The second hand deal of Maori parliamentary representation

Tu Tangata, Issue 27, 1 December 1985, Page 24

The second hand deal of Maori parliamentary representation

by Robin Shave

Young Maori radicals are responsible for the rising tide of Maori nationalism, according to Internal Affairs Minister Peter Tapsell. But it is not just the younger generation who are speaking out on injustices they and their forebears have suffered as a result of past european moves to colonise New Zealand and assimilate Maori and pakeha cultures.

Maori radicalism is slowly gaining acceptance by a more conservative, older generation who are now beginning to publicly address the issue of selfdetermination.

Recently, the Poneke-based Te Takawaenga Trust, a group from within the Ratana Movement, appeared before the Royal Commission on the Electoral System to place the history of Maori representation in a European-dominated political system.

Describing the proverbial “sharkkahawai” relationship which exists between Maori and pakeha, it used the history of the Ratana Party to illustrate how Maori independence has been undermined and swallowed up since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Although Te Takawaenga trustees are adherents of the Ratana Church, they were at pains to emphasise to the commission that the views expressed were theirs, and not the official views of the established Ratana Church.

The importance of the submission within the Ratana Movement was reflected in its representation to the commission.

Appearing on behalf of the trust was Raniera Ratana, son of the Prophet Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana, a founder of the Ratana Movement.

In 1931, in a loose alliance with the Labour Party, Ratana won its first seat in Parliament.

Five years later Tahupotiki Ratana and his family formally joined the Labour Party. From 1943 the four Maori seats were held by Ratana and the Ratana-Labour “alliance” has endured as the most powerful, single influence in Maori national politics.

But the rise of Maori nationalism in recent years has undermined that alliance.

There has been increasing concern within maoridom about the submergence and assimilation of Maoris into the European-dominated cultural, economic and political system and a feeling that the Maori people must strive for self-determination.

This concern is reflected in Te Takawaenga Trust's submission, which hinted that it may be timely for the

Ratana Movement to review its links with the Labour Party.

Mr Ratana, tracing the history of the alliance, said that many in the Ratana Movement had viewed it as a “spiritual thing an affinity of causes”. But with the benefit of hindsight, this alliance had spelled disaster for Maori selfdetermination.

The Maori people had suffered oppression as a result of the assimilative nature of the Westminster-type parliamentary system.

This two-party system had done nothing but undermine Maori political independence and reinforce and entrench European dominance. “Never in our history have we ever been able to gain anything on our own terms,” Mr Ratana said.

He reminded the commission of the words of his father when the Prophet formally joined the Labour Party: “The licence (alliance) lasts only 12 months.”

He said the trust had chosen to make representations through an institutionalised framework out of both frustration and hope.

It wished to emphasise the tapu nature with which the Maori people regarded the Treaty of Waitangi. It also believed that if wrongs of the past were to be redressed then the Treaty must be totally accepted and enshrined in the laws of the land and the policies of successive governments.

For far too long Maori demands anu grievances had remained unsettled unless they happened to fall in line with pakeha European policies, that was, unless they served pakeha ends.

“Since the question of Maori representation is primarily a Maori issue it is particularly important to develop an appreciation, from a Maori point of view, of the pressures which the Maori people have had to withstand," Te Takawaenga said.

It was also important to develop an appreciation of the effects these pressures have had on the representation of Maori issues and the position of the Maori community within New Zealand society. Te Takawaenga Trust recognised that

any change in the system would have to be agreed to by the Maori people, Mr Ratana said.

But in the light of Maori history it believed there was a case for putting Maori interests before those of the majority of New Zealand people.

Mr Ratana said the trust’s submissions were based on quite simple things oppression, power and pathos.

“What we are dealing with is assimilation, accountability of the Maori people within a particular system, our hopes and dreams, and maybe a chance to work in tandem towards self-deter-mination.”

According to Te Takawaenga Trust, the arrival of European settlers introduced a cultural, economic and political system which resulted in the domination and alienation of the Maori race.

