exercise’ of the chieftainship — would emphasise to a chief the Queen’s intention to give them complete control according to their customs.”
Now, it is clear that Kawharu’s “’unqualified exercise’ of the chieftainship” is vastly different from “possession”.
Tasked with doing this new re-translation of Te Tiriti into English in the 1980s, Kawharu appeared to stray beyond re-translating into giving his opinion on what he thought the chiefs might have understood when they heard the treaty read to them.
Since there were no words in Maori at that time for “sovereignty” (Article 1), “possession” (Article 2) and “rights and privileges of British subjects” (Article 3), Kawharu defined them.
However, he did so without reference to missionary William Colenso’s eyewitness written account which recorded what the chiefs said and did when they listened to and debated Te Tiriti.
Colenso’s account shows that a number of chiefs did not like the prospect of having a governor over them, and while most eventually signed, some refused to.
The Kawharu re-translation has become the Waitangi Tribunal’s sacred text that true believers, like Harris, must adhere to.
The question is whether Kawharu’s creation of a version of treaty history unsupported by any evidence resulted from incompetence, negligence, or was intended to set the scene for future pecuniary advantage for someone.
To be quite clear, from 1840 to 1985, the Treaty of Waitangi simply meant that:
Article 1, chiefs agreed to cede sovereignty;
Article 2, the Queen confirmed that the chiefs owned what they owned and could sell to an agent of the Queen if they so wished;
Article 3, the Queen extended to the Maori people of New Zealand the status of British subjects who would be protected.
After Kawharu and the Waitangi Tribunal and in the eyes of activists like Harris, the treaty says:
Article 1, chiefs agreed to cede the right for a governor to govern unruly British settlers;
Article 2, the Queen agreed to protect the chiefs in exercising their chieftainship over their lands, villages, and treasures, but chiefs could sell land to the Queen at an agreed price.
Article 3, the Queen protected the Maori people’s right to exercise their customs (tikanga).
Harris appeared to be pretty worked up when he wrote:
“‘Tino rangatiratanga’ is what Maori are guaranteed in Article Two of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and in te Tiriti it means absolute authority over Maori lands, villages, and other taonga (or treasures). The Treaty Principles Bill wants to take this away – to remove Maori rights”.
But the Act Party’s proposed Treaty Principles Act simply says:
1. All citizens of New Zealand have the same political rights and duties.
2. All political authority comes from the people by democratic means including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot.
3. New Zealand is a multi-ethnic liberal democracy where discrimination based on ethnicity is illegal.
That looks like an uncontroversial statement of what New Zealanders and migrants attracted here, expect the country to be. It is hardly an attempt to take away anything.
And the something that Harris fears that the Act Party wants to take away is something that has been conjured into existence since 1985, as you have seen.
The Post (3) identified Harris as a campaigner, among other things. Who or what he is campaigning for was not disclosed.
In the interests of full disclosure, I spent a year as a volunteer campaigning for the Act Party.
Mike Butler wrote ‘The Treaty: Basic Facts’, which is available at https://trosspublishing.com/product/the-treaty-basic-facts/
Sources
1. The promise we should be keeping around the treaty. https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/nz-news/350131505/promise-we-should-be-keeping-around-treaty
2. Max Harris: Young, gifted, and political. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/91486979/max-harris-young-gifted-and-political
3. The Post, formerly the Dominion-Post, is a Stuff publication.