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This collection brings together over forty years of thought and comment by Dr Whatarangi Winiata on Māori spirituality, social development, education and political affairs. Each chapter discusses the importance andimpact of Māori management of Māori matters and the ongoing pursuit of tino rangatiratanga in all areas of life. Dr Winiata has worked to achieve Māori development, wellbeing and attainment of aspirations over decades: driving the iwi development programme Whakatupuranga Rua Mano that led to the foundation of the first contemporary wānanga, Te Wānanga o Raukawa; being key in restructuring the working of Te Hāhi Mihingare; galvanising the New Zealand Māori Council to hold the Crown accountable over fisheries, forestry, languageand broadcasting; and co-founding the Māori Party with Dame Tariana Turia and Sir Pita Sharples. Thesepapers, curated by Dr Winiata and Daphne Luke, provide an analysis of recent Māori experience, pursuit ofself-determination and history of Aotearoa.

This collection brings together over forty years of thought and comment by Dr Whatarangi Winiata on Māori spirituality, social development, education and political affairs. Each chapter discusses the importance andimpact of Māori management of Māori matters and the ongoing pursuit of tino rangatiratanga in all areas of life. Dr Winiata has worked to achieve Māori development, wellbeing and attainment of aspirations over decades: driving the iwi development programme Whakatupuranga Rua Mano that led to the foundation of the first contemporary wānanga, Te Wānanga o Raukawa; being key in restructuring the working of Te Hāhi Mihingare; galvanising the New Zealand Māori Council to hold the Crown accountable over fisheries, forestry, languageand broadcasting; and co-founding the Māori Party with Dame Tariana Turia and Sir Pita Sharples. Thesepapers, curated by Dr Winiata and Daphne Luke, provide an analysis of recent Māori experience, pursuit ofself-determination and history of Aotearoa.

The New Zealand state developed from a treaty between the British Crown and hapū (sub-tribes) in 1840. The te Reo (Māori language) text and the English version of the agreement are fundamentally different. Breaches of this treaty and tension over how the political relationship between Māori and the Crown should proceed are ongoing. In 2019, the Cabinet Office issued a Circular instructing bureaucratic advisers of the questions they should address when providing advice to ministers on the agreement’s contemporary application. In this article, we use Critical Tiriti Analysis (CTA) – an analytical framework applied to public policies – to suggest additional and alternative questions to inform bureaucratic advice. The article defines CTA in detail and shows how using it in this way could protect Māori rights to tino rangatiratanga (a sovereignty and authority that is not subservient to others) and substantive engagement, as citizens, in the formation of public policy. This article’s central argument is that the Circular reflects an important evolution in government policy thought. However, in showing how the Circular privileges the English version (the Treaty of Waitangi) over the Māori text (Te Tiriti o Waitangi), the article demonstrates how Māori political authority remains subservient to the Crown in ways that Te Tiriti did not intend. We show through the conceptual illustration of the care and protection of Māori children, despite the significant evolution in government thought that it represents, these rights are not fully protected by the Circular. This is significant because it was Te Tiriti, with its protection of extant Māori authority and sovereignty, that was signed by all but 39 of the more than 500 chiefs who agreed to the British Crown establishing government over their own people, but who did not agree to the colonial relationship which may be read into the English version.

The New Zealand government has introduced a COVID-19 domestic vaccine pass to be used in conjunction with the COVID-19 Protection Framework. The Framework is likely to be activated soon after Cabinet meets on 29 November 2021. The pass will be necessary to access places and events that require proof of vaccination under the Framework. This brief does not argue for or against the introduction of a domestic vaccine pass, but rather discusses key issues that it raises for Māori, and suggests actions to address them. We see four key issues: • the lack of Māori involvement, as a Tiriti partner, on either the design or implementation of the COVID-19 domestic vaccine pass; • disproportionate restriction on Māori mobility due to lower Māori vaccination rates; • privacy and data security concerns; • uneven implementation that could increase discrimination against Māori and other groups considered to pose a risk to others’ safety. To respond to these issues we recommend that the implementation of the pass be designed in partnership with Māori and comply with Māori data sovereignty requirements. As Tiriti partners, Māori should expect that the pass will keep their communities safe, while providing opportunities to enact manaakitanga in the matrix of care, and the mana to manage their own affairs.

Political encounters between settler governments and indigenous communities are freighted with the unresolved issues of indigenous independence asserted under ongoing conditions of colonial domination. Within political science, these encounters have been primarily theorised and analysed as struggles of indigenous communities for political recognition from settler states. Further, the politics of recognition is widely understood as colonising by indigenous scholars, with some arguing for an alternative politics of (indigenous) resurgence and refusal, a ‘turning away’ from the state. In this article, we argue that in the case of Ma¯ori in Aotearoa ‘turning up’ is the ethical and correct practice of politics, a practice stemming from the relational ontology of the Ma¯ori world. Thus ‘turning up’ rather than ‘turning away’ can, for Ma¯ori, itself be a practice of refusal. We outline the centrality of the embodied, face-to-face encounter within Ma¯ori politics, and identify the ongoing presence of the sovereign’s body and embodiment more broadly within the Westminster tradition, as symbolised in the concept of the Crown. Building on these compatibilities within distinct political ontologies, we argue for the potential and productivity of face-to-face political encounters, and call on the New Zealand Crown to also prioritise ‘turning up’ in its engagement with indigenous communities.

This section reviews changes to water management and governance in the past ten years. We open with a summary of Aotearoa New Zealand's historical legislative context in regard to rivers, catchments and freshwater resources. We describe the roles of local government, Maori and central government. We detail the growing recognition of tangata whenua values in water management alongside belated development of national policy direction on water quality and allocation. Drawing on the description of modelling advances, we summarise how models are being used in contemporary water management. Finally, we review the implementation of freshwater policy and the integration of science and water policy. In concluding, we argue that integration and implementation challenges must be addressed as hydrologists look beyond 2021 towards future significant legislative changes affecting water and catchment management nationwide.

Aotearoa New Zealand acknowledges mātauranga Māori in the two Acts and one Memorandum of Understanding recognising the ‘personhood’ status of three geographical regions—Te Awa Tupua, Te Urewera and Taranaki Maunga. They blend the legal fiction of corporate personhood with the already always understanding of human-nonhuman kinship and entanglement of Māori philosophy, Māori knowledge and wisdom, and Māori epistemology. Through kaitiaki (trustees) these three entities have volition in their ongoing maintenance, development negotiations, and ‘land-use’, and ‘the rights, powers, duties and liabilities of a legal person’. These attributes suggest something more than mere volition in self-management and protection: they suggest agency. This article explores the implications of nonhuman agency as potential for political voice. As representatives of entanglement for all being—animal (including human), vegetable and elemental—and as a matter of justice they are, perhaps, obliged to participate in democracy and the nation is, perhaps, obliged to give them a ‘seat at the table’. As political agents with equal status to human and corporate persons Te Awa Tupua, Te Urewera and Taranaki Maunga might unsettle settler politics and challenge the imbalances of the Anthropocene.