“For the good of the country Maori and pakeha the Maori people must be set free of the political domination under which they have laboured for all these years. No Bill of Rights can, of itself, make the Treaty of Waitangi speak. Only when the Maori people are freed to pursue their own destiny can the treaty be said to speak,” Te Takawaenga said.

Victoria University’s head of Maori Studies Professor Sidney Mead, also told the commission that the pakeha had steadfastly refused to acknowledge that the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 allowed limited autonomy for the Maori people.

In article one of the Treaty, the Maori people were asked to give up to the British Crown the right to govern their own land.

However, article two guaranteed tino rangatiratanga (which he translated as absolute chieftainship) in exchange for this right.

It implied that the mana of a ruling chief over his people was to be maintained and that chieftainship would be exercised in a Maori way according to the rules of Maori society.

Home rule was to be exercised over land, their villages and homes, and all their treasures and their heritage.

For the Maori chiefs, this article clearly implied partnership in government and was probably the main reason they agreed to sign the treaty, according to Professor Mead.

But the implementation of the 1852 Constitutional Act effectively cheated the Maori people of any chance of self government or of shared government. “They (the settlers) excluded the

Maori from having any real power and in fact took over responsibility of Native Affairs themselves in November 1863 and this Act effectively put the Maori people under the power of the pakeha from that time right up until the present time,” Professor Mead said. It was not until 1868 a year following the Maori Representation Act, 14 years after national General Assembly met for the first time and 28 years after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi that the Maori people were given a political voice. The Maori Representation Act 1867

gave the Maori people four seats in the General Assembly compared with the 66 general seats, even though the Maori were entitled to 14, or one-third of the seats on a population basis. Since then the number of Maori seats has remained static while the number of general seats has increased to 91. Te Takawaenga Trust said that limiting the number of seats to four ensured that the Maori representatives would never be in a position to bargain with the Europeans in the Assembly. “It became clear... they were never intended to be more than watchdogs.

The House was caught off-guard when they sought to speak. “Kaihau, MP for Western Maori at the turn of the century, could not speak English at all and became a laughing stock and focal point for the perverted sense of humour of his white colleagues.” The trust said the Maori people accrued little benefit from having representatives in Parliament in these early years. The influence of Maori MPs remained local and Maoris continued to live in rural communities structured along traditional lines and remote from the centre of power. The commission was told that nothing was gained by the Maori on his own terms, even in the time of the Young Maori Party. With the possible exception of Apirana Ngata, the leaders of Te Aute Students’ Association shared the prevailing opinion of whites. “They were strong advocates of cooperation with the Government, to the extent that they opposed outright Te Kotahitanga and other separatist movements. “Their level of education, their sophistication in pakeha ways and their general attitudes were welcomed by the pakeha because it avoided the necessity of having to deal with them as a Maori. “Maui Pomare’s statement in 1906, ‘There is no alternative but to become a pakeha’, reflects the attitude among this era of Maori representatives.” The experience of the Maori Land Councils Act 1900 illustrated the shortterm political expediencies involved in the administration of Maori affairs at the time. The trust said that in providing district councils to supervise Maori affairs, the Act recognised that Maori organisation took place at the community level. But the real aims of the Act were to divert support from the Kotahitanga Parliament and to divert attention away from the activities of the land councils created under the Maori Land Administration Act 1900. These were subsequently transformed into land boards in 1905 and served wholly European interests. By 1910, they were in decline. Once they had served their purpose, the Government either lost interest in them or came to see them as a potential threat. “That they could easily have transformed themselves into a positive force for the political socialisation and mobilisation of the Maori people on a broad front is obvious from the very nature of the organisation,” said the trust. “Thus, they could have become a greater threat to pakeha interests than the Te Kotahitanga movement which they destroyed.” Te Takawaenga said that Te Aute Students Association members, including

Ngata, Buck and Pomare, were widely credited with salvaging the Maori people.

But what the Maori MPs were able to win for their people were won on European, not Maori terms.

Ngata served most of his parliamentary career as a member of the Liberal Party while Pomare waved the Reform banner.

