To give some perspective, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed on 6 February 1840. That was 41 years after the French revolution in 1799. It was 25 years after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The Duke of Wellington was still alive in 1840. (He died in 1852)
The signing of the Treaty took place 13 years before the Crimea War in 1853 and 21 years before the American Civil War in 1861.
In 1840 Italy did not exist as an independent state. It was unified as a country in its own right in 1861, with Venice being annexed in 1861 and Rome in 1870.
The Indian Rebellion (mutiny) was in 1857 and the British Raj commenced in 1858.
In the last 183 years many countries throughout the world have gone through revolutions, invasions, colonisations, and even genocide. Many have become modern, democratic states and have consigned their troublesome past to history.
In 1840 the Maori chiefs of Nu Tirani signed a Treaty with the British Crown which laid the foundations for a new bicultural country based on equal rights of citizenship.
There have been some serious issues over the following years, but New Zealand grew into a modern, liberal, multicultural, democratic monarchy which, in many respects, has set an example to the rest of the world.
Sadly, New Zealand in 2023 is being torn apart by an epidemic that has been festering for many years but has now reached the stage where the future of the country is in serious doubt. The Treaty Epidemic originated in the wording of a treaty that had the very best of intentions, but which was ineptly drawn up by amateurs. It consisted of two versions in different languages with fundamental conflicts between the meaning of each.
The major problems centered on Maori ownership of land and taonga, and the breaches of the Crown’s obligations set out in Article 2 of the Treaty. The problem was, and is, that the Treaty and its Articles are not part of New Zealand law. It is a treaty under International law. The courts have held conclusively that the Treaty is not binding in New Zealand law unless its provisions are incorporated in New Zealand legislation through a statute passed through parliament. That has never happened.
Huge pressure mounted on the government in the 1970s to provide a process for dealing with Treaty grievances. As a result the Waitangi Tribunal was established by the Treaty of Waitangi Act in 1975 with a jurisdiction to resolve Treaty claims.
The two versions of the Treaty have never been reconciled. The 1975 Act defined the Treaty as the “Treaty of Waitangi as set out in English and in Maori in Schedule 1”. Under section 5(2) of the Act the Tribunal was given the “exclusive authority to determine the meaning and effect of the Treaty as embodied in the 2 texts and to decide issues raised by the differences between them”.
In other words, the Tribunal had the unenviable and almost impossible task of aligning the two meanings and coming up with an accepted compromise.
But that was not all. The Act stipulated that claims to the Tribunal were not to be considered on the basis of the Articles of the Treaty, but on the basis of “the principles of the Treaty”. This was a completely new concept that came out of nowhere. There were no principles in the Treaty either express or implied. There was no definition of "the principles of the Treaty" in the Act.
In the following 48 years there has been no authoritative clarification of what the principles are. In some of its decisions the Tribunal has expressed a view of what it considers the principles to be, but they are only relevant to the claims before it. The Tribunal is in fact a commission of inquiry, not a court of law, so its conclusions and recommendation are not binding on the government, on parliament, or binding in law.
In 1987 in the famous Lands case the Court of Appeal established in law some very basic principles that it considered arose from the Treaty. These were limited to the dealing with Crown land and the effect of Article 2 of the Treaty.
In 1989 David Lange's Labour government also expressed an unofficial view of what it considered the principles to be.
Subsequent decisions of the court have extended the principles of the Treaty concept to various Maori taonga.
A "Treaty clause" has now been included in over 60 New Zealand statutes, requiring compliance with the principles of the Treaty, or similar wording. No definition is provided. There is no legal definition anywhere, except for the limited rulings of the courts.
Effectively, in 1975 (the Fourth Labour Government of Bill Rowling) lifted the lid on Pandora’s Box and opened up the meaning of the “principles of the Treaty” to all and sundry. And all and sundry have enthusiastically accepted the invitation. In 2023 the clamour for Treaty rights based on the principles of the Treaty has become almost deafening. It has spread like a strain of Covid throughout the whole country and has infiltrated almost every corner of our society. No area seems immune. The law, real estate engineering, sports clubs, education, health etc. have all eagerly embraced the principles of the Treaty, but without any understanding of what they actually are and what role they play in our legal system.
This hysteria is fanned and prompted by the government itself, by government agencies, and by those who receive funding from the government. This extends to the major part of the mainstream media in New Zealand which receives funding from New Zealand on Air strictly on the basis that it promotes the principles of the Treaty, or what it calls the Te Tiriti o Waitangi Framework .
The tragedy is that this hysteria creates a misunderstanding of the Treaty and an expectation of rights that do not exist under the law of New Zealand. It is leading a large part of the community down a path that is divisive and non-democratic and which is based on racial division.
The aim of this website is to stop our country from destroying itself based on issues that arose long ago in its history. I intend to get back to basics, to present the facts surrounding the Treaty, and to consider what the Articles of the Treaty actually mean. I will also examine the principles of the Treaty and separate the principles that have become binding in law from those without any legal validity and which are nothing more than baseless slogans. Hopefully, I will be able to present a clear picture of the law of New Zealand as it relates to the Treaty.
If I can establish that I am hopeful that we will go forward as a country, dismiss the reckless claims of rights purported to arise from the Treaty, and look forward to a future based on the rule of law, on democracy, and on the equality of all of our people.
First and foremost we are all New Zealanders.
