[csaa-forum] Pakeha and the Treaty - why it's our Treaty too (Pat Snedden)

[Danny Butt]

Greetings all,

As many of you know I moved from Australia to New Zealand coming up to 
12 years ago, and have found it increasingly important to come to terms 
with the connections between the white colonial cultures that have 
emerged in these two countries. Developing an explicit understanding of 
and relationship with indigenous cultures, their experiences, and 
aspirations (in both countries) has provided me with the most insight 
into why I'm doing this and also provides insight into why, with no 
real intention or undergraduate training in the field, I ended up 
interested in  this stuff called cultural studies.

  At the moment, settler-indigenous relations strike me as being very 
much a 'structure of feeling', a locus for all sorts of interesting 
issues about contemporary Western culture. I was thinking this after 
visiting a good friend of mine in Sydney, as white as me but from New 
Zealand, and with no specific reason to be interested in issues of 
colonialism by education or upbringing. He was working on some films 
with the indigenous Creative Combat Collective in Redfern alongside his 
management job, and had been asked to give a workshop on "filling in 
grant applications" down at the community centre. What's up with that?

As useful as I find the field of cultural studies for making sense of 
this, every now and then I come across things that seem to hint at the 
limits of the field, its methodologies, and its institutional 
allegiances for the kind of work I'm involved in, and that which I see 
around me. For those of you who were around in the 80s maybe it's like 
when you went to a conference on Marxism and decided it was time to 
expand your reading list :).  Some of these things come from inside the 
discipline, but this time it's something from outside.

Pat Snedden is an Auckland businessman, publisher, management 
consultant, and member of the Auckland district health board. His talks 
are probably making some of the biggest impact in the media and on the 
streets among Pakeha trying to get to grips with how to live here. 
Meanwhile, the Pakeha academic system is being pretty damned quiet (or 
silenced) compared to, for example, a few months back when talk show 
host Holmes called Kofi Annan a "cheeky darkie". Perhaps the fusing of 
race, culture and colonisation in the situation where we live is more 
complex. But it seems to me that talk reproduced below is a great 
reminder that it doesn't have to be. And for the Australians, this 
might be an interesting window into a space, a dialogue, and an 
opportunity for thinking about what cultural practice could be in this 
part of the world (there's a glossary at the end, don't worry!).

x.d
--
http://www.dannybutt.net

Begin forwarded message:

http://publicaddress.net/default,1213.sm#post1213

GUEST: Pat Snedden reflects on 30 years work with Maori communities

Pakeha and the Treaty - why it's our Treaty too
May 11, 2004 10:15
   A talk at St Columba's on Friday 7 May 2004:

I had not thought in this talk tonight that I would say much about the
foreshore and seabed. Positions for and against the legislation are so
polarised at present that it is difficult to see what could be added
that might suggest a different way this issue may be tackled. But some
of you may feel justifiably short-changed if I didn't at least give you
my view of some of the principles on which this matter might be
advanced even though the Bill has now had its first reading.

So let me do so briefly. I would take you back to a talk I gave to the
seabed and foreshore hui at Waipapa in February this year. The hosts
wished for a Pakeha perspective and I obliged. My view has not changed
since.

To deal with this issue we must return to the spirit and principled
approach of our founding charter. Most importantly, the time must be
taken to reach a result that leads to the enhancement of mana (honour,
dignity and respect) of all participants. If either Treaty partner wins
at the expense of the other then the issue will not be solved. If we
have learnt anything in this last thirty years, it is that the past for
Maori, is never forgotten.

What is more, all New Zealanders must be able to understand the
substance of the resolution and a broad consensus will need to be
gained in support. It will need popular sign-off by the people. It is a
moment for the cultural and historical education about our nationhood,
not a return to active denial of our history.

So how might the parties act in this matter?

• The Crown could acknowledge that it has not extinguished aboriginal
title and could explicitly recognise Maori rangatiratanga in this
matter and confirm support for the 1840 manawhenua position of tangata
whenua in respect to foreshore and seabed

• Tangata whenua could acknowledge the unfettered sovereign right of
the Crown to govern and the unfettered right of navigation and the
non-commercial access to the seabed and foreshore for all New
Zealanders.

