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Remembering Hana Te Hemara’s Māori language petition, 50 years on

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A tribute to the mother of te wiki o te reo Māori.

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Trailblazers - Dame Whina Cooper | nzherald.co.nz

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Before the active colonisation of Aotearoa by Pākehā in the 1800s, te reo Māori was the dominant language, with English and other European languages mainly spoken by sealers, whalers, missionaries, and traders - many of whom learned te reo Māori to ensure they could trade and communicate effectively. As the numbers of permanent non-Māori settlements grew so did the number of English speakers and after Te Tiriti o Waitangi, The Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, the population of British settlers soared, and English became more commonly spoken.

As the Pākehā population grew, the colonial government emphasised the use of English more. In 1867, the Native Schools Act was passed, establishing a schooling system designed to assimilate Māori into Pākehā society. The Act required English to be the only language written or spoken in . Under the Act, Māori children were actively discouraged from learning their language and punishments were common for children who spoke te reo Māori at these schools. By the turn of the century, many believed that speaking te reo Māori would prevent Māori from successfully learn English, in turn stopping them from fully participating in Pākehā society. After generations of punishment for speaking te reo Māori, people began discouraging its use, even in the home. Urban migration, social pressure, physical and verbal punishment of children, and 'pepper potting' policies (where individual Māori families were scattered throughout Pākeha communities to encourage assimilation) all contributed to an intergenerational suppression of the language. By 1953, the percentage of Māori schoolchildren who were able to speak te reo Māori had dropped to 26 per cent, a 64 per cent decline over 40 years.

No Maori newspapers, no television time for Maori language, and only half an hour once a week on the National Radio programme, as well as eight minutes on the Correspondence School programme.
Kura Te Waru-Rewiri, The Press, 5 September 1972

Te Petihana - The Petition

At the beginning of the 1970s, Māori groups worked towards national recognition and a revitalisation of te reo Māori. Two of these groups were student organisations: Auckland-based Ngā Tamatoa (The Young Warriors) and Victoria University's Te Reo Māori Society. Together, they coordinated and developed a petition that called for courses in Māori language and culture to be offered in all New Zealand schools, to both Māori and Pākehā students, as a "gift" to "promote a more meaningful concept of integration".

'We the undersigned, do humbly pray that courses in Maori language and aspects of Maori culture be offered in all those schools with large Maori rolls and that these same courses be offered as a gift to the Pakeha from the Maori in all other New Zealand schools as a positive effort to promote a more meaningful concept of integration
Te Petihana Reo Māori - The Māori Language Petition

By 14 September 1972, the petition had received over 30,000 signatures. On that day, Hana Te Hemara (Jackson) of Ngā Tamatoa, the principal petitioner who had originally brought the idea to the Māori Language Society, delivered the petition to Parliament, where they were welcomed with a pōwhiri delivered by Hon Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan, the member of Parliament for the Southern Māori electorate.

The petitioners were welcomed by the Minister of Māori and Island Affairs, Hon Duncan MacIntyre, Māori MPs, and members of the Māori Affairs Committee, and the petition itself was delivered to Matiu Rata, MP for Northern Māori. Esme Tombleson, the chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, said New Zealand was fortunate to be a bicultural country and should also be a bilingual country.

We sincerely request that you give our petition a favourable recommendation. We request this because we regard the Government's present policy on Maori language as sheer tokenism.
Hana Te Hemara (Jackson)

The petition was referred to the Education Committee for consideration. The committee's chair, John Chewings, reported back to the House on 12 October. The committee recommended the petition be referred to the Government for favourable consideration and a motion to this effect was put and agreed to.

Continuing the Mahi

Te Petihana Reo Māori, The Māori Language Petition, directly led to the Government introducing optional te reo classes in primary and secondary schools, and the creation of a one-year course to train fluent te reo Māori speakers in teaching to cover the shortfall of qualified teachers.

The petition's original objectives still have not been fully achieved, but many changes have been inspired by the work of the petitioners. Despite te reo Māori classes not being offered in all schools, it is now recognised in law as an official language of New Zealand, following Te Pire Mo Te Reo Maori 1986, (the Maori Language Bill 1986), which came into force on 1 August 1987.

