The biggest failure in any decent controversy is hearing just one side of the argument. It’s worse when neither side takes the opportunity to offer solutions.
It is not what they say that’s important, it is what they don’t say that is so telling.
Waitangi Day is meant to be a day of celebration, instead it is now a day of position-taking and holding on. History morphs into some kind of theological creed which in turn relies on no close examination — lest intelligent outcomes should start to appear.
However, sensible outcomes can be found if removed from the grasp of those unwilling to even try to find solutions.
Speeches at Waitangi or Akaroa recently left no-one better off and none any the wiser.
New Zealand continues to allow capture of complex subjects by vested interests.
Regretfully, political leadership can be difficult to find, in case solutions offered differ from strongly held party political advantage.
There was a legitimate expectation that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon went to Akaroa on Waitangi Day to offer up solutions both the government and Ngāi Tahu could buy into. Speeches from both sides would indicate that is not so.
It would have assisted us all greatly if a leader such as Justin Tipa — chairman of Rūnanga Ngāi Tahu — had told us all of his vision under rangatiratanga or unqualified authority over all things Māori. He could also have defined just exactly what this "unique constitutional identity" of iwi Maori he speaks of actually is and what is being asked for.
What is the unequal right he (Tipa) has personally suffered from and which law has diminished him as a leader? He could have reflected in his speech on what has gone right for Māori and not just on those things we all know went wrong.
Some might suggest that colonisation by the UK was a small price to pay for law and peace to break out in this new land. Just as England ultimately benefited from Roman conquest and the imposition of law and peace between the tribes, so too has New Zealand.
It would assist us all if he explained what specific rights regarding freshwater Ngai Tahu believe is their birth right. What would Ngai Tahu authority over fresh water look like if iwi were granted entitlements which would be exercised solely by Ngai Tahu as Mr Tipa apparently believes they should? A former minister (Nania Mahuta) tried and failed.
It is surely recognised that Ngai Tahu stewardship of their Treaty settlement is a model for all other tribal settlements. To turn $170 million in 1998 into $1.3 billion today is a remarkable achievement. The issue of "sovereignty" over their own (Māori) land and resources appears to be understood by all except politicians.
It’s called property rights. Everybody’s property rights, however, have been blithely ignored by successive governments and should always be applied equally to all citizens — Māori or non-Māori.
It will of course be a cold day in hell when any government today tries to remove more property rights from any Māori owner, yet the rest of us continue to be fair game.
Overall sovereignty must always rest with a duly elected government based on one person one vote — and the authority to make and pass laws upon which we must or should all abide.
The prime minister could have indicated that this government was prepared to initiate discussion around the separation of and the sanctity of private property, whether it be communal under Māori or individual under all other citizens — but he didn’t.
It is a matter of deep regret that governments pay scant regard to the importance of the right to hold land and property against the Crown or government, as it is referred to today.
Forest & Bird and Fish & Game understand how easy it is to "play" the government on this issue. Some clarity around where all past "full and final" Treaty settlements fit into current demands by Māori also would have been helpful.
Mr Tipa is entirely correct to have mentioned in his speech that our past is both figuratively and literally part of the ground upon which this country stands.
So many of us New Zealanders choose to reflect on the past.
We can only but wonder at the relevance of the Treaty of Waitangi if the United States battle fleet had not sailed into the Coral Sea in May 1942 to engage the then enemy. Should we not also reflect on "our place to stand" here, if our young men and women had not stood at Gallipoli, at El Alamein, at Cassino, the Somme and Passchendaele and so many other fields in Europe and beyond.
The white crosses all over these faraway places have allowed us to take and hold our place; to stand alongside one another in this country. It is not the Treaty of Waitangi that gives us this right.
We, all of us, have earned our place, as Mr Tipa correctly identifies, and that is a good place upon which to start real dialogue.
"Reasonable refinement rather than radical revision", as Mr Tipa rightly says — but for us all, Mr Tipa, for us all.
■ Gerrard Eckhoff is a former Otago regional councillor and Act New Zealand MP.