• The Crown could invite Tangata whenua with manawhenua in a region to
jointly manage the seabed and foreshore exercising their obligation
jointly with the Crown of kaitiakitanga (guardianship).

• Tangata whenua could clearly agree that where there exists possible
commercial development of the seabed and foreshore, those with
manawhenua who have an explicit and beneficial interest would have to
submit to conflict of interest provisions, and not vote in such
matters.

• Tangata whenua would acknowledge that in the matter of commercial
development of the seabed and foreshore they have no more or less than
the same rights provided to all New Zealander citizens.

• Finally any solution must confirm the basic founding principle of our
collective security as a people. That we can all expect to be treated
the same way under the law and that we all have access to the law in
the in a fair and transparent manner.


And what might such a resolution achieve?

• The Crown will have confirmed with absolute clarity its sovereign
right to govern in all matters without qualification and all New
Zealanders will have regained certainty about their unfettered access
to the foreshore and seabed.

• Tangata whenua will have experienced their rangatiratanga as
confirmed by the Crown, manawhenua recognised and aboriginal title
retained. In addition their joint management of the resource is
confirmed with the Crown in all matters of a non-commercial nature thus
ensuring the appropriate exercise of kaitiakitanga.

• For all new Zealanders, the commercial opportunities are exactly the
same.

• And all parties will have the same rights of access and protection
under the law.

Ask yourself the questions. Do the current proposals in the bill before
the house enhance the mana of all parties? Do they operate within a
win/win paradigm? Can most New Zealanders understand them? Do they
derive from recognition that we are all the same under the law? Will
they in their current form lead to a durable solution?

If your answer is 'no' to any of these questions, then we might have a
problem. The hikoi turnout on Tuesday suggests that one party at least
to this process is naming that problem. It need not be so. We have the
ability to constructively resolve this issue.

My challenge to New Zealanders, most particularly my fellow Pakeha, is
simple. Let us commit to a fair and equitable resolution. We have it in
our power to do so.

What does this say about us all belonging within Aotearoa/New Zealand?

The conduct of this debate does bear on our knowledge of our cultural
selves, our history and our Treaty. It goes right to the heart of our
sense of belonging, particularly as Pakeha. A recent experience of mine
will illustrate what I mean.

A couple of months ago I called a cab to go to town. The driver made to
head off in a direction that I didn't expect. E te alu ifea? (Where are
you going?) I said in my best and only Samoan. He nearly leapt out of
his seat hearing this from a palagi and we both fell about laughing.
How had been his morning, I asked. Busy, he replied, taking people to
the cricket test at Eden Park.

Oh, the Pakeha hui, I said. What do you mean, he responded with eyes
raised. Well, it goes on for five days, everybody gets fed at least
twice a day, there's lots of controversy, for long periods nothing
seems to happen and then suddenly people seem to be at each other's
throat. In the end they shake hands and mostly it ends in a draw.
Sounds like a hui to me, I said. He had the grace to chuckle.

There's only one place in the world where that conversation could have
taken place and be understood inclusive of all its cultural nuance.
That place is here.

What therefore does it say about belonging?

Let me talk more of Eden Park. My great grandfather, Alexander Snedden
was one of six Auckland businessmen who in 1903 purchased the swamp,
drained it and turned it into a sports ground. Such has been our
continuous connection over four succeeding generations that when
members of our family played at Eden Park at either rugby or cricket,
it was hard to escape the feeling that with this sporting whakapapa we
had home advantage!

Now not all Pakeha have this same sense of ownership about our country.
I read a commentator recently suggest Don Brash's speech at Orewa
tapped at a very emotional level the sense of Pakeha feeling "strangers
in our own land". In short we need to reclaim our sense of belonging.

Brian Turner wrote recently in the Listener asserting a deep and
intimate Pakeha connection with the land, a connection denied he
believed by many Maori, including Ranganui Walker, to whom he was
responding. When Walker says, "I have been here a thousand years. You
arrived only yesterday" Turner objects. This view, he says, very
clearly denies a similar depth of feeling to almost everyone else. He
fundamentally disagrees with a presumption about the way in which
non-Maori feelings for land and water are dismissed as less heartfelt,
less sensitive, less spiritual.

