Thoughts on the Waitangi Tribunal Process

The Waitangi Tribunal process has its criticisms, just as any other government-related process that involves a lot of money and a lot of emotional investment. As my personal interest is in culture and where cultures cross over and create new cultural structures, I’ll focus here on just one aspect of the process that I’ve noticed more prominently of late.

The Tribunal process is divided into different areas that combine to create a view of what happened, how bad it was, and how the results shape the situation today. One of the areas in the process is the Oral and Traditional History (“OTH”) component. This component offers narratives of events on the ground from the claimants’ perspective, as well as establishing their tribal history and identity — their interlinked whakapapa to each other, to the land and its resources.

The OTH process undertaken in Te Rohe Pōtae (King Country) Inquiry is an adaptation to that of previous inquiries. This time, instead of the OTH presentations by clients, and the presentation of the OTH Report (a report completed by a professional historian), being made towards the middle or even the tail-end of the hearings process, the OTH hearings are taking place at the beginning of the process. The reasoning for this is so that the kaumātua and kuia (the elders) of the claimant tribes can ‘set the tone’ and intent for the rest of the hearings process. This concords with Māori custom, in that it allows the elders to sanctify the proceedings.

Transculturalism, Part I: Presentation

I went to my first Pecha Kucha night here in Wellington exactly one year ago today. It made a great impression on me. Besides being fascinatingly engaging, I could sense a certain value in the accessible ‘public lecture’ nature of the event, and the diverse educational enlightenment it was providing. Following my second one back in June, I decided to have a crack at presenting at one myself. I kind of enjoy the rush of public speaking, and also the challenge of getting an idea or concept across to an audience in an understandable way.

Back on the evening of 19 October I presented at the 5th Wellington Pecha Kucha night. I had a pleasant air of superiority about me as I took the stage at number 9 of 15 presenters, as most of the others had prosecuted some pretty shameless commercial self-promotion, whereas I was attempting honestly to put an Idea out there for people to ruminate.

Those Bloody Maories

Okay okay, I know I promised epiphanies, but it’s not time for that yet. Let’s get political instead.

I work at a small law office doing paralegal stuff. Our caseload profile is split about 50/50 between environmental & resource management law, and Treaty of Waitangi claims & negotiations. We currently have six Treaty clients in the Whanganui and Rohe Pōtae (King Country) inquiries, and also a client with a contemporary claim relating to Māori language education.

But before we tuck in to the meat & potatoes, here’s the background snacking which led me to choose this topic to blog on this evening:
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/08/solomon_on_iwi_economy.html
(Have a read of the comments too, to get a flavour of the kinds of people I talk about from here on.)

Now, it’s no secret that many (predominantly white lower & middle income) New Zealanders are less than supportive of the Treaty settlement process, nor the fact that hundreds of millions (soon to reach a billion) dollars in cash and assets have already been transferred to Mandated Iwi Organisations (“MIOs”). There are also other settlements, like that of the radio frequencies settlement, or the Wai 262 Flora & Fauna inquiry, which cannot be easily quantified in dollar terms – although the dollars are what the wailing and gnashing are usually focussed upon. The discontent with the settlement process seems to be based on the ingrained sense of fairness bred into all Kiwis: why is it that Māori are getting all this money for things that happened hundreds of years ago? Isn’t it all in the past? Why am I to blame for all these things? I wasn’t even there!
The common call across the public bar (and I’ve heard this far more than once) is, “if they want their land back, then we want our blankets and muskets back!”

Abstract standpoints like that are hard to argue with, directly. When engaging these malcontents in debate, you have to change the questions they’re asking: “What makes you think it was all about guns and blankets?” “Do you think all the breaches happened before 1900?” Etc. The actual problem is that people don’t like feeling guilty or punished for things they had nothing to do with.