Republished with Permission
Peter Allan Williams
Writer and broadcaster for half a century. Now watching from the sidelines although verbalising thoughts on www.reality check.radio three days a week.
It was a really good show, deserving of a wider audience.
It was “The Working Group” live debate on David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill. It was a show that either TV one or TV three should have shown live.
But they lack the courage to do so.
Martyn “Bomber” Bradbury is not everyone’s cup of tea. He was once even banned from RNZ’s The Panel for being too radical!
He operates a ranting left-wing blog called “The Daily Blog” and in recent years has broadened his portfolio to a weekly podcast which is now broadcast live through various outlets, including Face TV where I watched it from the comfort of my couch.
Kudos then to Bradbury for arranging Seymour – who is never shy of boxing his corner even among the most radical excesses of the New Zealand media – to be in the same studio with Ngāti Toa iwi CEO Helmut Modlik, who told us he has a German father and consequently holds dual citizenship.
Libertarian columnist Damian Grant was also present as a moderator.
The debate was civilized and reasoned. Modlik even seemed to agree with Seymour’s second and third principles, namely that everybody has rights over their property and that all New Zealanders are equal before the law.
Where there was disagreement was over the first principle – that the government has the right to govern New Zealand.
Modlik came clutching Ned Fletcher’s weighty tome The English Version of the Treaty of Waitangi which lays out the case for the Māori chiefs of 1840 not ceding sovereignty to the British Crown.
Therefore, he seemed to ascertain that because sovereignty was not ceded, the government of New Zealand does not have the right to govern all New Zealanders.
Which obviously creates a slight problem or two.
I was disappointed Seymour didn’t have some historical evidence to counter Modlik on this point.
There is plenty about. In more recent times Waitangi Tribunal member Sir Hugh Kāwharu’s 1989 back translation of the Treaty from te reo to English, still posted on the Tribunal’s website, says unequivocally:
The Chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs who have not joined that Confederation give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land.
What could be clearer? Sure, the English version used the word sovereignty but any student of history and politics will know that “complete government over their land” means the same thing.
There’s plenty more evidence too such as the speeches given by the likes of Tāmati Wāka Nene at Waitangi the day before the Treaty was signed.
To his credit Seymour remained reasoned throughout. Modlik consistently maintained the “kāwanatanga” or governorship from the Treaty’s first article only applied to the British residents here at the time and not Māori.
“My point being,” he said, “to think the rangatira would surrender their mana to a couple of blokes and some missionaries is preposterous, culturally and psychologically impossible.”
He asked Seymour for evidence that the chiefs ceded mana motuhake.
“It didn’t happen, David.”
That was Seymour’s weakest moment of the night. A couple of quotes from Hugh Kāwharu’s translation and Tāmati Wāka Nene’s speech at Waitangi on February 5th 1840 would have provided the evidence that Modlik believes doesn’t exist.
Nevertheless, as a debater, I thought Seymour was by far the more polished. He had a wonderful dig at 1News telling the story of being asked by a reporter for his reaction to a poll which showed 46 per cent of voters said racial tensions have worsened due to the coalition government’s policies.
He said last year’s poll on the topic showed the number was 47 per cent. Therefore racial tensions were improving!
“It’s not hard to get one over a 1News reporter these days,” he quipped. “Maybe that’s why this debate is on this channel.”
Modlik was capable but failed to mount any convincing arguments against the bill, apart from saying article one of the Treaty does not include cession by Māori chiefs to the Crown. He often read from a prepared script and seemed unable to debate logically with the smoothness of Seymour.
Remember Seymour’s bill is not re-writing the Treaty. It is to define these things called principles which have been written into legislation for 50 years, but never defined.
What thinking New Zealander could possibly disagree with any of the broad principles being laid out in Seymour’s legislation?
Bradbury, as the host of the show and owner of the podcast/broadcast was entitled to the last word and he took it, although I struggled to see his point.
He told the story of his fully Pākehā daughter attending a total immersion Māori language school (just as my own fully Pākehā grandchildren do in Christchurch) and how he went to a kapa haka performance that his daughter was part of.
The crowd at the concert cheered when the Māori sovereignty flag was raised and there was “fury and outrage” when images of Luxon, Peters or Seymour were flashed up.
That, he said, was a sign “the next generation of Kiwis will not accept Māori being treated as second-class citizens in their own country”.
“The future is younger and browner and it doesn’t matter what stunt you pull with the Treaty Principles Bill, David, you’ve already lost.”
It was an extraordinary conflation of emotion and reality by Bradbury. If there is such a negative reaction to images of our political leaders at a kapa haka concert, one wonders just what level of indoctrination is taking place during school hours.
Bradbury has his demographics somewhat askew as well. The future is not actually younger.
Before the end of the decade there will be more people aged 65 and over than children 14 and under. By 2038, 20 per cent of us will be on the pension and by 2060 that number will be up to 26 per cent.
That’s not necessarily a prediction of political persuasions, but don’t we need a few guarantees in life no matter our age and ethnicity?
Like – we need a government with a right to govern, we need to have rights over our own property and we must all have the same rights and duties as everyone else.
That’s what the Treaty Principles Bill is about.
It’s very simple really. But the German Māori Helmut Modlik and many of his ilk just don’t seem to get it.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
