New Zealand the Nation

According to the people of Ngapuhi (tribe of the Far North), the first Maori to reach New Zealand was their ancestor, Kupe who ventured across the Pacific on his waka hourua (voyaging canoe) from his ancestral Polynesian homeland of Hawaiki, making landfall at the Hokianga Harbour in Northland.

You will not find Hawaiki on a map, but it is believed Maori came from an island or group of islands in Polynesia in the South Pacific Ocean.

New Zealand was colonised by the Maori through the arrival of the seven canoes; Tainui, Te Arawa, Mātaatua, Kurahaupō, Tokomaru, Aotea and Tākitimu.

Greater numbers of European settlers began arriving in the country in the early 19th century initially settling around the Bay of Islands mostly. Organised settlement and migration from the island of Great Britain really began in the 1840s, post the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The treaty was written at a time when some Maori leaders had petitioned the British for protection against French ambitions.

The Treaty of Waitangi was created in 1840 to maintain peace and order amidst growing lawlessness and potential colonization by other foreign powers. It aimed to provide governance and grant Maori the rights of British subjects.

The Treaty consists of three sections that basically say that;

                1. Maori ceded sovereignty to the Crown

                2. The Crown guaranteed the chiefs and the tribes the possession of their lands and the chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes and the other chiefs granted to the Crown, the rights of                              purchasing such lands.

                3. In return for ceding sovereignty; the Crown guaranteed in return for the cession of their sovereignty to the Crown, the people of New Zealand shall be protected by the Crown and the rights and                        privileges of British subjects would be granted to them.

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.

There was never one overall government in New Zealand under Maori rule; the whole country was ruled on a system of tribalism following the rule of tikanga where all loyalty was afforded to the tribes each person was a member of.

The reason that the Maori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi was to gain protection for their people in the first instance (particularly given that inter-tribal warfare had claimed approximately 40,000 members of the various Maori tribes) and a simple study of the statistics for the Maori people in New Zealand since the signing of the Treaty up to the current times, shows that the Maori have been very well served by the relationship with the Crown overall.

Prior to the signing of the Treaty Maori commonly practised cannibalism and slavery amongst their own tribes and after the signing of the treaty these practices were outlawed and ceased. Inter-tribal warfare had claimed approximately 40,000 of the various Maori tribes and after the signing the so-called Maori or Musket wars came to an end.

At the time of the signing of the Treaty the life expectancy for Maori was approximately 30 years and today it is approximately 75 years which has to be seen in anyone’s eyes as a general improvement.

We are constantly being told that the Treaty of Waitangi created a partnership between the Crown and Maori and to fulfil this we need to adopt a system of Co-Governance with Maori.

The idea being that Maori will have fifty percent of control and all other races will have the other fifty percent.

This whole idea of Co-Governance is nothing more than a racist attempt to gain control based on an erroneous interpretation of the Treaty.

Apartheid by another name!

When the Maori signed the Treaty in 1840 they ceded sovereignty to the Crown. This is now disputed by the small band of radicals that are pushing for Co-Governance but the facts are that their own people have many times stated that sovereignty was ceded by the signing of the Treaty.

There has been some debate over the years about what, exactly; Maori believed they were signing in 1840 and whether Maori did cede sovereignty to the British Crown when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi or, as is now contended by some, did they not?

Sir Apirana Ngata prepared an English translation of the Treaty in 1922 that argued that the Chiefs had “cede (d) absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the Government of all their lands”.

It is constitutionally impossible for the Crown to enter into a partnership with any of its subjects. The true position is that the Crown is sovereign but owes duties of justice and good faith to the Maori descendants of those who signed the treaty.

The so-called “principles of the Treaty” which are often quoted by the radicals opposed to the current rules, didn’t even exist in law until 1975 — 135 years after the Treaty was signed. Parliament invented the concept of “principles” in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 when it created the Waitangi Tribunal.

The Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 did not define what those principles were, it simply left them open to interpretation.

In the late 1980s — particularly after a 1987 Court of Appeal decision — courts and officials began expanding and interpreting these “principles”.

But even today there is no single, settled, written list of Treaty principles in statute. They are loosely worded, change over time, and mean whatever judges, tribunals, or governments decide they mean at the time.

So when people talk about “Treaty principles” as if they were agreed in 1840 and are fixed and sacred — that simply isn’t true. They are a modern legal invention, added on decades later and endlessly expandable.

The Crown’s duties of justice and good faith to the Maori descendants of those who signed the treaty have been seen to be done through the process of the settlements of grievances under the Waitangi Tribunal and rightly so; yet still we see a section of the Maori people trying to claim non-existent rights under the Treaty.

Since 1995 there have been settlements with a total value of approximately $2.6 billion yet very little of that settlement money seems to have benefited the Maori at the bottom of the food chain but the so-called elite seem to be well provided for.

For decades, New Zealanders were told that Treaty settlements were “full and final” yet we still see more and more claims being made to the Waitangi Tribunal turning the tribunal into nothing more than an ethnicity based gravy train.

