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Governments in New Zealand have legislated a large number of settlements extinguishing many hundreds of claims taken by Māori against the Crown for breaches of the country’s founding document, Te Tiriti o Waitangi. They portray settlements as a great success for Māori and the Crown. Māori disagree. Settlements are government-determined and imposed on Māori using a smoke and mirrors approach that masks successive governments’ true intentions: to claw back Māori legal rights; to extinguish all claims; and to maintain White control over Māori. In short, to uphold the Doctrine of Discovery in further breach of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Māori claimants and negotiators report being enticed into the process by false promises only to become traumatised and disenchanted. Yet many take a pragmatic stance and sign settlements, making the best they can out of a bad deal that goes nowhere near compensating for their actual loss. They know that despite what legislation may say, the settlements are not full, not fair and not final and that, like all previous settlements, they will be revisited. They also know that unless fundamental changes are made to the constitutional makeup of the country, there is no prospect of justice and reconciliation for Māori.

This article considers research conducted on the impact of the Crown’s treaty claims settlement policy on Māori in New Zealand. It provides a brief background to the Treaty of Waitangi and the subsequent British colonisation process that relied on the Doctrine of Discovery in breach of the treaty. It outlines how colonisation dispossessed Māori of 95 percent of their lands and resources, usurped Māori power and authority and left them in a state of poverty, deprivation and marginalisation while procuring considerable wealth, prosperity and privilege for British settlers. The work of the Waitangi Tribunal, the commission of inquiry set up to investigate those breaches, is considered, as is the Crown’s reaction to the 1987 Lands case in developing its treaty claims settlement policy. The Crown unilaterally imposed the policy despite vehement opposition from Māori. Since 1992, it has legislated more than seventy ‘settlements’. The research shows that overall, the process has traumatised claimants, divided their communities, and returned on average less than one percent of their stolen lands. Proposals for constitutional transformation have drawn widespread support from Māori as a solution to British colonisation. United Nations treaty-monitoring bodies have recommended that the government discuss this with Māori

Māori leaders in New Zealand continue the battle to end British colonisation. The aim is to restore the balance between Māori and the Crown guaranteed in the treaty that Māori and the British Crown agreed to in 1840 so that we can live in peace and harmony. Early European visitors subjected our ancestors to numerous atrocities. Relying on the Doctrine of Discovery, they illegitimately usurped our power and dispossessed us, leaving us in a state of poverty, deprivation and marginalisation. They fabricated myths to justify their criminal activities, set up an illegitimate parliament with unfettered powers, passed laws legalising their crimes and then covered it up with amnesia. They established the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 to inquire into breaches of the treaty, not realising that it would dismantle the myths and look beneath the amnesia. Governments then instigated the ‘treaty claims settlement’ process to extinguish all Māori claims, remove Māori rights and entrench colonisation. Research undertaken has shown that Māori loathe this process and do not accept that settlements are full and final. Research on constitutional transformation has identified a possible solution. The first step towards that goal involves implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

In late 1994, the New Zealand government announced an ambitious plan to settle Māori historical grievances relating to breaches of the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi, signed between Māori and the British Crown in 1840. Why did the Crown choose to settle Māori historical treaty claims in the early 1990s, and what did it hope to achieve by settling Māori grievances? This article explores Crown motivations for settling Māori historical treaty claims, focusing on the period from August 1992 to November 1994 identified as crucial to the development of the Crown's treaty claims settlement policy, but which has received scant attention. It concludes that while the Crown publicly offered a series of moral, legal, social and political principles to explain its motivations and objectives in settling treaty claims, the Crown's primary motivation was to divert Māori away from their legal rights, to contain the Crown's fiscal liabilities, to maintain the acceptability of treaty claims settlements to the non-Māori public, and to “wind back” Māori rights and Crown obligations embedded in legislation.

This article outlines the fraudulent practices of settler traders and land agents who employed alcohol to facilitate the alienation of Maori lands, highlighting the close relationship between Maori, liquor and land loss in 19th century New Zealand. Traders and agents developed a range of strategies, forged in Britain, tempered by colonial experience and wielded with deft precision in New Zealand to defraud Maori of their lands. Government efforts to pre-empt and prevent the worst excesses of settler crime proved ineffectual, self-defeating, paternalistic and ultimately unenforceable. Maori came to regard settler practices, the successive failure of legislation to alleviate the problem, and state connections with the liquor industry to be part of a thinly veiled conspiracy to destabilize their communities and alienate their lands. While this conclusion is highly problematic, it is likely that traders and agents had witnessed or were aware of similar practices in the settler colonies of Australia, Canada and North America, and made good use of them in New Zealand to access Maori lands.

The presence of diverse needs, interests and perspectives in society is a key measure of a healthy representative democracy. Learning about diversity, and how society provides for diversity, is therefore a valuable characteristic of citizenship education (Arthur and Davison, 2000; Berding and Miedema, 1998; Feinberg, Fields and Roberts, 1997). This paper presents the findings of recent research about citizenship education in Aotearoa (New Zealand). In particular, it explores what presence the notion of diversity has in New Zealand’s citizenship education programme (social studies). In New Zealand, the provisions for diversity are under constant political debate. This includes the provisions for indigenous political representation, such as the Maori parliamentary seats. The research utilized critical discourse analysis and content analysis methods. A review of the social studies curriculum revealed a strong focus on identity, culture and heritage in New Zealand, but an absence of material about how diversity is provided for in society. This includes the socio-political provisions for diversity in New Zealand’s democratic arrangements, such as guaranteed indigenous representation. The implications of this absence are discussed in terms of citizens’ understandings of democracy, equality, and the preparation of citizens to discuss these issues further.

