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This research, entitled te ao pakihi—the business world—set out to identify Māori enterprise perspectives on the New Zealand-United Kingdom free trade agreement (NZ-UK FTA) being negotiated by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) officials and their UK counterparts. In their desire to uphold the Crown’s obligations to Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi, to invoke some of the goals of the Trade for All agenda, and to meet commitments to Māori in trade policy following tribunal claims and the formation of the Te Taumata, MFAT wanted to be informed about Māori interests so that these could be reflected in the negotiations in real time. MFAT commissioned this independent research into Māori enterprise perspectives in March 2021. The research was conducted between April and June 2021 and involved interviews with 50 Māori enterprises with varying degrees of exporting activity, and entity types and scales, including Māori small and medium enterprise (SMEs), Māori post-settlement governance entities (PSGEs), Māori corporates, and Māori providers, among others. Participants were identified and recruited through networks of the research team. Two forms of analysis and reporting were provided: first, a series of six batch reports each summarising the findings of five interviews, with a total of 30 interviewees—the goal was to provide insights as the information came to hand so negotiators could incorporate Māori perspectives during negotiation rounds—and second, a final report with findings from another 24 interviewees, including three from the sixth batch report. We found that that Māori enterprises see trade as more than an economic opportunity: they see the FTA as embodying a Treaty relationship that has significance because it is one with the original Treaty partner—the British Monarch. This relationship provides much cause for optimism among Māori about the potential for trade; however, it also provides cause for caution among Māori enterprises because of historical trauma, and concerns about the dangers of misappropriating and misuse of Māori cultural and intellectual property, and risks to Treaty and other rights. This can be addressed, according to participants, by ensuring Māori are represented at the (negotiating) table, Māori are involved in the implementation, operation, and evaluation of the NZ-UK FTA, and Māori enterprises are supported to build their capability to trade with the UK in a way that respects their identity as Māori enterprises and in accordance with a Māori way of doing business.

The State of Maori Rights brings together a set of articles written between 1994 and 2009. It places on record the Maori view of events and issues that took place over these years, issues that have been more typically reported to the general public from a 'mainstream' media perspective. It is an important documentation of these fifteen years of New Zealand history, recording the assertion of Maori rights as the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, focusing on Maori issues and experiences and written from a Maori perspective.

"This book describes the iwi of Ngāti Kahu through the traditions and histories of each of the sixteen hapū, told by kuia and kaumātua and kept alive for future generations. These include histories of poverty, deprivation and marginalisation at the hands of the Crown, and loss of lands of the iwi. The book examines the range of techniques used by the Crown to justify its actions and the way these laid the groundwork for continuing injustices. The remedies needed to redress these injustices and achieve reconciliation of Ngāti Kahu and the Crown are set out. These include constitutional change to achieve the restoration of political, social and economic well-being to Ngāti Kahu, Crown relinquishment of all Ngāti Kahu lands to their rightful owners and payment of sufficient compensation to ensure no further Treaty of Waitangi claims. This history of Ngāti Kahu details the range of Crown actions against Ngāti Kahu to the current day, the effects of these actions on the people of Ngāti Kahu and the concerted and continuing efforts by Ngāti Kahu for remedies and reconciliation with the Crown"--Publisher information.

Governments in New Zealand have legislated a large number of settlements extinguishing many hundreds of claims taken by Māori against the Crown for breaches of the country’s founding document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi. They portray settlements as a great success for Māori and the Crown. Māori disagree. Settlements are government-determined and imposed on Māori using a smoke and mirrors approach that masks successive governments’ true intentions: to claw back Māori legal rights; to extinguish all claims; and to maintain White control over Māori. In short, to uphold the Doctrine of Discovery in further breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Māori claimants and negotiators report being enticed into the process by false promises only to become traumatised and disenchanted. Yet many take a pragmatic stance and sign settlements, making the best they can out of a bad deal that goes nowhere near compensating for their actual loss. They know that despite what legislation may say, the settlements are not full, not fair and not final and that, like all previous settlements, they will be revisited. They also know that unless fundamental changes are made to the constitutional makeup of the country, there is no prospect of justice and reconciliation for Māori.

