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When analysing Indigenous public policy, crisis is best seen as the moral crisis of an enduring idea rather than the crisis of sporadic and unconnected instances of policy failure. In Australia and New Zealand, states use manufactured crises of Indigenous personal deficiencies to justify colonial authority. A justification which may be countered by positioning colonialism itself as the point of crisis. From this perspective, the crisis in Indigenous public policy is not resolved by the state becoming better at policy-making or more attentive to the egalitarian distribution of public resources. Instead, it is in the non-colonial possibilities of Indigenous self-determination that paths beyond crisis may lie. In practical terms, by ensuring spaces of independent Indigenous authority alongside spaces of distinctive culturally framed participation in the public life of the state. The potential for such arrangements in Australia is discussed with reference to a proposed First Nations’ Voice to Parliament and possible treaties between First Nations and the state. For New Zealand, their potential is discussed with reference to te Tiriti o Waitangi’s affirmation of independent Māori authority (rangatiratanga) and substantive state citizenship.

This article draws on the politics of indigeneity to distinguish the claims of first occupancy from simple ethnic identity politics, illustrating that relative political marginalization in Australasia is not so much a function of minority status but of indigeneity itself. The politics of indigeneity's aim is to create political space for self-determination and a particular indigenous share in the sovereign authority of the nation-state itself. The Australasian states are compared with Fiji to demonstrate that the significance of historical constraints on political authority transcend the withdrawal of a colonial power and the restoration of collective indigenous majority population status.

During the 1980s and 1990s biculturalism was the ascendant political philosophy for managing the relationship between the New Zealand Crown and the indigenous Maori population. Biculturalism understood Maori politics as a partnership between Maori and the state, grounded in the Treaty of Waitangi, the agreement signed in 1840 from which British government was established. Biculturalism was presented as morally superior to multiculturalism which was understood as setting aside Maori Treaty rights and rights of prior occupancy in favour of less substantive rights available to Maori as one of many ethnic minorities. However, a deeper reading of multicultural political theory provides an instructive critique of biculturalism's inherent limits from the perspective of the Maori right to self-determination. It shows why biculturalism's influence waned. It also shows why Matike Mai o Aotearoa, a blueprint for constitutional transformation commissioned by tribal leaders is unlikely to succeed as a contemporary attempt to reassert biculturalism's influence. Multicultural theory is not a panacea for the right to self-determination, but it does not restrict the development of a broader Maori-centred differentiated liberal citizenship in the ways that biculturalism precludes.

Te Pati Māori (The Māori Party) proposes removing the British monarch as head of state so that Te Tiriti o Waitangi’s (the Māori text of the Treaty of Waitangi) (Te Tiriti) promise of fulfilling partnership may be realized. The ACT (Association of Consumers and Taxpayers) Party’s alternative argument is that partnership is among a body of treaty principles that give Māori people (Indigenous peoples of New Zealand) political advantage over others. These alternative perspectives transcend time because neither partnership nor equality as the ACT party presents it meets the possibilities of liberal democratic citizenship that may be read into Te Tiriti. Instead, equality is enhanced by interpreting Te Tiriti as constituting a commonwealth with hapū (sub-tribes) as existing political communities, and kāwanatanga (government) as a new one, with powers and responsibilities grounded in equal tikanga (cultural practices and proper conduct). The powers of government may then be shared, through participatory parity.

Christian public theology extends reconciliation beyond its principal sacramental concern for relationships between God and penitent to the construction of ‘socially just’ public relationships for the settlement of intra-national conflict. In theological terms, reconciliation brings public relationships into what Hally calls ‘the Christ narrative of passion, death and resurrection’ in which the perpetrators of injustice repent and seek forgiveness. This article introduces the conflicts that these discourses aim to resolve in Australia, Fiji and New Zealand and explains and contrasts reconciliation’s relative importance in each of these jurisdictions. Moreover, the article’s cross-jurisdictional comparison shows reconciliation’s limits and possibilities as public theology, and argues that in Australia and New Zealand it has helped to create political environments willing to admit indigenous perspectives on a range of policy issues. On the contrary, however, the article also shows that the Fijian churches have distorted the concept of reconciliation to support political imperatives that are difficult to rationalize theologically, even though they are presented by the churches as being concerned with religious goals.