So am I, as a Pakeha, indigenous? Well, emotionally yes and technically
no. For me to claim my 140 years of direct ancestry here is a source of
pride and this is my home. But can I fairly claim to be indigenous in
the same way as Maori who have been here from around 1300 AD? To do so
would be to sideline 500 plus years of Maori experience prior to my
forebear's arrival. What's more my forebears were not the first people
to settle here, an important element of the definition. So to claim to
be indigenous in the same way as tangata whenua is unfair and
technically it is not factual. And if there is one matter that we need
to do today is to stick to the facts.

But nor do I wish to tug my forelock in this matter. As Pakeha we claim
our belonging through being descended from the settlers who agreed the
Treaty. The same Treaty that by joint agreement of tangata whenua and
tauiwi, gives all subsequent migrants and their communities the right
to call this place their own. The importance of this cannot be
understated. It was the Maori Land Court Chief Judge Durie in 1990 who
first described Pakeha as tangata Tiriti, those who belong to the land
by right of the Treaty. It is our unimpeachable security, our right to
belong passed from generation to generation.

On one side of my family my migrant ancestors arrived at Port Albert
near Wellsford in the 1860s. They became farmers. At the Port
Albertland wharf there is a plaque thanking Ngati Whatua for their
assistance in settlement and acknowledging that without that they would
not have survived.

Today we are shaped by a set of cultural reflexes toward the land, our
environment and as my taxi driver conversation shows, the interaction
between Maori, Pakeha and Pacific peoples that exists nowhere outside
of this place. And increasingly, especially in Auckland, our population
is playing host to many new communities and will continue to do so. For
the vast majority of us tauiwi, most especially Pakeha, we no longer
have a bolt-hole to escape to anywhere else in the world that accepts
us as their own. I have visited the heart of my Irish and Scottish
roots and except for the most surface of acknowledgement they did not
see anything of themselves in me nor me in them.

I am here in Aotearoa New Zealand for good because I have nowhere else
to go. And I am content with that.

My view is that it is this concept that so many of us post-Treaty
migrants have emotional difficulty with. We passionately and
intuitively know we are not strangers in our own land, but we are
unresolved as to how to describe ourselves.

Resolving this will help us deal with this current debate. Denying the
distinct and different world-view of our Treaty counter-party will not
satisfy this need. At present my observation is that Pakeha (and for
that matter many new migrants) look at the Treaty as being not our
Treaty but their Treaty, a method of leverage for resolving Maori
claims. So once we finalise their grievances the relevance of the
Treaty will be no more.

How much more satisfying would it be if we all claimed and acknowledged
our own sense of belonging, different but authentic to its core,
Treaty-based in its origins? Then this discussion would be quite
different. The Treaty would become our Treaty and our behaviour in
relation to the principles of that Treaty would be inclusive not
exclusive.

How can we deal then with different worldviews or indeed a dual
worldview?

We need this confidence in 'belonging' if ever we are going to relax
about the different world-views that sometimes separate tangata whenua
and tauiwi. The foreshore and seabed debate is the current point of
tension. Why is this the case?

In the last week two examples may help us point to an answer.

The Sunday Star times carried a report of a poll that found Pakeha
believed themselves more likely to experience racism in this country
than Maori, but less likely than Asian migrants. This result, I
suspect, would have been news to most Maori.

As a working definition, one might describe racism as prejudice plus
power. In short it connects the dislike of a person or group because of
their ethnicity with the ability to exploit that prejudice to the
disadvantage of that person or group.

I don't in my experience remember any anecdotal experience of Pakeha
friends or family who couldn't get a rental property because of their
ethnicity. I have never heard of Pakeha not being able to get a bank
loan because their ethnicity comes into the higher risk category
relative to other borrowers. Nor have I read a news report of a Pakeha
not being allowed to speak in court in the English language or say
prayers in their own language at the hospital bedside. I don't remember
hearing about a situation when members of my own ethnicity have been
prevented from applying our cultural manners or standards of politeness
in the welcome of strangers or colleagues into our business meetings or
public gatherings.

By now you will got my general point. So what perceptions might this
poll on racism be about? On a common sense basis it is hard to match
its conclusions with the available evidence. So is it talking about
something else then going on within the perception of Pakeha?

