If there’s one thing we can say, it’s that — for better or worse — te Tiriti o Waitangi remains very much alive in the public consciousness of New Zealand.
It’s significant that we’re joined by the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and other senior ministers. Since the news went out that you [Prime Minister Christopher Luxon] were going to be here, there’s been a lot of speculation about why you’re in Te Waipounamu rather than Waitangi.
Ōnuku is a long way from Waitangi. And in terms of geography, Te Waipounamu is renowned for its ruggedness. Bone-chilling cold, scorching heat, howling winds, torrential rain, parching dryness, we’ve got it all.
And closer to us here at Ōnuku, the unique geography of Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū, Banks Peninsula — taking its name from our great ancestor Rākaihautū — evokes themes of daring exploration, purposeful vision, adaption and transformation.
So perhaps you’ve been drawn to Te Waipounamu today. Perhaps by a subconscious recognition that our Treaty politics is in need of a wilderness experience — a period of deep reflection, elemental cleansing and transformation. An experience that requires the symbolic backdrop that only Te Waipounamu can provide.
Perhaps another factor is that the Ngāi Tahu experience of colonisation is a unique example of exactly why the Treaty is an essential part of our nation.
Following first contact, and by the 1830s, Ngāi Tahu had established thriving trade relationships with Pākehā across Te Waipounamu, Te Ika a Māui and Australia. Ngāi Tahu willingly participated in the new economies available to us.
Te Tiriti o Waitangi was then signed in 1840, setting the stage for large-scale, Crown-backed land purchases. As the settler population grew rapidly, te Tiriti was intended to provide essential protections for Ngāi Tahu in our dealings with Pākehā, particularly over land.
Yet, by the late 19th century, Ngāi Tahu had become essentially landless, severely impoverished and all but forgotten in Te Waipounamu. This story was laid bare for all to see during Te Kerēme — the Ngāi Tahu Claim.
It was here at Ōnuku that former prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley delivered the Crown’s apology — now enshrined in law in the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act — for its unconscionable treatment of Ngāi Tahu, its failure to act in utmost good faith and its neglect in upholding the honour of the Crown.
The Ngāi Tahu story is instructive for us as a country, because it’s a vivid reminder that the unchecked momentum of blind political, economic and social forces can lead us to forget our obligations to one another, and our honour.
So perhaps all the speculation about your motivations for being here rather than Waitangi are missing the point. Whatever the reasons — personal, political, or providential — your presence adds to the significance of our commemoration today, and I want to acknowledge that.
The past couple of years have witnessed a dramatic shift in the cultural and political landscape of our country. We are living through a critical juncture in our history, where the machinations of modern party politics threaten to corrupt the dignity of our nation’s complex and contingent identity.
One thing I want to say upfront, and which I’ll repeat throughout, is: "We are not the radicals".
As our politics has become more polarised, I’ve become increasingly aware of how the radical label is used to undermine the constitutional identities of iwi Māori and cast iwi corporate entities as inherently nefarious. I take issue with that narrative.
We are not the radicals. A nation is not a blank canvas: it is an inheritance. It’s our inheritance, all New Zealanders. It’s a real place, home to real people living real lives, whose collective experiences have shaped a real and defined history.
For New Zealand, that history begins with te Tiriti o Waitangi. Te Tiriti is not just words on a page. Real people stood across from each other. Each with their own understandings and intentions. Each with their own mana and mandate. And each making the decision to intertwine their fates, mō ake tonu atu.
Here at Ōnuku, it was Iwikau and Tīkao who signed te Tiriti. Many of their descendants are among the Ōnuku and Ngāi Tahu whānau looking after us today.
That’s why Ngai Tahu returns each year to the sites where te Tiriti was signed in our takiwā. To remember that te Tiriti o Waitangi is not merely a relic of a long-forgotten and distant past. It is, literally and figuratively, part of the ground on which our nation stands.
I think that’s one of the things that has annoyed me most about public discourse on Treaty matters. Too much of the conversation has been focused on abstract philosophical debates about the nature of sovereignty and the true meaning of liberalism.
Rather than helping us to deepen and refine our understanding of modern New Zealand as it actually exists, these abstract philosophical debates have been used as smokescreens to advance shallow ideological agendas and play party politics.
True political leadership is about meeting people where they are and synthesising the interests of various strands of society into a workable whole. It is a complex and messy task, but it’s important, because when there’s an absence of this type of leadership, voices that represent comparatively simpler and shallower viewpoints begin to shine through.
Not because of the strength of their position or mandate, but because they’ve got a simple philosophy that provides simple answers to the complex questions we are confronted with.
This is why our political debates — particularly those concerning the Treaty — have come to be dominated by minor parties. Because our major parties are struggling to articulate a political vision that builds on the distinct character of the New Zealand nation, one that people can embrace with confidence and commitment.
