Tino Rangatiratanga: meaning self-determination, sovereignty, autonomy.
On the same day that Australia voted against the 44th national referendum, New Zealand elected a coalition of far right political parties whose policies centred around endangering systems of co-governance between Indigenous and non-Indigenous groups. In one day, Australian and New Zealand politics took several steps back in the path to reconciliation. However, the fight for Indigenous sovereignty continues on.
On the 14th of October 2023, as our referendum was defeated with close to two thirds of Australians opposing the proposed constitutional amendments, Aotearoa New Zealand’s (NZ) Labor government led by Jacinda Ardern's successor Chris Hipkins was also defeated in election. The victory was won by the conservative National Party (NP), led by another Chris - Christopher Luxon.
To quote my own sister on our Whatsapp family group chat, “Okay so Australia and NZ both chose to be racist tonight?”
The Nationals won their election by promoting ‘English-First’ policies. They promised to remove bilingual road signs, Māori-named government departments, and lead a tireless crusade against all forms of co-governance. Essentially, their policy was an attack against the recognition of Māori cultural heritage.
To form a government majority, the Nationals entered into an uneasy coalition with the nationalist NZ First and the even further right Association of Consumers and Taxpayers (ACT) party. NZ First promotes the removal of Aotearoa as a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and have taken active steps in declaring the current government's refusal to recognise its authority domestically through legislation. Together, they have already rejected the 2019 legislative roadmap provided in Labors He Puapua report to fully actualise Māori rights and co-governance under UNDRIP. This has seen the government order the dissolution of the Māori Health Authority, instituted in 2022 under Labor, which originally intended to tackle existing disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health outcomes - a move which over 740 doctors in New Zealand have condemned in a letter presented to Health Minister Dr Shane Reti in early February.
Conversely, ACT has centred its 2023 platform around ‘reviewing’ the principles of the centuries old Treaty between the Crown and Māori chiefs. This treaty is largely what affords both Māori and non-Māori citizens their rights - as well as outlining the legalities of NZ’s right to exist as a settler colony and the equal roles all treaty partners have within it. Through draft legislation, they have sought to dismantle systems of reciprocity which protected Māori interests following decades of land dispossession and cultural repression.
By privileging the agendas of his coalition partners over the rights and interests of Māori people, Prime Minister Luxon actively upholds racist cultural norms that jeopardise frameworks of Indigenous rights within NZ. In a sense, he honours centuries of colonial authority, abetting the illegal occupation of land, the beating of children for speaking their native language, and Māori socio-economic disenfranchisement. The Coalition has prioritised undermining decades of work from Māori activists, like those who participated in 1970s land rights protests and cultural reclamation movements. They disacknowledge those who challenged the NZ government to reckon with their historic breaches of Treaty, to uphold their legal obligations to Māori people as sovereign treaty partners.
The Māori Response
At every step, this rise in conservatism has been met with fierce backlash from Indigenous people, working to re-assert their sovereignty and fight a system that has long been designed to exclude them.
Although the coalition has taken power, Te Paati Māori or the Māori Party (TPM) have gained more seats than they’ve ever had. This progressive party's success can be partly attributed to NZ’s dual electorate system, where general and Māori specific electoral rolls create designated Indigenous electorates that guarantee Māori representation in parliament. It can also be partly attributed to their staunch pro-Māori stance, which spoke to generations of Māori who have long been dissatisfied with Labor’s centrality and the National’s conservatism.
Despite guaranteed positions in parliament, Māori representatives are not happy with NZ’s current political climate. TPM’s co-leader Rawiri Waititi came under fire from media during the election season for stating that he is “not a fan of democracy” when in conversation with Newshub - all while sporting his iconic cowboy hat and strumming on a guitar. To Waititi, the current democratic system doesn’t serve Māori interests. But it is from this flawed system that TPM have worked to garner a platform that exemplifies Māori voices and challenges a democracy that overlooks minority groups.
TPM has worked to champion for greater Māori recognition through tactics of active citizenship and demonstrations. They launched a national day of action in December 2023, pushing to Toitū Te Tiriti (Honour the Treaty) and protect Indigenous rights. This day, and the subsequent actions launched in the following months, saw thousands march against the erosion of Māori language, rangatiratanga and cultural rights which were threatened by the policies of the coalition.
A few weeks after the national day of action, a group of vandals defaced Te Papa Museum’s display of the English version of NZ’s Treaty. They did this because it promoted an inauthentic understanding of history that upheld the colonial structures on which the NZ settler state had been built. The English treaty instils full governance of NZ to the Crown, a principle that stands at odds with the original - and legally binding - Māori version's assertion that chiefs should retain sovereignty over their people and their lands.
In more recent acts of civil backlash, students in the city of Palmerston North took action against ACT leader David Seymour through haka. Honouring the words of Māori Kiingi (King) Tuehitia earlier this year when he argued that the “best way to protest is to be Māori” and “live our values” by honouring culture against all odds.
Māori have made their political standpoints clear, through protest, through art, and through presentations of culture. Their challenge to the Coalition’s ferocious attempts of cultural erosion have led to an influx of Indigenous music, writings and even instagram posts, calling for love, liberation, and land back.
The combination of social activism, civil unrest and cultural portrayal successfully pressured the Nationals to revoke support for ACTs attempt to impede on Treaty, but there’s still a long journey to go on the path to reconciliation.
Despite this, Māori have proven that the most punk thing a person can do in a settler colony is be Indigenous, and be staunch in that Indigeneity.
So, what does this mean for us?
For years, the world has seen NZ as an example of progressive politics. This sharp pivot towards the right is a stark departure from the image of NZ cultivated under the previous Labor government’s six year long stint in power.
Yet, what was not shown by the media to the international community alongside its praise for PM Jacinta Adern, was the NZ citizens who saw Labor as an ineffectual government that failed to deal with cost of living and environmental issues in a post-pandemic nation. TPM’s co-leader Debbie Ngawera-Packer argued that the Labor party were “amateurs” and a “disappointment to our whānau [families]” in parliamentary oratory early last year after they shot down attempts to revoke offshore seabed mining permits.
The recent political developments in NZ show that blind faith in moderate political parties lead to complacency and give strength to modern day colonialism.
While NZ demonstrates what constitutional recognition of Indigenous people could look like within Australia - through treaty, dual electorates, guaranteed Indigenous parliament voices - they also show that it remains in jeopardy.
Voice, Treaty and Truth are imperfect solutions at dismantling oppressive colonial systems when they are not fully committed too or inhibited by colonial authority. The fight for tino rangatiratanga is a shared struggle amongst all Indigenous people globally. From the Inuit territories in Canada, to a partitioned Ireland, to an occupied Palestine and to a white ‘Australia’ with a long Blak history. It is an ongoing commitment to justice and ensuring that settler states are held accountable.
Aotearoa is not the perfect example, but it shows us the importance of protest and challenging systems that aren’t working for the good of all people. The fight for treaty and for sovereign recognition is a fight against centuries of colonial authority. Sometimes it takes defacing racist displays, directly standing up to leaders, and critiquing the status quo to push along change.
It’s punk to preach land, liberation and landback.