Maori - Indigenous People of New Zealand
At least that is what some would have us believe.
Many of the so-called tribal elite of the Iwi have been claiming that their people have a partnership right under the Treaty of Waitangi, and they are trying to achieve a co-governance role in NZ.
One of the factors they use to back their claims for a partnership is the supposed status of Maori as the indigenous people of NZ.
We have been told for many years now that Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. But we have also been told of the amazing exploits of the original Maori settlers who travelled to New Zealand from Hawaiki by canoe.
The Cambridge dictionary definition of indigenous is as follows:
Indigenous:-
Adjective:
Used to refer to, or relating to, the people who originally lived in a place, rather than people who moved there from somewhere else:
Used to refer to plants and animals that grow or live naturally in a place, and have not been brought there from somewhere else:
Not foreign or from outside an area:
So taking from this definition combined with the history of the Maori migrating to New Zealand from Hawaiki in their canoes we must conclude that the Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand just very early migrants by their own admission.
This claim is backed by the recent calls from Ngāti Tama for an unnamed public road in the Hira district of Nelson to be called Hawaiki Lane.
Braden Fastier from the Nelson Mail published the following article:
An unnamed public road in Hira, north of Nelson, will be called Hawaiki Lane, despite locals calling for it to be given an English title.
Last week, a Nelson City Council hearing panel agreed the new te reo name would be given to the public road connecting Cable Bay Rd to the new Drumduan Rise subdivision.
The decision came after local iwi representatives told the panel the name Hawaiki carried mana and dignity.
But, while the name was backed by iwi, local residents objected to it and called for a name that reflected the history of the farmers who had worked the land since the 1840s.
In a report to the panel, council officers recommended Hawaiki Lane be adopted, with Rotokura Lane as an alternative.
“The proposed names have ancestral significance to the Wakapuaka region and their use supports the revitalisation of te reo Māori and Māori histories. The names also address the imbalance in the visibility of mana whenua heritage.
“Hawaiki can also refer to the traditional homeland of where Māori migrated from, and a reference to where the spirit returns after death. In modern times Hawaiki refers to Māori aspirations for future generations to thrive and flourish.”
So Ngāti Tama have spelled it out loud and clear; Hawaiki can also refer to the traditional homeland of where Māori migrated from, and a reference to where the spirit returns after death.
Maori are not indigenous but merely early migrants from Hawaiki!!!!!!
Trustee Andrew Stephens said it was important to bring back Māori place names and acknowledge “the first colonisers of this whenua”.
On Aug. 28, 1963, American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., where he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in which he said those oft repeated words:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
He was speaking about the coloured people of America’s segregation based on race and he also said:
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men — yes, Black men as well as white men — would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”
New Zealand has had a democratic system of government that is the oldest in the world, going back to the emancipation of women under the suffragette movement when they were granted the inalienable right to vote regardless of colour or gender in 1893.
On 19 September 1893, Governor Lord Glasgow signed a new Electoral Act into law, and New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to enshrine in law the right for women to vote in parliamentary elections.
Yet here we are in New Zealand, 2024, with the Maori Party (which claims falsely, to represent the Maori population of NZ) and the self-appointed so-called tribal elite of Iwi trying to go back and reinstate a system of race based governance as seen in the He Puapua document. The 2019 He Puapua report to Government (based on a report to the Iwi Chairs Forum, Matike Mai) became known to the public in 2021. The “Vision 2040” described there sets out the intention of two separate, racially defined, government structures; New Zealand is broken apart, with no pretence of inclusivity or equality.
The foundations of New Zealand were laid down by those British who had just put an end to slavery. They would never have written, or agreed with, a Treaty that divided the country into two unequal races, having asserted the very opposite, that all New Zealanders were equal British subjects. This was a precious legacy for the new nation, to be safeguarded and never taken for granted.
New Zealand has paid the price of ignorance and inactivity, allowing a determined minority to build a tribal, ‘indigenous’, race-based division which destroys the claim to equality and liberty of all others.
In fact, New Zealand has rapidly become a racist country, with belief in race and classification by race (“A Maori is a member of the Maori race”). There is separation in government (with race-based Maori seats and a race-based Maori Party), special rights by race in law (the Supreme Court gave sovereignty to Maori tribes, with a special place for Maori ideology: “Tikanga Maori [to be defined by the Maori party] will be functioning and applicable across Aotearoa under Maori [national, iwi, hapu, whanau] authority”), and in many organisations (the Waitangi Tribunal deals only with possible breeches of the Treaty by the Crown against Maori).
The call for separation and special rights to Maori, coupled with a denial of equality, has become widespread, a national ideology based on a belief in wrongs committed against Maori by the Crown.
Based on that false belief, Maori are angrily, demanding recompense. New Zealanders are no longer one people, but divided into indigenous people and the others – second-rate citizens who must pay for fake claims of past wrong-doing by their ancestors.
Prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi the rule of tikanga was followed and loyalty was for those in the hapu
or iwi; all others were of no importance and could be robbed of land, killed, and eaten. War bred war, as frequently a group would escape a stronger tribe and move to attack another. Fighting was strengthened by the demand for revenge, utu, and the call to defend the mana of relations and ancestors.
The calls for a system of “Race Based Co-governance”; is a terrible mistake, promising disruption and the potential of race war. New Zealand has never been so divided. The challenge of the 21^st^ century is to oppose any talk of race based governance; support that “now we are one” and to move from division to unity with all persons being equal under the democratic system of one person one vote irrespective of colour creed or gender.
It is time this current government under Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, grew a pair and decided to “Fully” implement their campaign promises to do away with all race based legislation and stop all talk of co-governance at any level.
Race based governance has never succeeded anywhere and it would not be any different here in New Zealand if it was implemented.
We can have co-governance without democracy.
We can have democracy without co-governance.
But we cannot have democracy and co-governance.
Democracy will only prevail if we oppose any moves towards legislated race based co-governance policies. We need to oppose co-governance for Democracy to prevail.
As Martin Luther King Jr stated in his “I have a Dream” speech;
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.”
While he was speaking about the coloured people of America’s segregation based on race the underlying message is just as true for us here in New Zealand.