Peter Buck, however, tried to retain some semblance of independence. While he voted with the Liberals he was also sharply critical of them when the need arose.

Even so, the Maori vote was still not perceived by the main parties as being important enough to woo.

The 1920 s and 1930 s were marked by the tightening grip of the political parties, the rise of Labour, the development of the independent Ratana Party and the increasing participation of Maoris on the political front.

Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana, prophet and healer, founded the Ratana Church and its movement in the early 19205.

He began having visions in 1919 and Ratana Te Mangai (or mouthpiece of God as he became known) became the focal point of a new religion which was basically Christian but with its own evolving credo and ritual.

The marae at Ratana, 20km south east of Wanganui, was the Parliament of the iwi (people, tribe) and those who came for physical and spiritual healing could be helped directly by Ratana the Prophet.

But the dispossessed, the unemployed, the poverty stricken and the homeless required a different kind of healing and the way to get it, was through politics.

The Ratana Movement therefore held within it the conditions necessary for the mass mobilisation of the iwi.

Ratana’s influence amongst the Maori people increased in spite of strong opposition over many years, but particularly in the late 19205.

In the area of policy formation, the Ratana Movement had no peers. It had a complete grasp of the conditions of the

Maori people and of the processes which had brought these conditions about.

Because the Movement transcended tribal boundaries, it tended to adopt a national perspective.

It had a charismatic leader, a national forum for the discussion of grievances and claims, and a national organisation that could be readily transformed into an election machine.

In 1922 Tahupotiki Ratana backed his son Tokouru, as a candidate for Western Maori.

Tokouru was unsuccessful and it was not until 1935 that he entered Parliament representing that seat.

But, his initial political challenge resulted in the establishment at electoral level of auxiliary committees called Komiti Whaiti (made up of followers of the Ratana Movement) to support his bid for office.

By 1928, when Tahupotiki Ratana had concluded that his people’s economic and social needs could only be met through political action, he had in place a ready-made electoral machine.

By 1931, with a loose alliance with the Labour Party, Ratana won its first seat in Parliament.

At the urging of its Maori membership, Labour Party leaders began attending the hui of the Ratana Movement and for the 1931 election, a bargain was struck.

Ratana Independents were to vote with Labour and the Labour Party would not put up official candidates for the four Maori seats.

Consequently, the 1932 Southern Maori by-election returned Ratana Party candidate Eureura T. Tirikatene. When he took his seat in the House that year, he was escorted by the Labour Party Whips and from then on, voted with Labour on most issues.

Over the next 11 years the Ratana Movement’s organisations developed into a highly effective party machine and by 1943, all four Maori seats had become occupied by morehu, followers of Tahupotiki Ratana’s philosophy.

The Ratana-Labour alliance was to become the most powerful, single influence on Maori national politics.

But a lot happened between 1928 and 1943. Labour, which formed a large minority in the House, was keen to win extra seats.

It began wooing the Maori vote but was hampered by two things.

• The Maori members were partEuropean and therefore outside of the traditional framework of Maori society. • Labour members generally lacked an understanding of Maori issues and problems and this hampered policy formation.

In 1935, when Tirikatene was joined by Tokouru Ratana (MP for Western Maori), both applied formally for Labour Party membership.

Tirikatene received a letter from the party’s secretary stating he would have to sign the parliamentary candidate’s pledge.

If his application for membership was successful, then both Ratana MPs would be parliamentary members of the Labour Party.

This amounted to a direct demand for the transfer of allegiance. Having already pledged themselves in spiritual terms to the Maori people the Maori representatives were now being asked to pledge themselves to the Labour Party.

This move sounded the death-knell of an independent political party representing wholly Maori interests. So why was the bargain struck?

The answer is simple. It gave the Ratana Members a vehicle for implementing Ratana policies and the Labour Party gained four safe seats.

Te Takawaenga said that with the knowledge of hindsight, it believed the alliance spelled disaster for Maori selfdetermination.

“Maori mechanisms were rendered useless and yet another wedge was driven into Maori society that of party politics.”