So instead, we get an Act party neoliberal thought experiment, posing as a faux source of moral principle and national unity. And we’ve seen what that’s doing to our social fabric.
Prime Minister, I agreed wholeheartedly with a large part of your kōrero today, and in your recent state of the nation address. We do need growth. We do need investment. We should be ambitious. Ngāi Tahu wants those things too.
But simply going for growth and liberalising the economy isn’t going to cut it. A nation is not a blank canvas.
If our country continues to divide and fragment, we will lose the trust and stability, the fundamental good faith, that makes economic growth and prosperity possible in the first place.
I don’t have all the answers; but on the Treaty question, I think it starts by getting back to basics and putting a stake in the ground.
"Sincerity, justice and good faith" — these were the instructions Captain William Hobson received in 1839 from the Colonial Secretary, Lord Normanby. The articles of the Treaty are clear: right to govern; protection of tino rangatiratanga; same rights and duties. That is our starting point.
So when Iwikau and Tikao signed te Tiriti here at Ōnuku, they committed to a constitutional monarchy where the right to govern rests on the protection of rangatiratanga; and to a society where their people and descendants would enjoy the same rights as the settler population. They did not commit to a constitutional republic where the rights of the majority consistently override those of the minority, and in which the rangatiratanga — the distinct rights and authority of iwi Māori — would be erased entirely.
Whatever path we take forward from here should be built on the real and dignified authority of our shared past, rather than on the vague and amorphous ambitions of those who would rather impose their own tyranny of the present.
I am not saying there isn’t room to disagree about what it means to give effect to te Tiriti and Treaty principles. Of course there is.
Disagreement is possible.
But what I’m saying is that we’ve got to have these disagreements in good faith, without making a mockery of the complex and contingent nation we have inherited.
I think we’re failing at that. And it’s not just the Treaty Principles Bill, it’s a general attitude of some in this country that is dismissive and disrespectful of the unique constitutional identities of iwi Māori.
So much of the Treaty principles debate has been confused by the conflation of article 2 and article 3 rights. In fact, I’m sure some people — definitely David Seymour — deliberately conflate them for that purpose.
There is a fundamental difference between the article 2 rights of iwi Māori, which are concerned with particular sets of collective rights and the ability of iwi to exercise authority over those rights, and article 3 rights, which are concerned with equal social and legal rights for individuals in a free and democratic society.
It’s simply not true that the rangatiratanga rights of iwi Māori are incompatible with the idea of "equal rights for all" or democracy. Rangatiratanga, guaranteed in article 2 of the Treaty, isn’t about establishing additional social or legal rights for individual Māori citizens, over and above those of the rest of the population. It is also not about challenging the Crown’s right to govern.
Ngāi Tahu does not seek national sovereignty; we assert our rangatiratanga in our takiwā. Equality when it comes to rangatiratanga is about ensuring equal treatment in how the particular rights of iwi Māori are upheld and protected under the law.
Outside of the collective rights of iwi Māori, we would never accept that an individual’s or collective’s particular rights should be subject to the principle of equal distribution across all members of society. We would rightly call that confiscation.
Nevertheless, determining how rangatiratanga interacts with the Crown’s right to govern on any given issue is not always obvious, and sometimes, disputes arise.
We have got an example of exactly that set to begin next week. We’ve taken legal action against the Crown, seeking declarations that the government has a duty to acknowledge our rangatiratanga rights and engage with Ngāi Tahu to design a better system for managing freshwater in our takiwā.
I’m sure we will start hearing politicians and commentators whipping up a frenzy about radical greedy Ngāi Tahu trying to own water, and how it’s a threat to our democracy and the rights of all New Zealanders. They will be wrong. On purpose.
Because distorting the truth and framing us as greedy radicals is more convenient to their political fancies than reckoning with our legitimate rights under te Tiriti.
Our claim is not about owning water. It is also not about challenging the Crown’s right to govern, or about legislated Treaty principles.
It is about acknowledging that Ngāi Tahu, as an iwi and a collective legal identity, holds specific rights regarding freshwater in our takiwā, including the entitlement — and the obligation — to exercise authority over its responsible management.
Our rangatiratanga has been ignored for decades, and the state of freshwater in our takiwā has gotten worse and worse. It’s not good enough. And we’re doing something about it.
It is not always easy to determine how rangatiratanga rights interact with the Crown’s right to govern on any given issue.
We’ve got to work at it, in good faith.
If we focused more on reasonable refinement rather than radical revision, I truly believe we could build real momentum toward productive and lasting reform in our country. As an iwi, as Ngāi Tahu, that’s what we want.
Rangatiratanga is not going anywhere. Rangatiratanga is our opportunity to build and sustain our communities in accordance with our tikanga, and to have a genuine stake in the success and prosperity of this nation we have all inherited.
We are not the radicals.
—Justin Tipa is kaiwhakahaere of Ngai Tahu.