Indigenous peoples inevitably associate globalization with imperial expansion and the colonization of their territories. One associated scholarly view is that globalization's focus on capital accumulation sets aside indigenous cultural priorities to undermine self-determining authority over lands and resources (Fenelon and Hall, 2008; Friedman, 1999; Kelsey, 2005a, 2005b; Stewart-Harawira, 2005). Alternatively, globalization is an ambiguous paradox also providing significant benefits to indigenous peoples. In two very different Pacific countries, Fiji and New Zealand, the globalization of political and jurisprudential thought on the rights of indigeneity provides a significant counter to state assertions of absolute sovereignty. Globalization creates economic opportunities to reduce indigenous dependence on the state and in its contemporary expression is less significant than domestic factors in inhibiting indigenous aspirations.

Reconciliation brings together Christological and anthropological dimensions of human thought to illustrate the nexus between religious principles and political means. For the state reconciliation is concerned with social cohesion and political stability. For the church, it extends the sacramental notion of reconciliation between God and penitent to public relationships. This article examines Roman Catholic contributions to secular reconciliation debates. It shows how religious precepts create moral imperatives to engagement with secular discourses as a necessary element of Christian mission. It also argues that the church’s role in the disruption of indigenous societies creates an additional moral imperative to engage in reconciliation as mission and to articulate a Christian vision of indigenous rights.

This paper examines contemporary debates in Maori politics by responding to the argument of the former leader of the opposition National party, Don Brash, that Maori public policy is most properly based on "need" alone because indigenous status offers no "rights" beyond those of common national citizenship. The paper's alternative argument is that the politics of indigeneity and associated theories of self-determination provide a way of avoiding a general belief that addressing need is all that is required to include Maori fairly in the national polity. It is argued that Maori ought to enjoy rights of indigeneity as the basis of an inclusive, cohesive and fair society.

This paper identifies three discourses that are prominent in contemporary Treaty of Waitangi policy debate, each with significantly different implications for Maori political status within the modern nation-state. At one extreme the Treaty's significance is exaggerated by overemphasis on partnership as an implicit Treaty principle. At another extreme the Treaty's significance is understated by an assimilationist position that denies the Treaty's relevance to Indigenous rights which, in turn, imposes serious constraint on the extent to which partnership can actually develop into comprehensive policy practice. An alternative position is one that sees the Treaty, which is supported in international law, as affirming a twofold conception of citizenship as the basis of both individual and collective Maori rights.

In 2004 the appointment of a Coordinating Minister Race Relations, signalled a shift in elite Māori policy thinking from a long-standing cautious bipartisan acceptance of selfdetermination towards a re-emergent assimilationist ‘one law’ for all discourse. The question simplistically posed by the Leader of the Opposition was should welfare entitlements be granted on the basis of need or race (Brash 2004)? Beneath this question lies an ideological assumption which privileges assimilation over indigeneity as the basis of Māori participation in public affairs. This paper therefore asks: are Māori peoples with rights, or individuals with needs? Is there a deeper politics of indigeneity providing a legitimate foundation for rights which are not necessarily superior to the rights of citizenship, but are important and distinguishable adjuncts? These questions transcend the issue of welfare entitlements to wider questions about the nature and terms of Māori belonging to the liberal polity. The paper highlights the political tension between government attempts to remove indigeneity from the public agenda in response to populist pressure and a pragmatic acceptance that New Zealand ‘needs’ Māori to increase their contribution to the national economy and that the realisation of this goal may in fact depend on the fuller citizenship imagined by the politics of indigeneity.

This paper argues that self-determination to the greatest extent possible is a legitimate aspiration for Maori people. It is argued that in education this requires a philosophical and policy response more focused on Maori autonomy than can be provided within the bicultural framework that has lately informed Maori relationships with other actors in the education arena. The paper considers the place of kohanga reo, kura kaupapa Maori and wananga in relation to broader Maori aspirations for self-determination and discusses proposals that these aspirations be furthered through the establishment of a Maori Education Authority. It is also argued that opportunities for self-determination in New Zealand are compromised by the government's unwillingness to alter a tightly controlled centralised education market to provide genuine Māori autonomy over what type of education might be available and to what end.

This paper explores the implications of prevailing political thought for the extent to which Māori (native to New Zealand) are able to pursue self-determination, which, although theoretically legitimate, is constrained by elite political pragmatism. While the long-fashionable bicultural paradigm offers some opportunity for self-determination, its utility for meeting Māori aspiration was further limited by the change in political climate following the National Party Leader Don Brash's Nationhood speech in 2004 and by the Foreshore and Seabed Act of 2004. These events encouraged and legitimised a renewed public suspicion of Māori aspiration so that the political space available for the pursuit of self-determination was reduced.

