John Bishop is a veteran politician from Wellington, who helped found the New Zealand Taxpayers Union. He never joined any political party. He is the father of National List MP Chris Bishop. All opinions expressed are his own.
OPINION: Co-governance may be the word of the moment, but a broader agenda for change is being promoted in Maori circles and beyond.
Far-reaching proposals for fundamental change in the way our government works are set out in the report by Matike Mai Aotearoa, the Independent Task Force on Constitutional Transformation. Te Pati Māori endorsed the report and said in February that he wants it to be fully implemented.
The Iwi Chairs Forum commissioned the report in 2010. Professor Margaret Mutu and the late Moana Jackson led a five-year process involving 252 hui and discussions with various Maoridom leaders and experts.
The report was published in 2015 and Te Pati Māori want it implemented to empower Māori to control their own future, as they say the treaty promised but failed to deliver. This is a summary of the report.
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Te Pati Māori co-leaders Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The party wants Matiki Mai Aotearoa’s report to be fully implemented.
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The report does not call for constitutional change but for ‘constitutional transformation’, based on He Whakaputanga (the 1835 declaration of independence by the northern tribes) and Te Tiriti, with respect for the intention and the letter of the treaty and the restoration of the tino rangatiratanga as fundamental principles, guided by the values of tikanga and kawaii (protocol and etiquette).
“All express the right for Maori to make decisions for Maori, which is the essence of tino rangatiratanga,” he says. What follows is the report’s prescription for Maori self-determination.
It rejects the “Crown’s presumption that iwi and hapū ceded their sovereignty to Te Tiriti” and points to a fundamental imbalance… “between the Crown’s exercise of constitutional authority and the constitutional powerlessness of Māori”.
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Matiki Mai Aotearoa’s report rejects the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy in favor of a “conciliatory and consensual democracy rather than an adversarial and majoritarian democracy”.
The authors write that their “discussions…have been shaped by the often bitter experience that many Maori have had and continue to have in their dealings with the Crown.
“Together they have engendered a very firm conviction that the Westminster constitutional system as it has been worked out since 1840 does not, indeed cannot, adequately give effect to the terms of Te Tiriti.”
Ultimately, the report says the discussions “raised the profound question of whether a state built on the taking of another people’s lands, lives and power can ever be truly just or treaty-based.” ‘he maintains a constitutional order that was part of the hold.
“It was an acknowledgment that ultimately a full and final ‘settlement’ of settlement should mean more than cash payment and even an apology.
“It requires a transformative shift in thinking to properly establish the constitutional relationship Te Tiriti intended by restoring the authority that was once wielded by mana and rangatiratanga.”
JERICHO ROCK-ARCHER/Stuff
John Bishop: “A wider agenda for change is being promoted in Maori circles and beyond.”
The report rejects the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy in favor of a “conciliatory and consensual democracy rather than an adversarial and majoritarian democracy”.
“Until the power imbalance in the Treaty ‘partnership’ is resolved, there can be no full and final settlement.”
The report reviews Maori governance practices before and after the treaty and lays out ‘spheres of influence’ as the basis for future government.
In the “rangatiratanga sphere”, Maori made decisions for Maori. In the “kāwantanga sphere”, the Crown would make decisions for its people. In the “relational sphere”, the Tiriti relationship would function through a conciliatory and consensual democracy.
The spheres would have institutional or organizational expression through (for example) an iwi/hapū assembly, a Westminster-style parliament, regional assemblies, or some forum for iwi/hapū-Crown decision-making.
The report does not discuss government structures in detail or say anything about how services to any of the populations would be funded, who would raise those funds, and how decisions would be made on spending priorities.