Since the passing of the Treaty of Waitangi Act in 1975, we have seen the radicals trying to use it to divide NZ on the basis of ethnicity, claiming that they have a right of co-governance granted under the Treaty of Waitangi.

Many fifth-generation or more Kiwis whose ancestors built this nation with sweat and steel, farming side by side and forging a country with an agricultural backbone now find themselves funding iwi corporations richer than most families through their taxes; these payments, many being made by the Waitangi Tribunal seem to be justified by alleged breaches over land that was willingly sold generations ago.

What does NZ want in future?

I think I would be right in stating that the average NZ citizen wants to live in a multicultural society where we are all treated equally before the law; where every lawful adult citizen has the right to vote in free democratic elections irrespective of ethnic background or religious belief.

Since close after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 between the British and the Maori, this is effectively what we have had.

What has NZ got at present?

In recent times we have seen the Treaty of Waitangi used to justify calls by a small radicalised group for a co-governance agreement between Maori and the Crown.

It has almost become a common ritual where the claims by the radicals claim that colonisation has been the downfall of New Zealand and in particular has severely harmed the Maori population of New Zealand.

They continually claim that colonisation was some type of crime perpetrated against Maori instead of being what it truly was; a universal human process with a global context, scale and historical precedent.

These claims have no serious evidence in history but are just their own ideological interpretation of circumstances that happened decades before their time.

It is a fact that almost every society on Earth has been colonized, conquered, absorbed, displaced, or overwritten at some time in the past. Europe was carved up repeatedly—Roman expansion erased entire cultures; later invasions by Goths, Huns, Vikings, and Ottomans dismantled and rebuilt the continent by force.

Asia’s borders were forged through dynastic conquest, mass migrations, and brutal imperial expansion; Mongol campaigns alone killed millions and reordered half the known world.

Africa’s pre‑colonial kingdoms expanded violently at one another’s expense, absorbing land, people, and resources long before European arrival. The Americas were dominated by empires that conquered and subjugated neighbouring peoples centuries before Europeans entered the picture. New Zealand is no exception: Maori settlement involved displacement, warfare, and territorial consolidation well before British administration came to about. None of these facts are controversial they are just basic recorded history.

Yet the modern radicals in New Zealand seem to believe that our history conveniently begins in the 1800s and continues today with perpetual grievance.

Parliamentary debates over the years (particularly post the passing of the Treaty of Waitangi Act in 1975) always seem to return to issues around colonization, how badly it has treated Maori and how the Treaty created some type of partnership between the Crown & Maori and how this should have resulted in a co-governance arrangement.

Mainstream Media seem to always frame their commentary on these issues through the same moral lens, regardless of relevance. We now have a situation where Central Government & Local councils, policy documents, and educational materials repeat the same narrow interpretations. The result is a historical monoculture where their story is being endlessly retold while the rest of our history is quietly ignored because it doesn’t fit their interpretation, and has become seen as the truth, when in actual fact it is nothing more than enforcement of their own ideological beliefs.

The problem is not that colonization is continually discussed, but that it is discussed selectively, emotionally, and without proportion. The fact that colonization is a structural force that shaped every civilization on Earth is basically ignored.

This selective fixation on their ideological beliefs produces a warped view in which history is portrayed as a clash between villains and victims with current politics treated as betrayal of their beliefs.

Acknowledging colonization was universal human process with a global context, scale and historical precedent does not excuse injustice; but it does destroy their ideological belief that colonisation caused them nothing but great harm.

Civilizations throughout recorded history have been built on conquest, collapse, adaptation, and inheritance with most societies living atop layers of prior displacement, whether they admit it or not.

The radicals do themselves no favours by pretending their history was otherwise. A mature, truthful discussion must confront the full sweep of its history—not just the chapters that suit their current political position. Until that happens, the conversation remains as nothing but repetitive and fundamentally dishonest.

The radicals are attempting to use the Treaty as a tool to divide our county.

Many of us fifth-generation Kiwis whose ancestors built this nation with sweat and steel, farming side by side and forging a country through an agricultural backbone have probably noticed that our country is being divided more every year based on the so-called harm suffered under colonisation and the current claims being made through the Waitangi Tribunal.

Today, the Treaty of Waitangi is being abused with claims being made to the Waitangi Tribunal for control through co-governance with separate local government wards becoming nothing more than Treaty-based apartheid, none of which exists in the text of the Treaty document.

The Waitangi Tribunal has itself become a gravy train. Thousands of claims, billions paid, and still it never ends. Ordinary working Kiwis fund iwi corporations richer than most families, all justified by alleged breaches over land that was willingly sold generations ago.

The treaty itself did not disadvantage ordinary Maori, what proved disastrous for Maori communities was not British governance, but the large-scale alienation of land through voluntary sales, often by individuals who underestimated the long-term consequences.

Maori vendors sold a whopping 92 percent of the land area of New Zealand for all sorts of reasons, but mainly, that it was more in their interest to sell than to hold on to it, which is much the same choice made by any ownership group of any asset.

