Treaty crossroads: Time of reckoning for our founding document

Andrew Barton is a shiatsu practitioner, constitutional philosopher and a guardian of the covenant of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. 

Let’s give credit where credit is due, and repudiation where repudiation is warranted. 

David Seymour needs to be acknowledged for initiating a timely debate about Te Tiriti o Waitangi but reproved for any further dishonour his proposed, executive-led referendum may cause. 

Although the ACT party leader has correctly identified the need to resolve an impending cultural, civil, and constitutional crisis, his role as an agent of the New Zealand Government will cause more harm than good. 

As our country approaches its 200-year anniversaries of the Declaration of Independence and Te Tiriti o Waitangi, there appears to be growing frustration in our government’s capacity to address the compounding disregard of our bi-cultural union. 

Whether contemporary political parties want to establish co-governance models or dismantle them, both attempts to resolve long standing Treaty injustices are fuelling citizen resentment and division. 

A constitutional rethink – beyond a referendum – is necessary to grapple with the massive challenge to reassert the promise of a two-peoples sovereignty. 

Since its inception on 6th February 1840, Te Tiriti o Waitangi has suffered immeasurably and, like Frankenstein, morphed into a creature never intended. 

At the heart of the travesty was the initial belief that exclusive authority over Aotearoa New Zealand was granted to the British Crown. 

History tells us that Captain Hobson presented a deal with tāngata whenua to establish a new nation called Nū Tirani. 

In the first article, rights of kawanatanga, or governorship, were granted to the Crown, while, in the second, the chiefs’ mana or te tino rangatiratanga was to be upheld and honoured. 

What “history” failed to recognise and explain was the Crown’s false assumption that they had been granted absolute sovereignty of this land and its people. 

Considering the relatively cohesive pre-Treaty relationship between Māori and the Brits, the assumption of Queen Victoria’s exclusive authority was a bilateral oxymoron. 

For one nation to assume a greater power than the other was not only arrogant but a fundamental contradiction of the two worlds weaving and resultant accord of mutual dependency; the Crown can’t sit on a head without a body of chiefs to give it life, and a sub-tribal chief can’t be fully cognizant of the world without a Crown that oversees and directs. 

David Seymour, as a kawanatanga “head” man, is correct in identifying the 21st-century Treaty beast this country is currently grappling with, but fails to understand or admit that he, the institution he represents, and proposed referendum is the central culprit in its demise. 

As Einstein stated: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used - ‘and abused’ - when we created them.” 

So, how can we conduct a review of our Treaty without using the same kind of corporatocratic worldview that created the problem in the first place? How do we envisage a society that honours both kawanatanga and tino rangatiratanga, equally? And more importantly, if our Treaty is indeed a covenant of mutual respect and sharing, how are we to give all peoples of this nation equality of justice and belonging promised in the first two articles? 

Aotearoa New Zealand stands at a crossroads of Treaty and nationhood. History and the destiny of our two or more peoples is determined by the manner in which we conduct ourselves during a time of collective initiation and future dreaming. 

The biggest challenge, for most, is to take off societal, cultural and individual lenses that shape our reality. Maybe our values, our way of life and our constitutional mechanisms of civility are just that - “ours”. 

Maybe we are short-changing the creative and loving potential of a future human by undervaluing the other, and, in doing so, undervaluing the enormous potential of a collective nation state. 

Give Honourable David Seymour his due worth for catalysing a long overdue conversation and review of our founding document - he speaks a very important “our-truth”. 

And in honouring him, honour your Treaty rights, also. It is up to all peoples to be the dignity, wairua and mangai/mouthpiece of te Tino Rangatiratanga. 

For neither, the second nor first article, tower over the other; both are equal in constitutional merit, and both represent Ngā Wharenui o Te Tiriti o Waitangi - The Houses of the Treaty of Waitangi. 

He mea nui o te Ao? 

He tāngata he tāngata, he tāngata.