A Maori parliament need not be like the one we know

Ngā mihi o te tau hou, whānau mā. I agree with the editorial of June 12: "As if one Parliament was not enough."

I am not a huge fan of the parliamentary model. It works well enough as representative governance for the bare majority. But to work well for the whole country, its participants must commit to constraints on their own power. There is not much evidence of that in the New Zealand Parliament.

So, like the editor, I was not so keen on the call for a Māori parliament as such. And I say this as a descendant of Ngāti Moe, of Papawai Marae, where the Kotahitanga Māori Parliament held its 1897 and 1898 sessions at our whare complex Aotea and Te Waipounamu.

That said, the editor and I come to the same conclusion from quite different paths.

The editor’s argument appears to be two-fold. First that a Māori parliament would struggle to be a "truly representative institution" able to find "a broad consensus of Māori views". They refer to the disagreements of nine individual MPs who whakapapa Māori as evidence of ... what? Different political views? Representation of their constituents? Differing policy programmes?

This confounds me. The Westminster MMP parliamentary system is designed to bring together different political views, the representation of different constituencies and the contest of ideas outlined in policy programmes. That these Māori people in that institution display these qualities, as the other 114 MPs do, is not evidence of iwi Māori disunity.

Pākehā political representation is accepted, and valued, for its diversity. As annoying as it might be, difference is critical to Parliament working as it should. Difference is what enables new and better ideas to arise. It does not call into question the ability of people to come together on important matters.

And the same applies for Māori political views. Tikanga enables, and is arguably dependent on, both debate and resolution.

The call for a Māori "parliament" need not mean the direct reflection of the current New Zealand Parliament either. Although the use of the word "parliament" is a bit of a trigger. But I think the underlying call is for a tikanga Māori political institution through which iwi Māori develop our own political aims and engage with the Crown on that national level.

The National Iwi Leaders Forum is an existing example of this. Since 2005, 72 iwi Māori leaders have met four times a year to share information and develop collective strategies and initiatives. The Matike Mai report, referred to in the June 12 editorial is an initiative of the Iwi Leaders Forum. Matike Mai has informed Māori constitutional conversations for nearly 10 years now, including discussions at the Kotahitanga hui held in the last 12 months.

The Māori Women’s Welfare League is another example of a national Māori body that works locally and with government. The league was established in 1951 to support the social and cultural aspirations of whānau Māori. The league motto is "Tatau Tatau — Let us be United", with 3000 members across 130 branches. A unified political voice is a key tool of the league built by vigorous debate.

If you think Māori women all agree with each other, you must have only met one.

The second editorial argument is that the aspirations in Te Pati Māori’s call for a Māori parliament are perhaps naïve (my word) because of the difficulty in achieving those aspirations.

I don’t agree that aspirations are not worth striving for even if within a flawed structure. The editorial says "there is no guarantee ... that it will be anchored in tikanga and kawa, focus entirely on mokopuna livelihood, and be part of transforming Aotearoa into a nation which respects the tino rangatiratanga of tangata whenua, and creates a safe home for all peoples".

True. There is no such guarantee. But the absence of a guarantee is not, and should never be, a reason not to strive to create institutions to achieve these aspirations. Just as the New Zealand Parliament fails to achieve many aspirations of those who value it, the institution itself is not the end goal.

The goal is the striving to make things better, the wiggly path to a better life for everyone. The institution is a tool for exercising values and, like all long-lasting institutions, will change and grow as the aspirations of those involved change.

Whatever the nature of the vehicle, the key call is for a national political forum that is created according to tikanga Māori and operates according to tikanga Māori to achieve the aspirations of mokopuna. What a wonderful Matariki aspiration.

By the way, head down to the Hocken Collections to see an exhibition of the history of the Ōtākou Māori Women’s Welfare League. Mānawatia a Matariki!

■Metiria Stanton-Turei is a law lecturer at the University of Otago and a former Green Party MP and co-leader.