   Is this indeed reflecting a view that some individual Pakeha are
missing out versus some individual Maori? In cheaper primary health
care perhaps, or in scholarships to medical school? Do we think Maori
are getting preferential treatment from WINZ or Housing NZ? Is the idea
of 'closing the gaps' a litmus test of this sort of racial preference?

Before I attempt to answer this let me go to my second example.

On the same day as the poll report I attended the opening of a new
wharekai at Pukaki marae in Mangere attended by Dame Te Atairangikahu.
There were perhaps 500 people present, 10 of whom were Pakeha. This was
an occasion for the affirmation of manawhenua (tribal authority within
a region) by the collective represented by affinal based kin groups
known as tribes (iwi) or sub-tribes (hapu). This form of collective
activity is happening every day in the Maori world, but as I had cause
to reflect, it is only tangential to the world of those who are not
Maori.

Here we have some of the clues to the puzzle.

There is a Maori world in existence that operates within collective
structures (iwi/hapu) and has at its core expressions of rangatiratanga
(chiefly authority/trusteeship) and manawhenua (tribal authority within
a region). These collectives relate to other Maori and to the Crown and
all its agencies in a way not paralleled with any comparable Pakeha
cultural institutions and they have done so since 1840. What's is more
these collective structures exist in perpetuity.

They are recognised by Article Two of the Treaty which explicitly
affirms and acknowledges this leadership of the collective
(rangatiratanga).

Pause to consider the impact of this for a moment. If those opposed to
the Treaty deny rangatiratanga, it is an inescapable extension of that
same logic that they are denying their own legitimacy to be here. For
it was precisely by exercise of this collective rangatiratanga on
behalf of their tribal groups that the chiefs consented to being a
party to the Treaty with the British sovereign. Without explicit
recognition of this rangatiratanga, so obvious both to their own kin
groups but also to the British Government representatives, a Treaty
could not have been agreed in the way that occurred.

As tauiwi we have an obligation to recognise rangatiratanga, because it
provided us with the corresponding right of citizenship of this
country. Clearly a subsequent denial of this legitimacy is not what any
of us want. Nor should we be afraid of the implications of such
recognition, which requires first and foremost acceptance and
understanding, not the wholesale transfer of resources.

However our previous practice in this matter has not always been
exemplary. Most Maori collective structures have for over a century
prior to 1975 been largely ignored by the Crown, or dealt with
remotely, through the Courts. Their presence has not therefore resided
in the hearts and minds of our received Pakeha historical consciousness
with anywhere the same force as they reside for Maori.

So therefore as a nation, when we come to pass judgement on the nuances
of an issue like the foreshore and seabed debate the Pakeha mind goes
to the rights, privileges and obligations of individuals and assumes
this includes Maori as well. Conversely the Maori mind goes to goes to
the rights, privileges and obligations of collectives, and for Pakeha
this counts as an extra, a benefit not available to themselves, a
second bite of the cherry.

Perhaps it is not surprising therefore, that Pakeha start to feel Maori
are getting one over them. But are Maori to blame for this sense of
imbalance?

How does rangatiratanga work?

I suspect at the heart of this Pakeha sense of imbalance is this fear
of rangatiratanga or tino rangatiratanga as it is often most commonly
expressed. What could this mean if it is not a direct attack on the
Crown's right to rule, the subtle undermining of the 'one law for all'
concept?

In recent times it has been usual to juxtapose Maori sovereignty with
Crown sovereignty, both in direct competition for precedence. It does
not have to be so. There is evidence that the original intent of the
parties to the Treaty allowed for joint protection under the law but
separate sovereignty over assets and taonga. If this was the case are
there contemporary examples of this working today? The answer is yes.

The story I wish to share with you tonight turns on the examination of
rangatiratanga exercised, lost and then recovered. My experience at
Orakei with Ngati Whatua suggests such an idea is not beyond us. Some
of you may have heard or read of my summary of the Orakei experience
and the founding of Auckland previously. I will not repeat it here.