Institutions have been established to safeguard the language and promote its use. Te reo Māori is taught in pre-schools, schools, and tertiary institutions and is supported by programming in mainstream media. The knowledge and use of te reo Māori among New Zealanders has continued to grow. The petitioners' mahi is now continued by many others, who are determined that their objectives will be achieved.

To learn more about other significant steps taken following the presentation of the Māori Language Petition, please see the He aha i pahawa i muri mai? section in the library's research paper.

A commemorative event will be held at Parliament to mark the 50th anniversary of the Māori language petition on on 14 September from 11:30am - 1pm. There will be formal speeches, live music, free kai and time for the celebration of te reo Māori.

Where: When: Parliament's forecourt, corner of Lambton Quay and Molesworth St, Pipitea Wellington
Wenerei 14 o Hepetema ( Wednesday 14 September) 11:30am - 1pm

References

This feature is based on information provided in the Parliamentary Library's paper on the petition, and supplementary information from Te Ara, NZHistory, and Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori | the Māori Language Commission.

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Te Petihana Reo Māori - The Māori Language Petition - New Zealand Parliament

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On 14 September 1972, a call for the recognition and revitalisation of te reo Māori was presented in the form of a petition with over 30,000 signatures.Read on to learn more about this petition and some of the changes it helped lead to.

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Helen Clark is a New Zealand politician. She was the first woman to be elected prime minister of New Zealand. Early Life Clark was born on February 26, 1950, in Hamilton, New…

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Dame Whina Cooper and Māori Land marc... | Items | National Library of New Zealand | National Library of New Zealand

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Dame Whina Cooper and Māori Land march participants on the road | National Library of New Zealand

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Photograph taken circa 14 September 1975 by Christian Heinegg during the Māori Land March of a group of land marchers stopped on the road after lea…

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https://nzhistory.govt.nz/keyword/kate-sheppard

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New Zealand was the first country in the world to grant women the vote. Kate Sheppard, leading light of the suffrage movement, was vindicated when 65% of New Zealand women took the chance to vote in their first general election.

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David Williams, a professor emeritus in the law faculty at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau, pays tribute here to his friend Joe Hawke, who died last month in Tāmaki Makaurau, on May 22. This piece originally appeared in Metro , and is republished here with permission.
On the service sheet for the day of his burial, on May 26, 2022, in Tāmaki Makaurau, Joe Hawke was described as "Son, Brother, Husband, Uncle, Koro, Friend, Superhero."

Hundreds of people arrived, in wave after wave of ope from around the country, to pay their respects to Joe; to express condolences to his wife, Rene, and to the whānau pani; to congratulate Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei on the strength of their commitment to tikanga and reo, and to acknowledge their role as mana whenua of central Tāmaki Makaurau.

In an unforgettable conclusion to the tangi, Joe was not buried in the iwi urupā in Ōkahu Bay. Rather, he was buried in the Bastion Point/Takaparawhau whenua that he strove so mightily to have returned to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei and protected as whenua rangatira (chiefly land).

He was buried within the memorial garden dedicated to Joannee Cooper-Hawke - the five-year-old who died in a tragic fire during the occupation in 1977. It was an exercise of tino rangatiratanga by the iwi that they decided he should be buried there. Official permission for burial in a plot other than in a cemetery will be sought afterwards. I am sure that retrospective official blessing for the burial will be forthcoming.

The memorial will thus gain further significance in highlighting the importance of the 506 nights of occupation led by the Ōrākei Māori Action Committee from January 1977 to May 1978. It was on 25 May 1978, day 507, when a massive army and police operation ended that occupation, demolished meeting house and all other dwellings, and left only the memorial to Joannee.

Mātua Joe lay in state in his ancestral house Tumutumuwhenua for the 44th anniversary of that day of shame. He died in the knowledge that the struggle for Bastion Point Takaparawhau is now fully accepted as an inspiration for tino rangatiratanga aspirations of all iwi and hapū Māori, and indeed is an important aspect of our history for all peoples of the nation of Aotearoa.

The acclamation received by Joe at the end of his life, however, is in stark contrast with the trials and tribulations he and his family suffered for many years.

Joe Hawke is a direct descendant of the rangatira Āpihai Te Kawau whose tuku rangatira (or gift) to Lieutenant Governor William Hobson in September 1840 provided for the establishment of Auckland.