In both Australia and New Zealand, Indigenous peoples have called for alternative non-colonial political arrangements. In October 2023, Australians voted in a referendum against distinctive Indigenous participation in public policymaking, which had been proposed as a step toward a more inclusive political system. On the same day, New Zealand elected a new Parliament, leading to the formation of a government comprising three parties that had campaigned against what they saw as excessive Māori political influence. Comparing these developments and the histories of the two countries raises questions about liberal equality, democratic citizenship, and whether all or just some citizens should own the liberal democratic state.

This paper briefly explores the background to Maori representation in Parliament before tracing the development of Labour's acquisition of the Maori vote up until 1996. It then considers the reasons for the loss of that loyalty at the 1996 General Election. It is argued that the populist Maori leader and the deputy leader of the New Zealand First Party had enormous appeal for Maori voters. The impact of this populism and of the MMP electoral system on the Maori electorate is examined. The nature of Labour's response to this unprecedented surge in Maori support for a minor party, and the dynamics of the Maori electoral population are further themes of the paper. Some of the strategies and attitudes Labour must adopt if it is to regain that Maori confidence are also explored.

The article argues that Maori political participation in New Zealand constitutes a positive example of how the current international standards on indigenous political participation can be implemented at the national level. Notwithstanding the weaknesses of the system and the challenges laying ahead, the combination of the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system, dedicated Maori seats and the establishment of the Maori Party have ensured a Maori voice in Parliament and have broadened the possibilities of effective indigenous participation in the political life of the state. Such state practice that implements the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples firmly confirms the position of the Declaration within current international law.

Restrictions on Indigenous peoples’ contributions to policymaking pervade post-settler societies like Australia, Canada and Aotearoa. Such effects are observed in spite of agreements like Te Tiriti o Waitangi in Aotearoa and the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Te Tiriti, negotiated between the British Crown and Māori (Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa), may have been entered into honourably by both parties, but the Crown has consistently resisted its implementation. Contemporary colonialism is characterised by the entrenched and on-going displacement of Indigenous people’s authority by settler states, rationalised by race as a determinant of human worth. Impacts include land alienation, unsustainable resource exploitation and marginalising Indigenous voices from opportunities to make policy consistent with Indigenous values and preferred ways of living. Colonialism normalises institutional racism so that public policy outcomes are persistently unjust. This article describes Critical Tiriti Analysis (CTA), an original contribution to transforming colonial policy, which retrospectively evaluates whether any specific policy document is consistent with Te Tiriti. Substantial interest in CTA from policymakers, practitioners, and scholars led to the development of the tool as a prospective guide to making policy that is consistent with authoritative interpretations of Te Tiriti, and therefore, more likely effective in producing public policies which eliminate inequities. CTA was initially focused on health policy and built on a series of questions that arise from our interpretations of the text of Te Tiriti, contemporary Tiriti scholarship and jurisprudence, and our observations of the ways in which the method is being used by ourselves and others. Although deeply grounded in Aotearoa, we argue that CTA may be transferable to other colonial contexts, such as the Australian where treaties between First Nations and the state are being contemplated, and Canada which has passed legislation to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi, a treaty negotiated between Māori (the Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa) and the British Crown, affirmed Māori sovereignty and guaranteed the protection of hauora (health). The Waitangi Tribunal, established in 1975 to investigate alleged breaches of the agreement, released a major report in 2019 (registered as WAI 2575) about breaches of te Tiriti within the health sector in relation to primary care, legislation, and health policy. This article explores the implications of this report for the New Zealand health sector and the decolonial transformation of health systems. The tribunal found that the Crown has systematically contravened obligations under te Tiriti across the health sector. We complement the tribunal’s findings, through critical analysis, to make five substantive recommendations: (1) the adoption of Tiriti-compliant legislation and policy; (2) recognition of extant Māori political authority (tino rangatiratanga); (3) strengthening of accountability mechanisms; (4) investment in Māori health; and (5) embedding equity and anti-racism within the health sector. These recommendations are critical for upholding te Tiriti obligations. We see these requirements as making significant contributions to decolonizing health systems and policy in Aotearoa and thereby contributing to aspirations for health equity as a transformative concept.