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Summarised by Centrist
In a letter to supporters, New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union executive director Jordan Williams argues Waitangi Day’s real significance “isn’t about contemporary politics or activist theatre.”
“It’s about one of the most remarkable New Zealanders who ever lived: Hōne Heke.”
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Williams argues that Hōne Heke is often remembered simply as “the man who chopped down the flagpole.” What is usually left out, he says, is the economic motivation behind Hōne Heke’s rebellion. “Hōne Heke wasn’t just protesting symbolism. He was protesting taxation.”
Following the signing of the Treaty, the Crown introduced tariffs on imported goods, including tea, sugar, flour, grain, tobacco and spirits.
Williams says these taxes “hit Māori trade in the north particularly hard.” In his view, Hōne Heke quickly recognised that the Treaty was being followed by “decisions being made without meaningful consent.”
Hōne Heke resisted directly. Williams notes that his actions were influenced by the American Revolution, pointing out that Hōne Heke “even flew the American flag as a symbol of his anti-tax, anti-colonial protest,” a detail he says is often omitted from modern retellings.
“It worked,” Williams argues. After the conflict, customs duties in the Bay of Islands were abolished and the area declared a free port. “Bad taxes were repealed because someone was willing to stand up and say, ‘this isn’t fair.’”
“Waitangi Day doesn’t belong only to politicians, separatist activists, or those who shout the loudest,” Williams writes. Instead, he says it belongs to New Zealanders who believe “that power should be accountable, that taxation should be fair, and that ordinary people have the right, and sometimes the duty, to push back.”