Māori leaders in New Zealand continue the battle to end British colonisation. The aim is to restore the balance between Māori and the Crown guaranteed in the treaty that Māori and the British Crown agreed to in 1840 so that we can live in peace and harmony. Early European visitors subjected our ancestors to numerous atrocities. Relying on the Doctrine of Discovery, they illegitimately usurped our power and dispossessed us, leaving us in a state of poverty, deprivation and marginalisation. They fabricated myths to justify their criminal activities, set up an illegitimate parliament with unfettered powers, passed laws legalising their crimes and then covered it up with amnesia. They established the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 to inquire into breaches of the treaty, not realising that it would dismantle the myths and look beneath the amnesia. Governments then instigated the ‘treaty claims settlement’ process to extinguish all Māori claims, remove Māori rights and entrench colonisation. Research undertaken has shown that Māori loathe this process and do not accept that settlements are full and final. Research on constitutional transformation has identified a possible solution. The first step towards that goal involves implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Between 1991 and 1994, Minister in Charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Douglas Graham and the recently established Treaty of Waitangi Policy Unit developed a series of policy proposals that outlined an ambitious plan to settle Māori historical treaty claims. These papers were refined via extensive consultation and discussion with Cabinet Ministers and government officials: Māori as treaty partner were not consulted. In late 1994 the proposed policy was approved by Cabinet and published as Crown Proposals for the Settlement of Treaty of Waitangi Claims. Why did the Crown decide to settle Māori historical treaty claims in the early 1990s? What did it expect to gain from settling treaty claims? Why, after nearly a century and a half of relative complacency, and nearly two decades after the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal to hear and make recommendations on Māori grievances, was the Crown suddenly prompted into action? And why would a right wing National government with little support from Māori voters and few current or previous Māori MPs launch a treaty claims settlement policy that would greatly antagonize its traditional voting base? These questions will be addressed via an examination of Cabinet papers, policy documents, legislation, deeds of settlement, published accounts and interviews with some of the key players. It will be argued that the treaty claims settlement policy was initiated as a consequence of New Zealand Māori Council v Attorney-General 1987, popularly known as the Lands case, and developed to achieve three specific outcomes: diversion of claimants away from the Waitangi Tribunal, containment of the financial risks posed by the Tribunal’s newly found binding and resumptive powers, and a progressive ‘winding back’ of Māori rights and Crown obligations embedded in legislation.

The Mäori Electoral Option is a period of 4 months, every 5 years, when Mäori electors can choose whether to be on the Mäori or the General Electoral Roll. The outcome of the Mäori Electoral Option is a key factor in determining the number of Mäori seats in the New Zealand Parliament. The Electoral Commission estimates that approximately 6,000 Mäori voters each year request to change electoral roll, but in 2017 over 19,000 voters applied to change. Why were so many more Mäori wanting to change and why did they not know they could only change during the Mäori Electoral Option held every 5 years? The following year, the 2018 Mäori Electoral Option saw the first net increase of Mäori changing to the general roll since 1996. This article uses data gathered from the results of Mäori Electoral Options 1991–2018, an anonymous survey, and evaluations of Mäori Electoral Option campaigns to consider how the shifting trends in roll choices might be explained.

Drawing on the work of Matike Mai Aotearoa: The Independent Iwi Working Group on Constitutional Transformation (the Working Group), this article argues that there is an evolving New Zealand constitutionalism, one that offers a constitutional understanding grounded in the Māori constitutional system. The article opens with a descriptive analysis of the Māori constitutional system, explains the key features of New Zealand’s existing constitution and concludes with an argument that the existing constitution can evolve – and, through the political process, ought to evolve – according to the constitutional models that the Working Group recommends. This article deploys legal research methods, primarily doctrinal research and applied doctrinal research.1

‘There is a need for a mindset shift away from the pervasive assumption that the Crown is Pākehā, English-speaking, and distinct from Māori’, wrote the permanent commission of inquiry investigating breaches of New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi. ‘Increasingly, in the twenty-first century, the Crown is also Māori.’ This paper argues that ‘the Crown in right of New Zealand’ is in need of redefining. In the 19th and parts of the 20th century Māori leaders and institutions were often understood as separate from the Crown. But that understanding is shifting, and this paper argues the shift is leading to a new understanding of the Crown in right of New Zealand.