Suffice to record that Ngati Whatua o Orakei, the once proud people of
the Tamaki isthmus, at 1840 holding sway over the whole of Auckland;
the people who invited and induced Hobson to Auckland to form the seat
of government; were reduced in precisely 112 years to a landless few
living off the state. By 1951 they were without a marae on which to
fulfil their customary obligations and were left with a quarter acre
cemetery being the last piece of land they could tribally claim as
their own.

In his second claim before the Waitangi Tribunal Joe Hawke outlined the
case relating to the disposal of the Orakei Block, the land ordered by
the court in 1869 to be forever inalienable. The outcome was
unequivocally in their favour and Bastion Point in 1991 was finally
transferred back into Ngati Whatua's hand by Act of Parliament. The
area vested included the whenua rangatira now known as Takaparawhau
park and the smaller Okahu Park comprising the original papakainga and
the foreshore.

(How ironic. This vesting of the title to the foreshore at Okahu Bay
was completed under a National Government!)

The first thing it did was to give a huge chunk of Bastion Point back
to Aucklanders. That's right, they gave it back to you and me for our
unimpeded use. I refer to the most expensive land with the best views
in all of Auckland. The land where Michael Joseph Savage rests. Ngati
Whatua agreed to manage this jointly with the Auckland City Council for
the benefit of all the people of Tamaki Makaurau.

What therefore is it that enables a people who sought for 150 years to
get some form of justice that recognised their cultural destitution, to
react in their moment of triumph with such generosity to those who had
dispossessed them?

   What underpins such an act of munificence? To put it simply; the
recovery of the hapu rangatiratanga. What therefore has changed since
1991?

In practical and contemporary terms the Ngati Whatua hapu at Orakei is
now once more in control of their own affairs as defined and expressed
through their own:
• socio-cultural activities (related to housing, education, health and
marae based activities)

• economic development (especially joint ventures where external
finance and development expertise would be joined to hapu land), and

•political relations (such as agreements with central and local
government and regional institutions and organisations)

The 1991 Act meant the full and unfettered return of their marae. The
hapu had the chance to rebuild their wharenui and improve their
facility to offer manaakitanga (appropriate hospitality) to honour
their obligations to others within their rohe (tribal area), both Maori
and tauiwi. It also provided the cultural locus for the tangihanga
(ritual farewell of the dead) for those who have passed on, an
absolutely fundamental reflection on hapu mana.

The Act also foreshadowed potential for a comprehensive Treaty and
currently Orakei is in direct negotiations with the Crown.

Its social development extended to reaching agreement with Housing New
Zealand as the Crown agent on the transfer of ownership of 100 state
houses in the early 1990s along with the attendant deferred maintenance
and mortgage. A focus on educational achievement now sees the hapu
claim tertiary educated graduates to Masters and PhD level across many
disciplines whereas pre-1987 such numbers with first level degrees were
in single figures. On another front health services have grown to the
extent that Orakei is today the most extensive Maori primary health
provider in the Auckland region.

The economic development potential unleashed by this statutory
recognition of manawhenua has transformed the quarter-acre hapu of 1951
to a significant land-holder, including significant parcels of downtown
Auckland. The Crown in this time has provided two separate allocations
of funds. One of these, $3 million, came as an endowment with the 1991
Orakei Settlement. On a second occasion the Trust received financial
consideration for lifting the moratoriums on surplus rail land when the
railways were privatised for Crown profit in the mid-1990s. The Ngati
Whatua commercial presence in the marketplace is now recognised as
substantial and saavy.

Recognition of manawhenua re-introduced Ngati Whatua into the political
and cultural life of Auckland via a structural relationship with the
Crown and its agents. Such a reintegration is evidenced by Orakei now
playing host to every significant dignitary visiting Auckland including
the presidents of China, Russia and the United States. This kind of
public recognition had been almost entirely absent in their experience
from the late 1870s. Successive generations of the hapu had seen their
land and taonga disappear and with it their tribal manawhenua, so
critical to the practical exercise of rangatiratanga. Today the
restoration of mana is plan for all to see.

