The Waitangi Tribunal turned fifty last October, marking a half century since the passage of the Treaty of Waitangi Act in 1975. I posted about this at the time. But the Tribunal was also preparing a special 50^th anniversary edition of its newsletter,  Te Manutukutuku, to mark the occasion. That newsletter edition has been released this month and includes contributions from a wide range of past and present Tribunal members, staff, claimants, counsel, and others.

You can read the full edition here. As a historian with a long history of involvement with the Tribunal in various ways, I was also invited to contribute and I reproduce my piece below.

Love it or loathe it, but the Waitangi Tribunal has been at the forefront of conversations around Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Māori-Crown relations for the past half century. Things hardly got off to an auspicious beginning. Matiu Rata, in introducing the Treaty of Waitangi Bill in November 1974, told Parliament that he had ‘some personal reservations, in that the provisions are not retrospective’, hinting that he had failed to secure sufficient support from within government ranks to give the new body authority to investigate historical grievances dating from prior to enactment. That would have to wait for another decade. 

New Zealand wasn’t ready in the 1970s to re-examine its history too minutely. And the Waitangi Tribunal’s first hearing in 1977 indicated it probably wasn’t ready to hear such matters either. Held in a plush downtown Auckland hotel, the hearing was conducted with all due legal solemnities but a total absence of any allowance for tikanga Māori, amidst complaints about a monocultural approach to proceedings. 

From the early 1980s onwards, the Tribunal radically overhauled its hearing procedures under new chair Chief Judge Edward Taihakurei Durie, holding sittings on marae that no longer resembled criminal trials. It had been on something of a learning curve and since that time it has taken the rest of New Zealand on one as well, whether we like it or not. Coming to grips with the messy, protracted and unedifying process of Māori dispossession and marginalisation has met with a backlash in some quarters. But it has also been essential for the future of our country, and a poll earlier this year that indicated 85% of the public consider knowing our history is important, with honouring Te Tiriti at 72%, also suggests that fact has been meet with growing if sometimes grudging acceptance. 

Growing up in Christchurch in the 1980s, I remember Ngāi Tahu’s historical claim to the Waitangi Tribunal was accompanied by hysterical newspaper headlines suggesting they were claiming most of the South Island. The implication was that no one’s home was safe. Today, Ngāi Tahu are a major force in the local economy, employing thousands of people and contributing in multiple ways to the social, cultural and environmental life of Te Waipounamu. We saw that after February 2011 and again in March 2019. And having recently had cause to revisit the various Waitangi Tribunal reports on the Ngāi Tahu claim that paved the way for the 1997 settlement, I have to say they stack up well more than three decades later. 

On a personal level, I have had less involvement in Tribunal matters since I contributed to the Te Manutukutuku 40^th anniversary newsletter a decade ago. As the Tribunal’s historical inquiries gradually wind down, many of the old guard of historians now find ourselves spending more time giving expert evidence in the High Court, whether in Takutai Moana cases or other matters. Yet the Tribunal’s future focus on contemporary kaupapa inquiries will ensure it continues to remain prominent in national conversations for some considerable time to come.            

PS: Thanks to everyone who came to my event at the Auckland Writers Festival last week, talking about my career and my project on Irish and Māori historical connections with Eugene Bingham. And congratulations to the winner of the ticket to this I offered through this newsletter. I will have more special offers and giveaways for premium subscribers to the newsletter later this year and you can upgrade at any time.