A myth has grown over the years since 1973, when Nga Tamatoa protesters disrupted Waitangi Day by wearing black armbands mourned the loss of the entire land area of New Zealand.

That myth is that since the 1800s, Maori “lost” most of their land.

But as we have seen, apart from the relatively small percentage of land confiscated, and apart from surplus land retained by the Crown, Maori vendors sold land at mutually agreed prices over a long period of time.

There is a world of difference between losing something and selling it.

While they say that the Maori position has been diminished by the loss of the large percentage of their land, but the fact of the matter is that this has come about by the actions of their predecessors who sold the majority of their land.

Though they may have sold it for what would be considered today, as a paltry amount, at the time of the sale they were receiving the going rates and it is not possible to expect any type of redress due to the increase in values since the time of sale.

Those Maori, who are making the claims that they have lost their land and they should have it returned, should have to justify their claims. Explain why they believe that they deserve to have their land given back to them or even why they should be given first right of refusal on sales of surplus government land holdings.

Why should the taxpayers of New Zealand have to subsidise them to regain ownership of land that in the main their ancestors willingly sold.

If they are to regain ownership of the land then they should have to bid for that right in a competitive bid process where all bids are treated as equal unless they can produce irrefutable evidence that the land in question was in fact unlawfully taken from their ancestors.

What will co-governance mean for ordinary Maori?

When people talk about “co-governance” of New Zealand, it often sounds like they are talking about partnership and self-determination, but for the average Maori someone with a job, a family, mixed ancestry, and often very little Maori blood; the practical question is simple: how would this actually work for me?

Under a co-governance model, political power would not rest primarily with individuals as equal citizens, but with iwi and hapu as corporate bodies. Representation, influence, and access would increasingly flow through tribal structures — runanga, trust boards, and mandated iwi organisations, rather than directly through universal democratic institutions.

For many Maori, this would mean that their political voice depends on their tribal affiliation, not simply their citizenship. If they are well connected to their iwi and aligned with its leadership, they may gain influence or access to opportunities. If they are urban, disconnected from their tribe, unsure of their genealogy, affiliated with multiple iwi, or simply uninterested in tribal politics, their voice may be effectively absent.

Importantly, tribal leadership is not elected by the general public, and, in most cases, not by the tribe as a whole either. Iwi authorities are typically governed by trustees chosen through limited rolls or internal processes. In practice, the average Maori has little or no ability to vote out iwi leaders who perform poorly, misuse funds, or pursue agendas they disagree with — yet those leaders would exercise growing power over resources, policy, and representation.

Supporters of co-governance often present it as a correction to history. But this raises an uncomfortable truth: the original treaty was signed by Maori leaders who acted prudently, not recklessly. They sought protection, order, and equal status under the Crown — not permanent tribal control over future generations. the treaty itself did not disadvantage ordinary Maori.

For the average Maori, co-governance is unlikely to feel like empowerment; it is far more likely to feel like another layer of authority making decisions in their name, controlling resources meant for their benefit, and claiming legitimacy without meaningful accountability.

One does not need to speculate about where this path leads. The growing wealth, status, and political access of today’s Iwi leadership — alongside persistent underperformance in Maori health, education, and income outcomes — tells its own story. Power has been consolidated, assets have grown, and influence has expanded, yet the average Maori remains no better off.

In New Zealand we have one of the world’s oldest democratic societies which we can be proud of.

But Te Pati Maori and others have challenged our current democratic systems of government; based on an erroneous interpretation of a requirement for a partnership under the Treaty of Waitangi, and I believe this is nothing more than a grab for control of our country based on ethnicity and disrespectful of the valuable contributions of the many other cultures that have settled here. 

The claims for a co-governance system based on ethnicity is nothing more than an attempt to introduce a system of Apartheid under a different name and has led to a significant increase in racial division in New Zealand.

In summary I believe if someone wants to achieve in New Zealand they have the options available to do so under the current systems if they wish to apply the efforts to do so.

But we will not improve anything by introducing privileges based on ethnicity other than to cause further increase in racial division within New Zealand. All citizens of our country must be considered equal irrespective of race, colour or creed.  

What we see now isn’t honouring the Treaty, it’s exploiting it. Road blocks, occupations, demands for control over assets and spectrum, all justified by interpretations that didn’t even exist until the late 20th century.

If the Treaty is about fairness, then it must apply fairly to everyone alive today, not punish people for ancestors they never had, and not privilege people for ancestry alone. Justice that depends on bloodlines isn’t justice at all.

And the final insult? It’s a tiny modern elite pushing these demands onto everyone else, including immigrants and families with no colonial history at all. While claiming moral authority over a past they themselves are descended from on both sides.

What worries me most isn’t the past, it’s what we’re normalising for our kids. Teaching them that law, opportunity, and voice depend on ancestry is the opposite of unity.

If this was really about healing, it would have ended by now. Processes that never conclude aren’t reconciliation, they’re revenue streams.

What NZ desperately needs?

New Zealand needs a real constitution or agreement that locks in equality ends race-based law, and stops 1840 ghosts and 1970s inventions from dividing us in 2026.