It is therefore precisely the process of this recovery that has
re-ignited the capacity for the exercise of rangatiratanga. An
essential feature of this rangatiratanga is that it relates to the
group, not to the individual. In this respect the coherence of the
group is evidenced by its size, its leadership, its marae base, its
facility for manaaki and its relevance to other Maori groupings of
similar kind along with its political relations with the Crown (and/or
its agents). This has determined its capacity to exercise
rangatiratanga. It has reached a kind of cultural 'critical mass'.

All this has been achieved without threat to the Crown's right of
sovereignty. If this is possible with Orakei, why is it not possible
elsewhere? I believe it is.

Now what are the substantial and usually 'silent' achievements under a
Treaty-based process that New Zealanders can be proud of but usually no
nothing about?

Over my years of work with Maori groups and communities I have come to
a critical awareness of a central proposition. When the Treaty is
working well the nation is prospering, full of confidence. When it is a
matter of fundamental strain between Maori and Pakeha we lose vital
momentum as a nation. We are in one of these troughs right now. We have
been there before and emerged. But it need not be the case.

There are plenty of examples where observing the mutual respect for
mana inherent in Treaty lifts the performance and outcome for all New
Zealanders. Let me take you through three examples.

In the last five years I have been involved in two of New Zealand's
most capital intensive building programmes; the rebuilding of the waste
water treatment plant at Mangere in South Auckland and the rebuilding
of the Auckland City Hospital. These projects have budgets amounting
together to just under a billion dollars. Both projects represented
opportunities for the sponsors and tangata whenua to engage in
constructive discussions to enhance the project outcomes for all New
Zealanders. The outcomes have been stunningly successful.

In the 1960s when the Mangere oxidation ponds were built, consultation
with Maori was perfunctory. As a result the outcome was awful.
Foreshore disappeared, shellfish were poisoned by toxic outflow into
the Manukau harbour, the birdlife went away and the hapu with the marae
on the foreshore saw their access to seafood disappear.

Today, the result could not be more transformative. The rebuilding of
the plant has seen as part of the whole package the restoration of the
foreshore and the enhancement of the environment for all recreational
users. The birds and the fish have returned. It is safe to harvest and
swim again. And the Tainui hapu (Te Ahi Waru) at Makaurau marae has
been intensively involved in the reconstitution of this wonderful piece
of foreshore.

Why has this occurred? Because the Resource Management Act required it
in the first place and secondly, Watercare Services recognised having
local Maori with manawhenua in this area involved from the beginning
could only be advantageous for everyone. No big cheques, no scandals,
just respectful understanding that the Maori insight to be incorporated
into restoration of the environment adds a dimension that enhances the
outcome for all New Zealanders.

Auckland City Hospital has experienced something similar. The
rebuilding of the hospital provided an opportunity to think about how a
Maori worldview on health might enhance outcomes for all users of the
hospital facilities. So Ngati Whatua were involved at the early
planning stages. They made a dramatic difference to the design of the
mortuary by introducing a place for families to gather with the
deceased. They made simple suggestions about hospital design that
provided for a 'tupapaku route', a method of allowing families to
remove their deceased relative from their place in the hospital down to
the mortuary out of the public eye. This has been a great relief for
all users of the hospital. The Maori perspective on respect for the
dead has been embraced by all because it adds a dimension from which
all can benefit. The hospital has clear and dignified signage in
English and Maori showing how to find services you are after. Small but
important symbols that show by their presence that living with dual
worldviews can be celebrated. It need not be feared.

A third experience relates to the work of Health Care Aotearoa. It is a
primary care health network with 55 providers nationwide, over half of
whom are Maori owned services. The other services are Pacific owned and
trade union or community clinics. I have worked as their business
consultant since 1994, the year of its founding. This is a bi-cultural,
not-for-profit network that provides first level primary care for
150,000 patients, the majority of whom are on low incomes.

There are over 300 staff employed throughout the independent providers
and they are all sign on aware of the Treaty thrust of this network.
For many of them this is a new experience. It is very clear that most
Pakeha do not have the on-the-ground experience of working and living
in circumstances where a Maori view of the world is just as important
and as relevant as their own, and where what's more, that view counts.

In the Health Care Aotearoa environment the experience, however messy,
is the reverse. Maori views do count and do shape decision making along
with Pakeha and the health outcomes for patients are steadily
improving.