That year, Labour under Michael Joseph Savage won a landslide victory,

another huge win in 1938 and remained in power until 1949.

In 1936 the Prophet Ratana met Savage in an attempt to lay down a few ground rules.

He placed before the Prime Minister five objects huia feathers, a potato, a piece of greenstone, a gold watch and chain in need of repair and the Whetu mete Marama (symbol of the Ratana Movement).

The huia feathers represented the Maori people and their most prized possession, their culture. The bird from which they were taken was now extinct, having been killed off by introduced vermin.

The potato, a pakeha substitute for the Maori staple food of kumara represented the loss of land, the source of food.

The precious greenstone represented Maori sovereignty, now lost.

The broken gold watch and chain represented the poverty among the people.

The tohu (symbol of the Movement) represented the handing over to the Labour Government, responsibility for the protection of Maori culture, land claims, rights and privileges and material wellbeing.

As the meeting concluded, the Prophet prayed, “May Jehovah, Lord God of Hosts watch over you and your Government so that you do not forget your responsibilities to the Maori people”.

Savage said he realised and understood the problems facing the Maori people.

“I would like you to understand Mr Ratana that only when the shackles are removed from the Maori people will I be able to say that my responsibilities to this country have been fulfilled."

However, these were hollow words when measured against the events which followed Savage's death in 1940.

For sometime after the two Ratana MPs joined the Labour Party, they continued to owe their prior allegiance to Tahupotoki Ratana and the Movement, a fact which did not go unnoticed in Labour circles.

But they sought to take control of the Maori section of the Labour Party in order to strengthen their power base and in 1936, a Maori Organising Committee was formed to increase membership.

The two key positions were held by morehu with Tirikatene appointed chairman and Paikea as secretary. The Whetu Marama (newsletter of the Movement), as an incentive to morehu to join the Labour Party, published the fact that Tahupotoki Ratana and his family had joined. However, Ratana noted his membership was valid for only 12 months and would be reviewed subsequently. Until then, the morehu had involved themselves in politics as followers of the Ratana faith. Now, they were being asked to involve themselves as members of a political party. This resulted in the tight and effective Ratana parish-based organisation gradually being replaced. In less than a year, the Ratana Movement was first called to heel by Labour.

The Organising Committee and Labour’s national executive committee held a meeting in 1937 in response to growing concern within the party at the dominance of the Movement. This meeting agreed: • the Ratana Movement should not be in the majority and that 16 Maori delegates should attend the party’s annual conference. • the Organising Committee would be renamed the Maori Advisory Council. • the Maori Advisory Council membership be increased by an extra three MPs. • Paikea's position as secretary was redesignated assistant secretary to the party’s general secretary. Pakeha members of the Maori Advisory Council now outnumbered the Maori members.

Then, while Tirikatene was overseas, council-elections were held and he was replaced as chairman by a non-Ratana. By 1937 the Ratana adherents on the Council were a minority.

During the mid to late 1930’s and again between 1952 and 1962 the Maori MPs held considerable power in their hands but failed to use it.

The trust said the reasons why could only be guessed at.

“Perhaps to do so would have been to divide New Zealand on racial grounds and to bring about the abolition of the seats.”

By 1938 Labour was already reneging on its earlier commitment to settle longstanding Maori land claims.

Ironically, the grounds for the abrupt change in policy in 1938 were similar to those used by the Joseph Ward, United Party Government in 1929 to justify special assistance to Maori farmers.

These were, to avoid the prospect of the Maori people becoming a burden on the taxpayer.

In 1939 Tahupotiki Ratana died. The bereaved movement felt his loss keenly but the organisation he put in place was still strong enough politically in 1943 to stand a candidate and win an election.

That year Labour’s national executive failed to accept either of the two candidates endorsed by the Maori Advisory Council for selection in Eastern Maori.

The Movement decided to contest the election anyway and Tiaki Omana won the seat for the Ratana Party.

After 1943 however, the morehu became less and less active.

The reason for the falling away of involvement were many and varied.

