“Māori protesters march to Waitangi for historic protest as simmering tensions boil over”, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
By Emily Clark in Waitangi, February 5, 2024
More than 1,000 people have marched into the treaty grounds at Waitangi on New Zealand’s north island — the culmination of a week-long protest against a controversial government bill.
The hīkoi made the journey across the bridge into Waitangi — a historic crossing for the resurgent Māori protest movement.
This Waitangi has seen a resurgent attendance, with tens of thousands of people visiting the grounds where New Zealand’s founding document was signed more than 180 years ago.
And as the hīkoi, or march, moved through the ground, it swelled, with onlookers joining the procession.
The hīkoi had travelled more than 200 kilometres before entering Waitangi, where its organiser Rueben Tipari addressed those who had made the journey and the crowd that had formed along the final leg.
He told the crowd:
“We want our people to not just hīkoi together and then go home … back to our individual lives. [We want them to] sustain this resistance. Sustain this solidarity. Sustain this kotahitanga, whānau, and we will find our freedom.”
This year’s Waitangi Day is bigger than any of the past 30 years because at the moment Māori feel there is a lot to protest against in Aotearoa.
Why Māori are calling to uphold the treaty
The theme of this hīkoi was Uphold the Declaration of Independence, Uphold the Treaty – a recurring message at this year’s Waitangi event.
‘How dare they think that they can erase Māori’: Why this long walk to Waitangi is so significant
The man who has catapulted the treaty to the top of New Zealand’s political agenda is David Seymour – the leader of the right-wing libertarian ACT Party, one of the NZ government’s coalition partners.
He is currently pushing the treaty principles bill which, he says, will ensure all New Zealanders have “the same rights and duties”.
But tribal and community leaders, as well as Māori MPs and protesters who fought for Indigenous rights as far back as the 70s, are calling for the government to throw it out.
The treaty was signed by Māori chiefs and representatives of the Crown in 1840 on the grounds of Waitangi. And this place has always served as a forum for protest, discussion and to pay respect to those ancestors.
Many Māori see the proposed bill as rewriting the founding document of New Zealand, something that underpins Māori claims of sovereignty.
“We’ve been fighting for this treaty for a very long time. Why are we fighting for something that [Pākehā] made to have a relationship with us?” Te KuraHuia, from Te Whanganui a Tara, Wellington, told the ABC in Waitangi.
“We should be walking this talk, and actually we should have been doing that a very long time ago.
“[Everyone is here] because we believe in what you guys have created with us, it’s a relationship, it’s a partnership.”
“We are being Māori, this is what we do, we come together … and if this looks like a threat to anyone, I don’t know why, because all I see is love — for people, for one another and the culture and for what we are fighting for, the treaty of Waitangi.”
Prime Minster Christopher Luxon has refused to kill the draft bill, saying only that his party will support it until its first reading as a condition of their coalition agreement.
He has repeatedly said it is not the Nationals’ position to change the treaty.
The treaty debate has dominated political discussion in recent months, and momentum has been building in the lead-up to the Waitangi Festival, where on Monday those politicians were confronted by Māori warriors, tribal elders, representatives of the Māori king, activists, lawyers, artists and thousands of others who travelled to the Bay of Islands as a show of strength.
Pointed comments at Waitangi Day dawn service
With Mr Luxon and Mr Seymour on stage during a dawn ceremony on Tuesday morning, Pākehā historian and theologian Alistair Reese delivered a powerful reflection.
Turning towards the country’s leaders, he said the treaty was about far more than politics.
“What does love have to do with real politics? According to our creator’s instructions, everything,” he said.
“Not many of us will know that Waitangi began as a love story.
“The chiefs gathered to discuss among themselves the crown’s proposals. They were joined by the missionary Henry Williams, the translator and the mediator of the treaty.
“[Williams told the chiefs]: ‘This is Queen Victoria’s act of love to you. She wants to ensure that you keep what is yours, your property, your rights and privileges, and those things that you value.’
“As a result of the interchange that night, the treaty was signed the next day.”
Dr Reese warned that an interpretation of treaty without love “leads to a distorted vision, it leads to an arid legalism”.
“It’s time to honour the treaty and unequivocally restore its mana,” he said.
When Mr Seymour stepped to the microphone, the mood stiffened. He told the gathering the treaty was for everyone, a nod to his messaging that the treaty was not a partnership between Māori and the crown and should suffice all New Zealanders – ideas Māori oppose.
“Let us pray for all of New Zealand … those whose people have been here for nearly a thousand years and those who will arrive in Auckland this morning to begin their time as New Zealanders,” he told the crowd.
“Let us celebrate sincerely great successes that our neighbours achieve, and let us help effectively those who suffer great setbacks.
“And let us do all of this under the founding document signed here at Waitangi that gives each and every one of us that same right to flourish in the ways that we choose, to reach our potential, and be the best we can be for all New Zealand.”
Crowd not afraid to heckle, boo, drown out leaders
There was a lot of anticipation ahead of this Waitangi, with speculation there could be a return of the protests of the 80s and 90s.
But the political tensions did not spark into anything more.
There have been impromptu and guerilla protests and installations, some of them artistic, all of them focused on the message that Māori will not accept any moves to change the Treaty of Waitangi.
And despite that being the overwhelming concern for so many at Waitangi, for the most part, the prime minister did not address the issue of the treaty.
On Monday, politicians were invited into a powhiri, or meeting, at Waitangi.
At one point it looked as if the prime minister would not address the gathering, but once the crowd settled down, Mr Luxon began to speak, saying:
“Every nation’s past isn’t perfect. But no other country has attempted to right its wrongs.
“This Waitangi Day, I renew this government’s commitment to helping all New Zealanders, Māori and non-Māori, get ahead.”
In a press conference later in the day, he again dismissed suggestions he should throw out the bill now and shut down the debate, saying his coalition partners were entitled to have their views.
Mr Seymour is of course one of those partners, but Winston Peters of NZ First is the other. He is also the current deputy prime minister.
Mr Peters was booed by the crowd after he told them to “get an education” and “get some manners”.
The worst of the heckling though was reserved for Mr Seymour. And then before he was finished speaking, the crowd drowned him out by singing a song.
“You can sing, you can sing, you’re not going to beat an idea by singing,” he said.
And even before entering the powhiri — or welcoming ceremony — he was challenged by a group of kaiwero (warriors). The prime minister and Mr Peters were each challenged by one kaiwero.
It was expected that the three men would have an uneasy time at Waitangi — Mr Seymour in particular — and while there was some heckling, so many in attendance were there to listen.
What they heard from their political leaders was very much more of the same, but they insisted the fight would go on.
This hīkoi was Wetini Mitai-Ngatai’s first to Waitangi. He said Māori people had always resisted, and they came together to resist again on Tuesday.
“One good thing about our people, whānau — family. Secondly, we stand up for our rights. We fight anybody no matter how big the folk. And that’s what it’s all about, standing together,” he told the ABC.
“We’ve all come from different tribes, united here, … [with] one thought: to stop the government in what it’s doing — taking away our reo, our language, taking away our tikanga, customs, and trying to change the treaty.
“They can’t tamper with it, they have no business with that treaty, that is the founding document.”