apartheid
p. 18 · Read in the full issue
A new kind of apartheid
It could not be said that 1995 was a good one for race relations in New Zealand, marked as it was by a spate of Maori land occupations, including the bit terly contested 79-day sit-in at Moutoa Gardens in Wanganui.
Militant Maori groups, increasingly angry with lack of progress on their land and compensation claims, tried to take the law into their own hands.
Protesters indulged in a range of actions, including trying to chop down the landmark pine on Auckland’s One Tree Hill, decapitating European statues, advo cating arson and violence and wrecking the annual Waitangi Day celebrations.
Pakeha patience with the radicals, who launched a new campaign for Maori sov ereignty, wore thin and there was mount ing resentment at what many Europeans saw as the government’s readiness to bend over backwards to accommodate Maori concerns.
Behind it all was the government’s so called fiscal envelope - a $1 billion com pensation package to settle all Maori claims under the Treaty of Waitangi and wipe the slate clean on a century-and-a half of grievances. Maori throughout the country rejected the proposal as a series of angry hui and pakeha despaired of ever being able to satisfy their demands.
In the aftermath, some Europeans argued that they were becoming second class citizens, disadvantaged because of special privileges given to Maori, both in terms of Treaty of Waitangi issues and social and economic assistance. They said Maori protesters consistently got away with illegal acts for which pakeha would be jailed and warned a system of reverse
apartheid was slowly, if unwittingly, being
put in place.
Far from being the one people envis
aged by Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson when he signed the treaty on Queen Victoria’s behalf at Waitangi in 1840, brown and white New Zealanders seemed in grave danger of drifting even further apart.
The one bright spot in the year was the settlement of the Tainui tribe’s 131-year old land grievance against the Crown, the most significant Treaty of Waitangi agree ment yet.
Under the deal, the Tainui people of the Waikato received a $l7O million settle ment package and a formal Crown apolo gy for the confiscation of a large chunk of their land last century. The Tainui gave up further treaty claims and the whole pact was enshrined in legislation signed by the Queen when she visited New Zealand.
The test for Maori-pakeha relations in 1996 is whether that exercise can be repeated with other tribes, thereby whit tling down simmering Maori resentment and bringing the racial harmony all New Zealanders - whatever their attitude towards the fiscal envelope - want.
There are some encouraging signs, with Ngai Tahu, Bay of Plenty and Taranaki tribes indicating a readiness to move into serious negotiations with the Crown. Another 30 tribal groups are reported to be at various stages of negotia tion on their claims with the Treaty Settlements Office.
But with about 500 claims before the Waitangi Tribunal, which has reported on less than a tenth of them so far, and Maori
generally still giving the fiscal envelope
the cold shoulder, there is a long way to go- The government, which has announced its intention to settle the issue once and for all and thereby remove the continuing threat to harmonious race relations, is to a
large degree working on its own.
When it called for submissions on its proposals last year, many Maori made their objections known. But when it sought Maori participation in drawing up a report on the submissions, Maori refused en bloc to take part in the process, saying they had never been properly invited or consulted.
This echoed Maori claims that consul tation on the fiscal envelope, with its $1 billion cap which the government insists is non-negotiable, was totally inadequate that it was a take-it-or-leave-it offer slapped on the table without due discus sion on what Maori actually wanted.
What Maori actually wants is difficult for the government to define - mainly because Maori are so divided, on this, and it seems every other issue.
Many claims have not reached the stage of negotiation with the Crown because the tribes and their hapu (sub tribes) cannot agree among themselves. In some cases, for instance, there may be half a dozen different claimants to one parcel of land. In Taranaki, Treaty Negotiations Minister Doug Graham says, there are eight tribes claiming rights on the moun tain (Mount Taranaki) and within each one six to eight hapu, some seeking to negoti
ate individually.
There was a lot of sparring over how to celebrate this year’s Waitangi Day at Waitangi after the government decided to move its official ceremonies to Wellington following last year’s fiasco at the treaty house.
It is increasingly apparent that an end to inter-tribal bickering is the first require ment if 1996 is to see further progress on New Zealand putting more than 150 years of Maori grievances behind it.. ■