Co-governance and Ngai Tahu — Sir Kerry

Published date05 May 2022
Publication titleNorth Canterbury News
I am opposed to the Bill proposing to give Ngai Tahu the power to appoint two councillors to the Canterbury Regional Council

I am opposed to the notion that our country and its population should be seen in binary terms. We are not. We are a multi-racial and multi-cultural society and our governance arrangements should reflect that.

As Dame Anne Salmond eloquently outlined in a recent article, the Preamble to the Treaty of Waitangi makes it clear that it creates a multi-lateral agreement, not a bi-lateral one.

She also suggests that the 1987 High Court ruling that the Treaty was a partnership between the Crown and Maori alone needs further consideration.

Dame Anne noted that, as time passes, ‘‘non-indigenous incomers may even have whanau named after them – the Manuels, the Stirlings, the Jacksons and the O’Regans etc.’’

We in Canterbury might add the Grennells, Christians, Solomons and Tregurthans (Tirikatenes).

In spite of the above, we seem to be stumbling by ad hoc steps like the Ngai Tahu Bill and Three Waters into a future of co-governance, a bi-lateral system inconsistent with the multi-lateral nature of the Treaty and our society.

This will require us to give up the democratic foundation of our governance arrangements.

I have witnessed massive change and growth in Maori involvement and progress in recent decades, some of which I have been a part of and helped create.

In 1985, following a multi-sector employment summit, which I chaired as Minister of Employment, I advised Cabinet that we were witnessing a Maori Renaissance, a widespread movement that has continued to this day. We are better for this movement, provided it is seen in a multi-cultural context.

As a Rangiora High School teacher a decade and a half earlier, I found the requirement to record Maori students as being more or less than half-Maori, difficult in the extreme.

Later, as an MP in the Kirk Government, I voted to change that law. Now, anyone with a Maori ancestor can claim to be Maori and, at census time, choose to be on the Maori or General electoral roll. Again, we are better for this change.

As Speaker of Parliament in the late 1980’s, I ruled that Maori was an official language of Parliament, a decision which overturned all previous Speakers Rulings which required Maori MPs to either provide written English translations, or take half of their speaking time to tell their colleagues in English what they had just said in Maori.

Today it is quite common to hear non-Maori MPs using...

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