The party machine had displaced the movement’s organisation at electorate level. The party had demanded that MPs give their first allegiance to the party. Soon after Prophet Ratana’s death, the MPs departed from Ratana Pa to live in their electorates and the Ratana marae was displaced as the forum of Maori political debate.

By the end of the 1940 s the marae at Ratana had grown quiet and open debate of Maori grievances and claims had ceased to exist.

Te Takawaenga said much has been made of the first Labour Government's achievements for the Maori people. “But nothing that occurred during this period would cause us to change our view that throughout our history, the Maori people got only what the European electorate permitted."

The alliance was a calculated gamble that did not pay off, “not for the Ratana Movement nor for the iwi as a whole".

Having lost the power game with the Labour Party, the Maori MPs were in a dilemma.

In order to gain settlement of long standing Maori claims and to promote distinctly Maori interests, they needed a strong Maori foundation. By a series of

clever manoeuvres this had been denied them.

The alternatives were either to stay in and get what they could, or to withdraw and leave the Maori people with no hand in Government at all.

“Further, having achieved the objective of gaining the four Maori seats, the morehu tended to rest on their laurels and to forget their late leader’s desire.

“It was the control of the four seats that he wanted. He had wanted the substance and not just the form,” Te Takawaenga said.

According to Te Takawaenga, this was only the beginning of the Labour Party’s determined efforts to undermine the Ratana Movement as a political force and to gain total control over the Maori section of the party.

Not long after this debacle, the Maori Advisory Council expressed deep concern at Langstone’s handling of the Native Affairs portfolio.

As Acting Minister his attitudes and manner were offensive to many Maoris. Yet the first Labour Government appointed him as Native Affairs Minister in 1940.

In 1945 the Labour Government under Peter Fraser again reneged this time on the Maori Social and Economic Advancement Act.

Had it proceeded in its original form

the Act would have given the Maori people the same degrees of autonomy at local, tribal and national levels that they had enjoyed during the war years.

The Maori Advisory Council had sought to establish a national organisation along the lines of that on which the Maori War Effort had been based.

This organisation was to be independent of the Maori Affairs Department by having an all-embracing body of its own at the top.

But the Council’s proposals were scuttled from the outset.

The Act was drafted in the Maori Affairs Department and the department incorporated the proposed organisation within its own administrative framework.

Te Takawaenga said that had the Fraser Government taken up the challenge, it could have altered the course of history.

“We believe that they chose not to because they feared the growing confidence and unity of the Maori people.”

The trust said while it was true that the Maori probably reaped more from the first Labour Government’s humanitarian legislation than any other, they did so without the opportunity to control their future.

“Furthermore, we got what we got because we were underprivileged or de-

prived or constituted a special case; not necessarily because we were Maoris.”

Until 1946, Labour’s majority was so high that Independents were unlikely to make any impact.

The Maori MPs chose to stay within the party and to develop other strategies for achieving advantages in the field of housing, land development and education.

These strategies included tacit acceptance of the party line and the cultivation of personal friendships.

But their base was weakened and by 1946 their allegiance had been effectively transferred to the Labour Party.

During the early 1960 s the Government denounced assimilation as the guiding principles for its policies relating to the Maori people and instead, substituted the idea of “integration”.

But with the introduction of the Maori Affairs Amendment Bill in 1967, Maoris realised that integration was just a fancy name for a very old game.

What the Government failed to account for was the strength of Maori opposition to the Bill.

Maoris began giving notice that they were no longer prepared to suffer legislation which had the primary aim of further dispossessing them of their land.

The controversy surrounding the Maori Affairs Bill marked the beginning

of what was to become a sustained campaign for the restoration of Maori identity.

Long-standing grievances erupted into direct confrontation and the language and ideology of nationalism entered the New Zealand political scene.

The tactics and strategies of the Black Nationalists in the United States employed by Maori groups to draw public attention to their grievances and claims, made many New Zealanders uncomfortable.

By the mid 1970 s Ratana members of the Maori Policy and Advisory Council were once again in the minority.