This teaches me at least three things. Firstly, a Treaty-based approach
to managing our lives is possible and practical. Secondly, that it can
produce for the most part better results. And thirdly, therefore, it
need not be feared. What we have worked at in this last ten years to
make ordinary and normal within Health Care Aotearoa is not replicated
in the general community experience of Pakeha. And people without this
experience fear it or expect the worse.

Yet the reverse is my constant experience. So often the right thing to
do in respect to Treaty processes is manifestly the right thing to do
for all people. Time and again.

So where does this all leave us, Pakeha in particular?

Don Brash's Orewa speech and this government's foreshore and seabed
bill have ensured that the health of our race relations are now being
talked about at the dinner table. This is similar to the way the 1981
tour got into everybody's entrees complete with the on the street
activism. While the resultant climate has managed to relieve many
people of the need to suppress their prejudices and this has had some
ugly consequences, not least in the parliamentary debate, another
debate is opening up that is more potentially constructive.

One of the characteristics of this debate is that it is less a matter
between bigots and liberals, but more between those who are actively
trying to understand our history and those who don't think it makes a
jot of difference. It is not a debate the historians are winning at
present.

Overwhelmingly those opposed to the practical and intellectual
grappling with the Treaty and its consequences characterise themselves
as 'forward looking'. The subtle pull of this appeal is that it allows
for settlement of Treaty grievances and then closure. So they can claim
to be retrospectively just, but constitutionally pragmatic. Now the
grievances have been settled contemporary NZ does not need a Treaty.

What's more, the parliamentary political process in attempting to
silence a part of the Maori contribution to this debate risks trying to
marginalise it as fundamentally self-interested. Pakeha must take
therefore responsibility for righting the balance in this discussion
and resetting the tone.

Many Pakeha, even those who have been sympathetic to the Treaty and the
supporters of Treaty application in public life, initially shrank from
the blowtorch effect of the Orewa speech. In fact many supporters
discovered that they didn't know enough to defend the positions that we
had been silently advocating, especially when the conversational and
political environment around the race discussion became toxic. This
retreat from instinct occurred politically and well as personally.

Michael King provided many of us with a morale boost with his recently
published history, now having sold over 70,000 copies. But his deeply
sad passing has been an acute reminder that we all need to be confident
in our grasp of our own nationhood and how it has developed, and not be
so reliant on others. The need to know has become paramount for without
the knowledge and the perspective offered by understanding of the Maori
and Pakeha interface over the years, issues like the foreshore
legislation are truly unfathomable, (no pun intended!).

This is a seriously challenging issue being handled at constitutionally
breakneck speed. One hopes that the time for the mature reflection it
needs will not be elusive. The opportunity for submission via the
select committee needs to be taken. Getting this wrong will continue to
be bad for all of us.

The difficult progress of this debate is a significant alert to those
of us who feel intuitive empathy for a pathway to nationhood that has
the Treaty as a clear and present sign-post. Maybe many of us have been
intellectually lazy supporters of these Treaty processes because we saw
them as right and just in themselves. We assumed they would just go on,
mostly unchallenged. Well that is no longer the case. Informing
ourselves to a greater degree is one way of meeting these new
challenges.

On the way it is important to deal with some of the dross. The side
issues that inevitably hamper debate about the substance, whist the
form is endlessly discussed in the minor detail. Again consider the
foreshore. Ask yourself which has received the most illuminating
attention; the content of the bill or Tariana Turia's 'will she or
won't she' stand on crossing the floor or creating a bi-election.

   Most New Zealanders will have made their own judgements about
Tariana's move but hardly any will have been well served with the kind
of information that might inform their judgement on what motivated her
to move or indeed what galvanised 20000 to join the end of the hikoi.
Thus time and again irritation inevitably takes precedence over
explanation.

So what can we say of the constant irritations that get under the
Pakeha skin?

A reasonable observer in touch with a range of our national media could
be forgiven for thinking that it is open season on Maori. If it isn't
alleged corruption with the setting up of a new prison, it's naked
self-interest in parliamentary voting. If it is not Maori holding up
developers over resource consents relating to waahi tapu sites, it's
the distraught medical student's mother who has complained that a less
talented Maori student has taken her child's place in medical school.
If it's not the school that allows for the wearing of pounamu but not
Christian crosses as jewellery then it's the primary health
organisation that has 50% of its governance as Maori representatives
even though the population of Maori is much smaller than that in the
area.

