In December, 12 people were arrested after members of the protest group Te Waka Houroa defaced the English version of the Treaty of Waitangi displayed at the Museum of New Zealand TePapaTongarewa. The group arguesthat the English-language version of the document, signed between Māori chiefs and a representative of the British crown in 1840, has no legal validity, a view supported by many historians and legal academics.
The protest came two weeks after aseries of treaty-based policy announcements in the coalition agreement for the newly formed National-Act-New Zealand First government. Act will draft a bill calling for a binding public referendum reinterpreting the treaty and its principles, and New Zealand First has secured a review of all legislation – exempting treaty settlements – referring to the principles of the treaty. This review will replace any references to these principles “with specific words relating to the relevance and application of the treaty, or repeal the references”.
The government will also stop all work on “He Puapua”, the Ministry of Māori Development’s report on steps towards selfdetermination. It will legislate English as an official language and ensure that government departments are primarily identified by their English names.
Labour MP Willie Jackson warned media that Māori would “go to war” over the proposed policies, and Te Pāti Māori organised aseries of nationwide protests described by co-leader Rawiri Waititi as “an activation”.
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Does New Zealand have the most ambiguous constitutional document in the world? In 1972, the historian Ruth Ross argued that due to the contradictory and chaotic nature of the treaty and its signing, the document had come to say “whatever we want it to say”. Andrew Geddis is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Otago, and he’s reluctant to concede ours is the worst – although he admits no other contenders come to mind. This “leaves us arguing over not only the