The MPs were struggling to keep their electorate organisations operating and the few Maori branches in existence were mainly paper branches.

In spite of the protests of the Maori representative on Labour’s National Executive, the electorate levy in 1973 was fixed on the basis of percentage of total vote received by Labour candidates.

No concessions were made to the size of the Maori electorates nor to the fact that the Maori MPs, with their consistently high poll, were actually being penalised for being so popular with their voters.

During the late 1970 s these, and many other frustrations suffered by the four Maori MPs put them under severe pressure and signs of disharmony began to emerge.

Te Takawaenga cited some of these as the MPs lack of authority in respect of Maori Affairs policy and the strain of having to weigh the demands of the people against the constraints of the party.

In 1979 these culminated in the resignation of long-time Northern Maori MP and former Maori Affairs Minister in the Kirk Government, Matiu Rata.

After resigning, Matiu Rata formed a new political party Mana Motuhake (separate mana or sovereignty of the Maori people). In 1981 the party failed to loosen Labour’s grip on the four Maori seats but in all of them, finished second with healthy vote totals.

Matiu Rata’s resignation and the retirement of Eastern Maori MP Brown Reweti in 1981 left only two Ratana Labour MPs in the House Koro Wetere and Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan.

Te Takawaenga said much is made of the Ratana dominance in the Labour Party.

But what is not readily understood, even among MPs themselves, is that having lost the initiative, those morehu who continue to participate do so primarily to give spiritual support to those with whom they share an affinity that goes far deeper than party loyalty.

“Sure, until the 1980 s the organisation of the Ratana Movement continued to offer Labour a field for the recruitment of Maori Labour leaders, but its political influence has long since been contained by the Labour Party.”

The question must then arise as to why Maori people continue to support the Labour Party.

Political scientists will say that party voting in New Zealand is historical. Maoris whose life experience spans the years before and after the first Labour Government see that era as a “golden age”.

“And who can blame them? Those who receive the first fruits are not concerned about the weeds.

“In the home and on the marae, the elders with their memories keep tradition alive.

“The trouble with memories of this nature, bound as they are by sentiment, is that one never knows where reality ends and myth begins.”

Te Takawaenga said that while the Maori people were receiving the fruits, the Labour Party was busily chipping away at their independence.

“For some younger Maoris, voting for Labour is a case of ‘better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know'.”

During the past two decades the nation’s political climate has begun changing.

Maoris have become more and more impatient with the monocultural thinking of successive governments and in response to mounting pressure from Maori groups, the administration is being forced to review the basis of its policies.

Maori demands for recognition of the bicultural nature of New Zealand society and for the incorporation of Maori values and culture, have been growing more intense.

Te Takawaenga believes that Government moves to stimulate Maori selfreliance in the late 1970 s have probably come too late for the present generation of young Maoris.

Policies and programmes based on Tu Tangata philosophy served to heighten Maori confidence in their ability to deal with their own problems.

But, the Government failed to equip Maori groups with the resources to meet

the commitment. “Indeed, many Maoris remain deeply suspicious of the motives behind Tu Tangata. “They suspect that the Government, faced with the need to cut back on its massive welfare spending, is dumping its responsibilities back onto the Maori community.’’

Maori groups reason that it was the Administration that brought Maoris to their present level of dependency in the first place.

They are now demanding that if they are to bear the State's burden, then they must have a fair share of the State’s resources.

The concerns of Te Takawaenga Trust reflect the mounting frustration and anger within maoridom that past injustices continue to be dismissed.

The trust chose to state its case before a Royal Commission. Other Maori groups are making their voice heard through representations to the Royal Commission on Broadcasting, the Broadcasting Tribunal and the Waitangi Tribunal.

This is an indication of the mood within Maoridom. Not only are the younger Maori radicals on the move, so too are many of their elders.

Te Takawaenga sees self-determina-tion as the force behind the revival of ethnicity as a potential factor in today's world.

“It is the force behind the current resurgence of Maori culture and Maori spiritual values. It is a search for identity and uniqueness in a world of drab uniformity,” says the trust.

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