This paper presents the findings of research about civics and citizenship education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Aspects of New Zealand's electoral system, such as the Maori representation, have long been the focus of political debate. This paper identifies the civics and citizenship education provided to New Zealand citizens about this debate. In New Zealand, civics and citizenship education is taught through the social studies curriculum. A review of the teaching units for social studies showed a considerable focus in New Zealand on aspects of citizenship such as identity, but an absence of material for civic knowledge such as the make-up of the electoral system. This absence includes a lack of material on the Maori electoral representation. These challenges are considered in context of the multidimensional citizenship model arising from the international Citizenship Education Policy Study (CEPS).

Argues that Māori have been actively engaged in practising tino rangatiratanga in various forms even since before the Declaration of Independence ...

The Māori Electoral Option is a period of 4 months, every 5 years, when Māori electors can choose whether to be on the Māori or the General Electoral Roll. The outcome of the Māori Electoral Option is a key factor in determining the number of Māori seats in the New Zealand Parliament. The Electoral Commission estimates that approximately 6,000 Māori voters each year request to change electoral roll, but in 2017 over 19,000 voters applied to change. Why were so many more Māori wanting to change and why did they not know they could only change during the Māori Electoral Option held every 5 years? The following year, the 2018 Māori Electoral Option saw the first net increase of Māori changing to the general roll since 1996. This article uses data gathered from the results of Māori Electoral Options 1991–2018, an anonymous survey, and evaluations of Māori Electoral Option campaigns to consider how the shifting trends in roll choices might be explained.

In this paper, we emphasis a critical perspective on inclusive organizations by taking an Indigenous perspective. The diverse economies framework, which acknowledges economic and non-economic activity, provides a lens through which we counter the dominant Western construction of organization and economy, bringing to the fore forms of organization and practice all too often hidden, viewed as alternative and therefore deemed inferior. In this paper we present the notion of alternative economic and organizational forms drawn from Indigenous Maori theories, models and mechanisms of practice. This paper presents preliminary findings from a study that explored the diversity of Maori organizational forms, in this instance a case study on Maori weavers, who use traditional knowledge, to support social, cultural, environmental and economic outcomes for themselves and their communities. Our contribution is two-fold: First we offer insight into the theorisation and practice of organization studies in general by giving weight to the processes and relations of socio-cultural exchange that occur in localised settings. Second, we suggest that socio-cultural system of knowledge and values, offers insight into forms of organization that could be considered to be reflective of inclusive organizations.

Land and natural resources are at the core of conflicts between Indigenous peoples and Settlers in settler-colonial nations. This article explores the coloniality of natural resource law in the context of the New Zealand Crown Minerals Act 1991 (CMA) Block Offer process; the annual tender process for mineral prospecting and exploration. While there is often strong Māori participation, we will argue that Aotearoa New Zealand settler-colonial mining law is structured in such a way that Māori views rarely influence the substantive outcomes of mineral exploration decisions. Through a case study of the 2013 Epithermal Gold Block Offer in the Central North Island, we will explore the factors that might contribute to the mismatch between the level of Māori participation and the influence of Māori views on final decisions in the Block Offer process. We examine how different views are valued by bureaucrats within New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals, a government agency within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and explore whether the criteria applied to Māori submissions genuinely and appropriately reflect the full range of interests, aspirations and concerns raised by Māori participants. In particular, we consider how mining regulation is structured to exclude Māori law and jurisdiction in order to uphold settler-colonial authority over key natural resources and extractivist economies. Finally, we consider alternatives to the CMA process and explore the potential to ensure substantive outcomes that better reflect the Māori views and interests. In doing so we point to the need to shift from colonial extractivist models of natural resources law towards Settler-Indigenous partnerships in relation to environmental planning in settler-colonial states.

Drawing on the work of Matike Mai Aotearoa: The Independent Iwi Working Group on Constitutional Transformation (the Working Group), this article argues that there is an evolving New Zealand constitutionalism, one that offers a constitutional understanding grounded in the Māori constitutional system. The article opens with a descriptive analysis of the Māori constitutional system, explains the key features of New Zealand’s existing constitution and concludes with an argument that the existing constitution can evolve – and, through the political process, ought to evolve – according to the constitutional models that the Working Group recommends. This article deploys legal research methods, primarily doctrinal research and applied doctrinal research.1

‘There is a need for a mindset shift away from the pervasive assumption that the Crown is Pākehā, English-speaking, and distinct from Māori’, wrote the permanent commission of inquiry investigating breaches of New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi. ‘Increasingly, in the twenty-first century, the Crown is also Māori.’ This paper argues that ‘the Crown in right of New Zealand’ is in need of redefining. In the 19th and parts of the 20th century Māori leaders and institutions were often understood as separate from the Crown. But that understanding is shifting, and this paper argues the shift is leading to a new understanding of the Crown in right of New Zealand.