In December 2002 a new Local Government Act was passed into statute. Much of the literature, submissions, articles and commentaries leading up to the passing of the Act indicated that a new Act had to clarify the relationships and obligations between local government, the Crown, Maori and the Treaty of Waitangi. In this paper I argue that the new Act has not adequately clarified these relationships and obligations, and that there are particular reasons and consequences arising from this situation. The reasons surround denials from local government that they are the Crown and central government's vested interest in allowing slippage to continue. If we examine the example of the General Agreement on Trade in Services we can see that a failure to clarify the relationships may have detrimental consequences for Maori to protect their rights.

The Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 caused many New Zealanders grave concern. In this article I suggest that a number of the Government's actions since the passing of the Foreshore and Seabed Act bring into question several of its central claims for legislating and the subsequent overriding of Tiriti o Waitangi and human rights laws. As a result, I argue that the inadequacy in our constitutional arrangements requires a change of approach—a new game plan: constitutional change. The second part of the article examines the work of the Maori Party. Its actions in encouraging an increasing level of Maori politicisation away from expression outside the State and towards the electoral process, arising out of opposition to the Foreshore and Seabed Act, constitute another changing of game plans. The article concludes by emphasising how the Foreshore and Seabed Act has encouraged us to take a longer term vision in order to foster more positive relations, a vision that encompasses the need for genuine constitutional change based on respect for human rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

New Zealand is at a watershed in its constitutional and political arrangements. There are three events looming in the short term which suggest that the status of Māori in Parliament is in for significant challenge.The first is the impending review of constitutional issues and the Māori seats as part of the National Party–Māori Party ‘Relationship and Confidence and Supply Agreement’.Secondly, the proposed referendum on the future of the mixed member proportional system (MMP) could also have significant implications for Māori.Finally, the longer term question of whether New Zealand should become a republic continues to haunt New Zealand’s political imagination, and would also necessitate lengthy debates about the place of New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements in relation to Māori rights and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.Māori and Parliament provides a comprehensive and enlightening context for understanding both the historical and contemporary relationship between Māori and Parliament and highlights many of the issues which would arise in any discussion of New Zealand constitutional reform.Māori and Parliament is a collection of nineteen presentations and papers from twenty-one academics, political commentators and current and former parliamentarians and is the result of the Māori and Parliament conference held at Parliament in May 2009.Contributors include Georgina Beyer, Hon. Simon Bridges, Damian Edwards, Te Ururoa Flavell, Dr Janine Hayward, Colin James, Shane Jones, Basil Keane, Hon. Sir Douglas Kidd, Professor Steven Levine, Sir Ngatata Love, Hon. Nanaia Mahuta, Sir Tipene O’Regan, Professor Nigel Roberts, Prof. Ann Sullivan, Metiria Turei, Hon. Tariana Turia, Dr Charlotte Williams, Dr John Wilson, Prof. Whatarangi Winiata and Dr Maria Bargh.

When considering how Maori political rhetoric fits within the New Zealand political landscape it is necessary to ask what makes such rhetoric distinctive and important. In this paper I examine three areas of distinctly Maori political rhetoric; the unique locations of Maori politics, the formalities to be observed by speakers and the use of particular rhetorical devices by Maori speakers, including the use of Maori language and waiata (song). Given the ways that the distinctive nature of Maori political rhetoric is often undervalued, misinterpreted of misrepresented by many non-Maori, the questions which underlie the discussion here must be around what the implications of this situation are for Maori and non-Maori.

This article examines what might be included in a definition of Māori political participation that moves beyond a predominant focus on voting in New Zealand general elections. I suggest that the proliferation of Māori governance organisations in recent years means that Māori participation within these organisations must also be considered as part of wider political participation. In addition, I argue that Māori engagement with local authorities deserves further close examination to explore the multiple ways in which political participation occurs. Using a broader definition of Māori political participation and highlighting its many facets indicate that Māori engage in more varied ways in New Zealand politics than previously recognised