The Treaty debate is akin to a family argument

Many ominous omens filled the air before this year’s Waitangi celebrations. 

Commentators were prophesying trouble. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters was booed in the morning. A hikoi approached, the leaders of which had been unable to promise that violence would not occur. And then… And then…

Frustratingly for those who value polarisation, tensions ‘flatlined,’ according to one headline unless you were David Seymour. To his credit, he was there in person.

Christopher Luxon spoke uncontroversially.  Indeed, the Waitangi Trust Chair Pita Tipene summarised things: “I think there has been progress. It may be glacial, in saying that glaciers are quite fast these days, but I think there has been some progress.”

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The King and Cancer

The media quickly turned to King Charles and cancer. What is really happening? Did we skirt the precipice of an abyss? Or did we get interested in something else?

The issue is contentious, no question, for both Māori and Pakeha.

Chris Hipkins admitted at Ratana that Labour had not brought along non-Māori.

But I understand that there is frustration as well within Te Ao Māori (the Māori world) with a lack of progress under the previous government.

So, no one is overjoyed.

Let us also keep in mind that we do not actually trust many of the people giving us information in and around the Treaty.

A recent poll done for the Human Rights Commission, as disseminated by The Facts, finds that the trust of Members of Parliament to explain the Treaty accurately is a mere 7%.

For media, it’s 6%, and political parties  4%. The big winner? Our National Library, with 45%, which is still less than half of us.

The smallness of it all

Moreover, it is a dispute; culturally, we do not tend to like those things here. Because we are a small country, our impulse is to suppress rather than exacerbate dissent.

For example, try saying something unkind about the Barbie movie at Christmas dinner.

We prefer fairness. Compare that to the US, which values freedom, often at the expense of fairness.

As someone who has lived both in the US and New Zealand, there is a clear difference between the way issues of racial inequity are transacted in public. Over there, they feel like a fight between two different families. Here, it is more like an argument within a family.

Sure, culture plays a part, but perhaps intermarriage does too.

Marriage rates between Māori and non-Māori have historically been high. This leads to intercultural mixing, which creates an interesting situation.

As one observer notes, “Although the autonomy and incommensurability of cultures is asserted often enough, cultures are leaky vessels, created, renewed and transformed in endless contact with others.”

Perhaps this explains Sir Bill English’s optimism around the Treaty: “… we keep finding ways of resolving or reducing those tensions.”

A baggy issue

The issue is baggy, fraught, and messy. Beware of anyone who offers blinding clarity… or a narrative outside a family dispute. In the words of Tame Iti: “History has woven us together. We are the basket, the kete, that holds the future.”

Let us not unravel the basket.

Tim Wilson is the Executive Director of the Auckland-based Maxim Institute, an independent think tank working to promote the dignity of every person in New Zealand by standing for freedom, justice, compassion, and hope.