How does rangatiratanga work?
I suspect at the heart of our national Treaty debate is a Pakeha fear of rangatiratanga or tino rangatiratanga.
I suspect at the heart of our national Treaty debate is a Pakeha 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 contest 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 and therefore a separate and unique indigenous identity. 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 examines rangatiratanga exercised, lost and then recovered. My experience at Orakei with Ngati Whatua suggests the concept of protection of rangatiratanga 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, but subsequently sold. 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.
The first thing Ngati Whatua did was to give the 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:
• socio-cultural activities (related to housing, education, health and marae based activities)
• economic development (especially with 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 of kinship and hapu mana.
The Act also foreshadowed potential for a comprehensive Treaty settlement 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 major land-holder, including parcels of downtown Auckland. The Crown in this time has provided just one separate allocation of funds, $3 million, that came as an endowment with the 1991 Orakei Settlement. On a second occasion the Trust received similar financial consideration for agreeing to lift impediments on surplus rail land when the Crown wished to sell the railways for 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. This 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 hitherto. Successive generations of the hapu had seen their land and taonga disappear and with it their tribal mana, so critical to the practical exercise of rangatiratanga. Today the restoration of mana is plan for all to see.
At Orakei there has been re-ignition of the capacity for the exercise of rangatiratanga. An essential feature of rangatiratanga is that it relates to the group, not to the individual. In this respect the coherence of the group is evidenced by size, leadership, marae base, facility for manaaki and meeting its customary obligations, and its relevance to other Maori groupings of similar kind. This includes its political relations with the Crown (and/or its agents). Success with all of this has expanded its capacity to exercise rangatiratanga. In short Orakei has reached a kind of cultural ‘critical mass’.
All this has been achieved without threat to the Crown’s right of sovereignty.
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Pat Sneddon
Pakeha New Zealander with a broad involvement with Maori.
Patrick Snedden is Pakeha New Zealander with 25 years involvement as a senior executive and owner in publishing companies serving the educational, medical and farming sectors. He was a founding director of Mai FM, Auckland’s first Maori-owned commercial radio station.
For over 20 years he has been an economic adviser to Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board and is a member of their Treaty negotiation team. He also works as a business adviser to Health Care Aotearoa, a primary health network involving Maori, Pacific and community not-for profit health providers.
Most recently he has been involved in public sector governance roles as deputy-Chairman with Housing NZ Corporation and as an elected board member of the Auckland District Health Board He is also deputy-Chairman of the ASB Trusts and chairs their Investment Committee and serves as a director of Watercare Services Ltd, the water and wastewater company for Auckland.
He has professional degree qualifications from Auckland University in commerce specialising in accounting, economics and anthropology.
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