The sub-text of this message is clear and simple. Being Maori in New
Zealand gives you no special standing either individually or
collectively. And if you don't believe it just stick up your head and
see who waiting to lop it off for you.

Just what is going on here and how can it be dealt with?

Perceptions change governments. The Orewa speech altered the popular
view of Dr Brash. The hikoi has tilted the political axis for both
Labour and National. The political calculus of gaining and losing
office is moving. There is a simple message here.

New Zealanders need exposure to new ways of seeing how the Treaty
practically works in everyday life and how it adds value to our daily
experience. They need to see and hear that this works and can work for
all of us.

Further, Pakeha in particular need to actively encourage resistance to
the everyday invitation in the media to demonise Maori because what
they are portrayed as doing is aggravating us. Treat this for what it
so transparently is: a one-sided portrayal of the people and the issues
designed to present and elaborate on the conflict without insight as to
the resolution.

I need to also say that part of our Pakeha apprehension and irritation
relates to language. The Treaty language has been the codified text of
the power elites on both sides of the equation. Brash's Orewa speech
disposed of that codified level by (mis)representing many issues in
plain unambiguous English. This struck a chord. Treaty supporters need
to strike a similar chord in response. These matters are explicable.
Let's explain them.

Finally, why not consider the simple strategy I have adopted which has
been to use evidence, example and enthusiasm?

For instance, the PHO (primary health organisation) preference funding
argument for Maori criticised by Dr Brash is evidentially wrong. More
and more people when examining the detail of the policy and practice
now know this to be true.

Conversely the contribution of Tainui hapu input to the wastewater
treatment plant in Mangere results in stellar environmental and
recreational outcomes for everybody. We need to celebrate this.

The example of the hospital 'tupapaku route' is another illustration,
so respectful to all cultures. Just like the genuine treaty commitment
within a network such as HCA which takes dual world views seriously and
achieves better health results for all patients.

   So too with the Orakei example of rangatiratanga. Ngati Whatua are
beginning to flourish and so yet we build closer to an inclusive
society where the benefits are more evenly shared, a sharp contrast to
our recent past.

These are all practical down-to-earth responses that people can
understand. It is then much easier to talk of Treaty principles and
applications against the background of this common sense experience.

New Zealanders are in my view fair and reasonable in the long run. The
current risks are higher than they have been for some years. But so are
the opportunities for genuine breakthrough in our cultural appreciation
of ourselves.

It is plain that as Pakeha we simply do not know enough about Maori and
our own joint history. Ten years ago we could claim genuine ignorance.
We cannot do that now.

I believe we must create a new more sophisticated paradigm if we are
not to return to the tactical belligerence of the recent past. Such a
test is ahead of us with this foreshore and seabed bill. Let's do our
best to pass that test with creativity and genuine dialogue. Near
enough will not nearly be good enough.

Glossary (how terms have been used in this paper)

• Pakeha - descendants of settlers from Britain and Europe
• Maori - descendants of tangata whenua (first people)
• Mana - honour, dignity, respect deriving from authority and control
• Aboriginal title - underlying title existing prior to extinguishment
post-1840
• Rangatiratanga - chiefly authority exercising trusteeship

• Manawhenua - tribal authority within a rohe (tribal region)
• Tangata whenua - Maori, first people of the land (modern)
• Tangata Tiriti - non-Maori who belong to the land by right of the
Treaty
• Kaitiakitanga - guardianship over resources
• Hikoi - step, deputation in support of an issue or for a defined
purpose
• Whakapapa - genealogy by ancestral connection
• Tauiwi - descendants of all non-Maori, includes Pakeha and immigrants
• Hapu - sub-tribe of an iwi (tribal grouping)
• Marae - meeting place, locus of tribal mana
• Whenua rangatira - noble/chiefly land, undisputed ownership & control
• Manaakitanga - manawhenua obligation to offer appropriate hospitality
• Tangihanga - ritual farewell of the dead, funeral wake
• Taonga - tribal treasures
• Tupapaku - deceased person