edouglas@waikato.ac.nz (Edward Te Kohu Douglas) writes:
> On april 30, the New Zealand Court of Appeal (CoA), ruled in what has been
> a vexing and complicated issue surrounding the NZ Government's settlement
> of all Maori Fishing Claims, following successful claims to Fishing rights
> by various tribes before the Waitangi tribunal over the past decade...
Teenaa koe Te Kohu e hoa. Te ata nei kua kitea toou kupu koorero i runga i
te Internet.
E oorite ana aaku whakaaro me ngaa kupu puumahara naa Apirana Mahuika i
runga i te reo irirangi i nanahi.
Taku kupu anoo, mo te ao paakehaa:
The latest decision of the NZ Court of Appeal on Maori fishing rights and
assets may provide the strongest recent reason yet for Maori to believe it
is essential that decisions of the highest New Zealand courts must be
subject to appeal and review at an independent higher level. If the current
right of appeal to the Privy Council, part of the legal system we agreed to
accept under the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, is soon to be removed, as both
Government and Lord Cook of Thorndon himself insist, Maori must be consulted
more fully, and they must be satisfied that any replacement final appeal
authority proposed will be competent in matters of indigenous law, and more
likely than the present Court of Appeal to reach correct decisions in regard
to the tension and balance between Kaawanatanga and tribal Rangatiratanga,
and the priority due in certain matters to Maori Rangatiratanga. We would
hope such a new final appeal authority would not presume to create any new
entities legally supposed (by them) to be statutory equivalents of Maori
Iwi, or to assign to such creatures of colonialism any of the rights and
properties already belonging (and guranteed by the Treaty of Waitangi to
always belong) to genuine indigenous Maori tribes (or Iwi).
The recent decision of the Court of Appeal, albeit unanimous, and the last
to be issued by retired President Cook, appears to seriously undermine Maori
rights in their tribal collectives, and to reduce the Treaty of Waitangi
principles to an unprincipled populist money scramble. Admission to this
urban event is to be gained only on grounds of supposed Race, and a high
degree of social welfare dependency. The ensuing spectacle will be diverting
for politicians, lawyers and judges and colonial power brokers of every
hue.
It is hard to believe the deeper implications of this court decision could
stand for long, or if they do, the decision seems to sound the death knell
for traditional Maori society and cultural values, and the end of any
meaningful future authority or influence of tribal ruunanga (collective
authorities). Instead we then shall have to endure the mean racial politics
of divisive factionalism, hatred and envy. And when it comes to destructive
factionalism, Maori can be confidently expected to surpass the evils so well
shown by Pakeha in their own distant European homelands. Many Maori by now
have forgotten that it was largely to replace such destructive internecine
Maori warfare, and the rampant criminality of many early Pakeha, that our
ancestors saw merit in ceding over-riding sovereignty to a supposedly
honourable foreign Crown in the Treaty, expecting to enjoy the Queen's peace
and the opportunities to develop a new society, in which however we were to
retain all of our treasured things, including our fisheries. How painful
that urban Maori ignorance, and a surly unwillingness to learn, has now
prodded the Queen's courts to undermine those important customs and property
rights that made our cultural survival possible.
It is appalling to think that after abolition of the right to appeal to the
Privy Council this and similar NZ court decisions, cementing in place
ultimate colonialist control over all Maori people and of their collective
resources, will constitutionally be legally final.
The Maori Rangatiratanga once willingly guaranteed by the honour of the
Crown in the Treaty of Waitangi will by then be emptied of all practical
meaning for Maori tribes, and the European colonisation of New Zealand will
be at last completed.
Heoti.
Te mihi aroha atu nei na to hoa, na Maarire
Dr Maarire Goodall
++ 64 4 385 8528 ph/fx
aorakipr@actrix.gen.nz
PO Box 11-699, Wellington, New Zealand