"The Treaty Principles Bill ... provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is"
"Consider the two words 'liberal', 'democracy' and their connection. Both give us something that none of our ancestors living in kinship groups had. 'Democracy' gives us a system of parliamentary sovereignty, of law, of regulation. It recognises that our common humanity justifies equal rights. Those rights belong to the individual citizen, not to the group.
"The word 'liberal' gives us the freedom to be different – as individuals and in voluntary associations based on a range of shared interests –culture, heritage, language, sport, music, religion, politics, and so on.
"This is what makes liberal democracy remarkable. As citizens we have the same political and legal rights. As members of civil society we are free to be different. This is an enormously important point. It is the combination of rights, responsibilities and freedom within democracy's governance and laws that makes the modern world vibrant and prosperous.
"That's why I support the Treaty Principles Bill – because it provides a coherent and succinct statement capturing what liberal democracy is – something we should all know, especially ... Members of Parliament ...
"The Bill is the symbolic link to the hope found in both the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi and in the 1852 Constitution Act. Nineteenth century New Zealanders, especially those who had been slaves, decimated by war, of low genealogical birth status, or from impoverished backgrounds – they put their faith in a peaceful and prosperous future for their descendants. In the 21st century we can strengthen that faith for our descendants by agreeing to the principles in this Bill.
"New Zealand's future may be that of a prosperous first-world liberal democratic nation or a third-world, retribalised state. A first world tribal nation is a contradiction in terms. It is not possible. There can be no prosperity without individual equality and freedom. There can be no social equality without prosperity. ...
"[A]s early as the 1870s there's the commitment to a united people who belong to, and benefit from, the nation 'New Zealand.' Nearly 150 years later that commitment is under serious threat from those who would replace liberal democracy with tribal sovereignty and, by doing so, create a racialised society – apartheid."
2 comments:
There is a legitimate debate to be had about the role of the Treaty in the twenty-first century, and how it reconciles with the tenets of a liberal democracy. I personally don't think the Treaty Principles Bill (TPB) is the right vehicle for that conversation, for a number of reasons, but I believe Professor Rata believes, in genuine good faith, that it is.
But what irks me as a historian is the throwaway remarks that people make about our history to justify their contemporary arguments about the Treaty. People on all sides of the political spectrum do this, of course, but I find the claims of those who support the TPB (who tend to be right-leaning) the most egregious.
Professor Rata, for example, positions the TPB as a symbolic successor to the Treaty and the 1852 Constitution Act in enshrining the values of liberal democracy. This is a very long and tenuous bow to draw. Britain was hardly a liberal democracy in 1840, and the Treaty was not intended to introduce one here. Rather, its framers sought to acquire sovereignty over all or part of New Zealand so they could exercise jurisdiction over the non-Māori residing here (including their interactions with Māori, particularly those relating to land). Māori authority and customs at-place were to be left untouched, except in extreme cases like warfare and cannibalism. The Crown's agents envisaged legal amalgamation of Māori as a long-term goal, to be carried out voluntarily and on Māori terms. Hence why the 1852 Constitution Act included a provision for autonomous native districts to be established 'for the present'. Ned Fletcher, Shaunnagh Dorsett and Paul Moon have each written about this.
She also dismisses the possibility that prosperity can exist without 'individual equality and freedom'. One of the most prosperous periods for Māori was between 1840 and 1860, when they extensively cultivated and traded primary produce on domestic and international markets for European goods and technologies. Such endeavours were typically organised on a hapū scale, and sufficient capital reserves were amassed that an economic arms race for things like vessels and flour mills broke out between hapū. Hazel Petrie's work captures this era very well. Importantly, Māori were also taking on aspects of European culture that they deemed advantageous, including Christianity, commercialism, business acumen, and civil litigation via the Resident Magistrate's Courts (albeit only selectively). But they were doing it on their own terms, and under the own forms of local governance, rather than being compelled to assimilate.
Professor Rata also suggests that there has been a commitment to a single united New Zealand since the 1870s. That may have been true on the part of the new Pākehā Parliament, but Māori continued to push for local autonomy through various means (which Parliament sporadically recognised with watered-down forms of local regulatory power for Māori). Even Apirana Ngata, who was an avowed believer in Parliamentary supremacy, fought hard to preserve and protect a distinct Māori culture - including through the use of public legislation and resources. He also used the state apparatus to develop bespoke programmes for Māori land development and the settlement of historic grievances.
Again, none of this negates the value of a contemporary discussion of the Treaty, but it should be grounded in solid historical evidence. Here is an article I recently wrote on the subject, which formed the basis of my own submission on the TPB: https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/in-history-context-is-everything/
@Matthew Cunningham: Thanks for your comment, Matthew.
You’re right of course that the Treaty Principles Bill may not be the *best* vehicle for this conversation, but (in the way democracy throws these things up) it is the *only* one. So in that context alone it proves its value, I think.
And while it’s true that much local history is being used by too many as a grab-bag of sticks and stone to hurl at perceived slights and imagined enemies, I don’t agree that Prof Rata can be accused of that.
She could be accused of overstating her case, of course, that that the Treaty Principles Bill is a symbolic successor to 1840 and 1852. But in the sense that the principles of founding documents (if this is one) deserve to be re-stated many times, in that sense it has the potential at least to be on a par with the re-statement in 1860 as the Kohimarama Covenant (as Claudia Orange called it).
If the UK wasn’t a full liberal democracy by 1840 in the sense of being one-man-one-vote, with the Reform Act of 1832 it was at least on its way. Yet Prof Rata’s point here is a more fundamental one: that the principle guiding that change was one of equality before the law (the same same principle, that every man was equal, was what had motivated the UK’s armed opposition to slavery from 1808 on). And it is *that* principle, articulated by James Stephen, that was heard here in 1840.
That principle was coupled with that articulated by James Busby’s penned Artiicle;s: i.e., the classically liberal principle that protection by government means protection of individual liberty and property rights. And that *liberal* principle was heard way back in 1688 penned by John Locke, and made manifest as recently as 1776 by rebels revolting against their lack of representatiion in the British parliament.
As you say however, the Foreign Office’s primary aim however was sovereignty, Maori authority to be protected and maintained “for the present” only. (My review of Ned Fletcher’s book discusses this point.)
You’re right that the two decades after signing did, for the most part, bring about two decades of peace and prosperity — and much of the reason fpr that was trade between hapū and Europeans. But this trade was part of a transition *from* tribaliism to something perceived to be better, to increased individual autonomy, not an antediluvian *reversion* to tribalism to be funded by ongoing welfare (with protection here interpreted to be the paternalistic protection of a lord of his serfs, or a farmer of his cattle).
Your criticism of the idea of a “united New Zealand” is on target however — there is no need to posit that kind of nationalism, which i think is anathema to true liberalism — which in Javier Milei’s word is ‘unlimited respect for the life project of others.’ I think here too Apirana Ngata became mired in the inability to think individualistically, which was part of his eventual downfall.
I will read your article with interest.
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