In Aotearoa New Zealand Waitangi Day is a public holiday commemorating the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between Māori and the British Crown. It’s a date that continues to spark debate and controversy so this year, I thought it might be interesting to examine another pivotal moment in our history which may have a bearing on why our national day is so divisive. To kick things off with a bang, the moment I want to discuss could be seen as the biggest con job in our nation’s history.
In 1852 some twelve years after the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the British Parliament passed the New Zealand Constitution Act which enabled the establishment of a local General Assembly consisting of a Legislative Council and a House of Representatives as well as the creation of six provinces – Auckland, New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago. Although not completely autonomous from the UK, this was, so it seemed, the beginning of representative democracy in our country.
So, in 1853 New Zealand held its first general election which began the primacy of parliamentary law in New Zealand right up to the present day. Essentially Parliament decides the fate of the New Zealand people because 173 years ago a new era of representative democracy was ushered in and the public voted which gave Parliament legitimacy.
Something to be proud of right?
Well, maybe not.
That 1853 election was definitely not democratic and here’s why:
The population of the country at the time is estimated to have been between 90,000 and 100,000. Approximately 30% were Pakeha and 70% Māori which means Māori made up the vast majority of the population and still owned most of the land. European settler numbers (particularly British) were rising, but they were still a considerable minority.
The Constitution Act laid out very specific conditions on who could vote.
Firstly, you had to be male, so that meant around half of the population was excluded. You had to be over 21 and a British subject. You couldn’t vote if you were imprisoned or convicted of a serious crime. Lastly, you had to live in an electorate and also either own or rent property.
Now those last two conditions meant that most Māori men were excluded because even if they met most of the other conditions, the vast majority of them lived on communal land. The stipulation that land had to be individually owned or leased meant virtually no tāne Māori could vote. Another barrier was that most iwi land was outside the 37 electoral boundaries created for the election, so anyone living there was excluded as well.
Of a population of 100,000 people, the number of men actually able to register to vote was 5,849 or about 6-7% of the entire population. All of them male, and the vast majority pakeha.
So right from the start of democracy in Aotearoa Māori were disenfranchised. They had no meaningful say in the government of their native land in which they were, at the time, the overwhelming majority of the population.
Eventually, women and Māori got the right to vote, but by that time it was too late to prevent the slew of legislation and government action that stripped away much of their land and many cultural practices. It is not my intention to list the hundreds, possibly thousands of laws and policies that resulted from the creation of Parliament, but some significant ones include the Native Lands Acts (1862 and 1865) and the New Zealand Settlements Act (1863) which facilitated the loss of vast tracts of land from iwi. The Māori Representation Act (1867) created four Māori seats in Parliament but that number was frozen for over a century despite population growth resulting in severe and enduring under-representation. Then there is the Tohunga Suppression Act (1907) which criminalised key aspects of Māori spiritual and cultural life.
Waitangi Day is very divisive and there are a lot of Pakeha people who are at best complacent and at worst deeply condemning and prejudiced against Māori and the ongoing efforts to ameliorate some of the worst effects of colonisation. As a fellow Pakeha, I urge us all to understand the true history of this nation so we can find an equitable solution to the lingering effects of our colonial past.
Picture credit – Archives New Zealand from New Zealand, CC BY-SA 2.0
