"Reputable historians do not present grown human beings as innocent children, or confused savages, incapable of understanding the political, economic and military realities of their time."

"History, like so many other subjects, has become a bitterly contested ideological ground. A discipline where angry partisans struggle for supremacy.
    "For the moment, at least, the upper hand [in NZ] lies where it has lain for the past 50 years – with the [Waitangi] Tribunal. For most of that time New Zealanders assumed that those weighing the evidence which claimants brought before the Tribunal were dispassionate professionals. Only relatively recently has it become clear that the Tribunal’s “history” is little more than compensatory fiction, composed by Māori and/or Māori-identifying “historians” to clear the way for the Crown’s acknowledgement of wrong-doing and, ultimately, to secure compensation for the manifold sins of our colonial fathers. ...
    "[The Tribunal is clearly in steadfast agreement with] Māori Treaty historians. Māori scholars, and their allies, [who] present colonisation as an unmitigated disaster: an historical catastrophe from which the indigenous people of New Zealand are only now beginning to recover. ...
    "Its reports are based on the testimony of the aggrieved, and upon their carefully curated historical grievances. Only to this 'evidence' does the Tribunal accord the status of unchallengeable truth. And only these, the Tribunal’s truths, are allowed to prevail over what is invariably characterised as the evil historical choices of the Crown.
    "That this Manichean historiography cannot help but infantilise Māori, turning them into trusting dupes of the wicked Pakeha, and denying them the dignity of effective historical agency, is deemed an acceptable price to pay by a Waitangi Tribunal determined to deliver to Māori claimants a browbeaten and guilt-ridden Crown. ...
    "Reputable historians do not present grown human beings as innocent children, or confused savages, incapable of understanding the political, economic and military realities of their time. Nor do they construct frankly ridiculous constitutional scenarios in which the British Government of 1840 was happy to share power ... Since 2014, the Waitangi Tribunal has been indulging in what might best be called 'Bridgerton History' – i.e. refashioning the realities of the past to meet the ideological specifications of the present."

~ Chris Trotter, from his column 'Contested Ground'