One of the country’s top judges says “historical memory loss” has made people forget that Kroon-Māori partnerships have been run for generations – and “torpedoed”.
And it’s time to dump her and move on.
In a powerful speech aimed at government officials, Justice Tā Joe Williams challenged them to act when it comes to relations with Māori.
“I’ve been in Wellington for 20 years, so bad for me too, but Wellington is self-referential,” said Williams, a Supreme Court judge since 2019. “Wellington thinks Wellington is the answer. Wellington thinks Wellington is the point. ”
As in other relationships, the dominant partner would not see himself as part of the problem, and thought it had the solutions, he said.
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Williams spoke at a conference in February and presented a wero (challenge) to some 500 of the country’s public sector professionals. The speech was initially intended for a private audience but well was recently made aware of its existence and meaning.
His speech was entitled “Crown / Māori Relations: a 200-year search for partnership.” In it, he spoke of the country’s “historical memory loss”, how much Aotearoa has changed since he grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, and the ongoing struggle to keep the promises made in 1840 between the Crown and Māori at Waitangi. .
“But the fact that we are struggling is positive,” he told the audience at the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand conference.
“Our journey in this country was not a linear path – more like a narrative built entirely in rhyming couplets.”
ROOSWOOD
Judge Tā Joe Williams spent about 20 years being part of “the system”.
For 150 years, there has been a series of potential partnerships between the Crown and Māori that have been largely “torpedoed” by the government of the day.
“We are no better than yesterday or the day before yesterday or a century ago – every generation has tried to fix it.”
Some of these efforts included the prospect of autonomous Māori districts in the 1850s, until the establishment of Māori land councils formed around 1900 – councils that sank “because they did not meet the priorities of the then government, which offered more land for settlers ”.
In that case, partnership was out of the question.
“There’s a lesson in that: the trap of wanting a partnership only if it can be co-opted at government priorities.”
For the past 20 years, with his appointments in the Māori Land Court, the Waitangi Tribunal, the High Court and the Court of Appeal, you can say Williams (Ngati Pūkenga, Waitaha and Tapuika) was part of the Wellington settlement.
Not that it was easy.
As a Supreme Court judge, he was distressed when he sent Māori men to jail.
When he looked down from the bench to the dock, he sometimes saw himself, or his whānau, in the faces of those he was about to sentence.
“And it caused me extraordinary pain to do so.”
This was something he would talk about with prosecutors who were also Māori – how uncomfortable they felt to be part of the system with high prisoner numbers for Māori.
“Māori prosecutors would say to me, ‘We hate it.’ And I would say to them, ‘That’s why I want you to do this. Because you bear the burden of it ‘.
“If you are in the system and are aware, you bear the burden of it. And that in itself is a good thing. ”
Carrying the burden includes remembering the past.
File / Stuff
Developments such as the founding of Kōhanga Reo made young Māori proud of who they were, Williams says.
Williams spoke about the impact that developments of the 1980s, such as the founding of Kōhanga Reo, had on him and others of his generation. They made him and other young Māori of that time proud of who they were.
“You see, when I grew up in the 1960s and early 70s – I’m going to say it, and you might find it offensive, but I’m going to say it because it was my real experience – I was a * ****.
“I was a ***** in a tree waiting for a state house. That’s what I was called at school, and that was the scent of that time. For Māori was marginal, poor, a drain on the national character and only problems.
“Memorylessness makes us forget it – no matter how far we have come. Both Māori, and as a country. “
Andy Jackson / Stuff
The Crown has made efforts to build relationships with Māori, but there are still many improvements to be made, Williams said.
Although there have been some modern partnership efforts – Kāinga Ora, Te Arawhiti and the Māori Health Authority – there was still some way to go.
Progress has been halted by government structures.
“Government is not evil, individuals within the government are not evil. They are well-meaning and often quite progressive. The problem is structural. It tends to put you off as a civil servant, but it is important to understand that. ”
But when he fired government officials in that regard, Williams had a message for them on how they could do better – much better.
“So, what is a treaty partnership? Well, let me tell you what it is not. For a start, it is not a consultation. “
It was not Māori who was asked to give advice to the Crown – “it is not about partnership, it is about you, the public sector.
“And partnership is not: ‘Thank you, we really listened carefully to what you have to say, now here’s our decision’.”
KATHRYN GEORGE / Stuff
Anjum Rahman, left, and Aliya Danzeisen, right, tried for years to draw attention to concerns of the Muslim community in New Zealand before the Christchurch terror attacks, and told their story in the Stuff series See No Evil.
It was not a bad thing to listen and then decide, but it should not be called a partnership, Williams said. The upgrading of the public sector was also not at the expense of iwi and community organizations.
Those ideas about the decoupling between the Government and the community have come through recently well series No No Evil, about the build-up to the Christchurch terrorist attacks in 2019 and the years-long, ultimately futile, efforts of a group of women to warn the government against threats to the Muslim community.
The women, Aliya Danzeisen and Anjum Rahman, and others from the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand, met with senior officials and politicians after meeting in Wellington, but always got away frustrated.
“They listen politely, and smile and say, ‘Oh, yes, yes,'” Rahman said of the hundreds of hours they spent talking to officials. “And that’s it.”
In the series, academics and sources within the public sector said that what the women went through was not unusual, and a frustration shared by many.
“What you’re looking at is a bigger issue that no one can yet articulate or get their heads around,” one source said.
Change, many said, seemed very difficult.
ROSA WOODS / Stuff
Justice Williams says the government is like a waka with a deep trunk.
Williams spoke in the context of the Treaty Partnership during his speech in February, delivered as a memorial to the late and longtime civil servant Ivan Kwok, and set out why he thought it was difficult to change course.
He compared the government to a waka with a deep hull – “it will go really effectively in a straight line, but you can not turn them.
“And that’s the structural problem you’re facing – we need the best rowers and the best helmsmen just to get this big thing moving.”
But finding a way to embrace true partnership would bring hope.
“The hope is: the Treaty and partnerships free us from this one-sided straight jacket of the past and through us I am not just talking about Māori – it frees us all from that one-sided straight jacket of the past and frees us to introduce you anew , unheard of. ”
Māori could become involved without “obsession with grief and loss”, and everyone could embrace an identity as Polynesians.
“By 2040, if we come to a peace over our past, we may not be the most flashy country, we may not be the richest, but we will be the country in 2040 that is most full of shared optimism.”