There have also been many claims made by various people that colonisation has deeply harmed Maori communities, seriously and consistently undermining their vitality, aspirations and potentials, particularly since the 1860s.

 

But in fact this is not true.

 

Prior to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, the average life expectancy for Maori was mid-thirties; the tribes were constantly at war with one another and the Maori practised slavery and cannibalism as a common effect of their warlike practices.

 

The Colony of New Zealand was created in 1840 as a Crown colony and the power of the British government was vested in the governor of New Zealand, but the colony was granted self-government in 1852.

 

In 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, an agreement between the British Crown and Maori. It established British law in New Zealand and is considered New Zealand’s founding document and an important part of the country’s history.

 

One of the main drivers behind the signing of the Treaty was to protect the Maori population from inter-tribal warfare, the threat of invasion by other nations and to bring an end to the musket wars.

 

The Musket Wars were a series of as many as 3,000 battles and raids fought throughout New Zealand among Māori between 1807 and 1837, after Māori first obtained muskets and then engaged in an intertribal arms race in order to gain territory or seek revenge for past defeats.

 

It is believed that as many as 20,000 Maori may have died as a result of the musket wars. Tribal boundaries were also changed by the musket wars.

The Treaty of Waitangi, despite all of the wrongful interpretations that have been said to require co-governance, guaranteed equal rights to all NZ citizens under British rule.

 

There is no mention in the Treaty documents of any partnership requirements or requirements for Co-Governance.

 

The Prime Minister stated at Turangawaewae Marae that co-governance is the key to fulfilling Treaty of Waitangi obligations.

 

Let’s be honest in this debate; Co-governance is an agenda by which New Zealand will lose its world leading democracy one of the oldest in the world, with NZ being the first country to give women an equal right to vote.

 

The Treaty Partnership

 

There is illiterate clamour mostly from the academic community but of course egged on by the Maori tribal elites for the implementation of a “Treaty Partnership” in which current tribal chiefs supported by attention seeking academics claim that those chiefs who signed the Treaty on 6th February 1840 somehow entered into a partnership with the British Crown.

 

As a matter of law and constitutional practice there is not and cannot be such partnership and that is plain to anybody capable of reading the terms of the document (always a good start in deciding what were the intentions of the parties were on signing a document.)

 

It was followed on the 16th of November 1840 by the Royal Charter which superseded the Treaty and confirmed the rights and responsibilities of the native inhabitants and the Crown and established a legislative framework supported by the common law.

 

These dishonest attempts to ignore the Royal Charter and reinterpret the Treaty based on some inessential observations by some of the judges in the 1987 State Owned Enterprises Act case ignore the evidence of Sir Henare Ngata in that case expressly referred to in the Judgment of Sir Robin Cook; in which he stated that the parties should work together in good faith as would be required in a partnership.

 

This has since been grabbed by the Treaty settlements industry and claimed as his interpretation of the Treaty giving them a claim to a partnership under the Treaty.

 

This interpretation is just that, an interpretation, and not one made by Justice Cook but one made by a number of self-serving persons involved in the Treaty settlements industry.

 

In actual fact many revered Maori elder statesmen have over the years prior to this stated the opposite to be the case.

 

The acclaimed Maori Leader, Sir Apirana Ngata- M.A. LLB. LIT.D explains; the intent in the pages of his book, the “Treaty of Waitangi”. He concludes with the words:

 

“The Treaty made the one law for the Maori and Pakeha. If you think these things are wrong and bad then blame our ancestors who gave away their rights in the days when they were powerful”.

 

The claim that the Treaty of Waitangi created a partnership between the Crown and Maori is not supported by any of the documentation of the Treaty although this latter-day reinterpretation of the Treaty is simply stated as a fact, without any acknowledgement that the assertion is hotly contested, and is flatly contradicted by many of the speeches recorded by Colenso in writing at the time (on 5 February 1840) and flatly contradicted also by speeches made by numerous chiefs at Kohimarama in 1860.

 

The idea of a constitutional partnership or co-governance never featured in the original Treaty documents, nor could they, for the Treaty is perfectly clear, in both the Maori and English texts. Governance was given to the Crown alone, and in exchange, the tribal leaders and the ordinary people of New Zealand were assured continuing ownership of their property and were guaranteed protection and equal status with the British settlers under British law.

 

Retired Judge and Law Lecturer Anthony Willy examined the case, and, found that the ‘partnership’ claim is a gross fabrication. There is no partnership requirement and this fabricated claim of such is being used deceptively to persuade New Zealanders to accept tribal control:

 

It is beyond question that nothing in that case suggests that the Treaty in any way creates a partnership between Maori and The Crown or brings into question the legitimacy of our democracy. To argue the contrary on the basis of this court case is either ignorant or willfully dishonest.”

 

By using the Treaty ‘partnership’ deception to justify giving control of essential services to the Maori elite, Jacinda Ardern is deliberately robbing New Zealanders of crucial democratic safeguards, placing them instead at the mercy of unelected and unaccountable iwi business leaders working in their own best interests, not in the public good.

 

The reality is that once co-governance is put in place, the opportunities for tribal enrichment will be endless, with contracts, fees, and other mechanisms able to be used to secure taxpayer funding – exposing the country to the problems that plague all tribal societies including corruption and nepotism.

 

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 these moves towards the legislated race based co-governance policies of this current Labour government.

 

We need to oppose co-governance and race based separatist policies and laws and in fact there have been many prominent New Zealanders, both Maori and European, who have spoken against this fairy tale partnership claim.

 

Their numbers include persons such as; former Labour Prime Minister David Lange, the prominent leader respected by Pakeha & Maori alike, ‘The Hon Sir Apirana Ngata, New Zealand First’s leader Winston Peters, Retired Judge and former Canterbury University Law Lecturer Anthony Willy, Gary Judd QC and many others.

 

No society where people have different political rights based on birth has ever succeeded.