A century later, when Joe Hawke was born in 1940, the only land remaining to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei in the entire Tāmaki isthmus, over which they had exercised their mana for some two centuries, was just 12½ acres of land at Ōkahu Bay.

Joe lived the first 11 years of his life in that papakāinga beside the meeting house Te Puru o Tāmaki . His childhood was spent on the land in that bay, fishing for seafood and playing hide-and-seek with his cousins and siblings.

Then, in traumatic circumstances, which he has recounted on many occasions to explain the mamae or hurts of his people, in 1951, the government used the Public Works Act to take all those remaining acres, apart from a quarter-acre urupā.

The hapū were left landless, the dwellings of the papakāinga were demolished and Te Puru o Tāmaki was burned down. The Hawke whānau were among those who lost their home and became tenants in Māori Affairs Department houses set well apart from the streets of state housing in the rest of Ōrākei, and from the mansions of Paritai Drive on the opposite headland.

In 1975, Te Rōpū o Te Matakite, led by Dame Whina Cooper, organised the Māori Land March. Joe was a leading member of Te Matakite that walked from Te Hāpua in the far north to Parliament in Wellington, and later became its secretary. With his family, he took time out from running his business to be part of that historic reassertion of the importance of land, and its loss, for Māori.

When the Land March entered Tāmaki Makaurau, the marchers famously did so by walking across the Harbour Bridge despite the efforts of the authorities to dissuade them otherwise.

At their head that day, holding high the pouwhenua of Te Matakite, was Joe Hawke. He and his whānau also gathered seafood to help feed the marchers and their supporters at Te Unga Waka marae. Joe was prosecuted for breaches of the Fisheries Regulations in spite of his assertions that he was exercising customary rights in order to demonstrate manaakitanga towards manuhiri in his rohe.

Aggrieved by this prosecution, he took a claim to the newly created Waitangi Tribunal that had been established by an Act of Parliament in 1975. He has the honour of being the very first claimant to be heard by that tribunal. His Wai 1 claim was heard in 1977 in the incongruous setting of the ballroom in the Intercontinental Hotel (now the Pullman Auckland Hotel). The Tribunal refused to inquire into the merits of the Wai 1 claim and dismissed it for technical reasons.

By that time, Joe was leading the Ōrākei Action Committee's occupation of Bastion Point Takaparawhau alongside Grant Hawke, Jack (Mike) Rameka and Roger Rameka. Joe was very much the inspirational leader.

Nowadays the occupation is seen as a pivotal movement in terms of Māori rights and is praised by many. One MP, speaking in the House for the third reading of the Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Claims Settlement Bill in 2012, said that the occupation led by Joe Hawke appealed to the conscience of New Zealanders, drew support from all kinds of people, opened the eyes of Pākehā New Zealand to the injustice of land loss and Treaty breach, and inspired change in this country.

It needs to be said, however, that the Bastion Point Takaparawhau struggle and its aftermath cost Joe and Rene Hawke and their whānau dearly. Though almost everyone now claims to have always supported Ngāti Whātua, that is not true. Joe was pilloried by many people for many years.

After 1978, he was unable to re-establish his business or indeed to obtain any significant employment for many years. He was reviled as a "protester", not as a "protector" of his hapū land. He was not deterred.

He took a leading role in further claims to the Waitangi Tribunal - Wai 9 in 1985-87 that eventually led to the Ōrākei Act 1991 and legally restored the occupied land to the hapū. By then, the tide of history was beginning to turn.

He was elected vice-chairman of the Ngāti Whātua o Ōrākei Trust Board that settled the Surplus Railway Lands issues in 1992 and he was elected a list MP for the Labour Party, serving for two terms between 1996 and 2002. He was vice-chair of the Trust Board whose members lodged the Wai 388 claim to settle the wider historical grievances of the hapū, and which finally led to the 2012 Settlement Act.

Year in and year out, Joe has continued to speak of the injustices of the past, and to proclaim the importance of struggles for justice - especially in welcoming rōpū to Ōrākei marae, and most recently the occupation at Ihumātao.

But only late in his life have his efforts been suitably recognised by the nation. In 2008, he was invested with the insignia of Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) for services to Māori and the community. In December 2021, the University of Auckland/Waipapa Taumata Rau bestowed on Joe an honorary Doctor of Law (LLD) degree.

Titahi, a seer from Ngāti Whātua in earlier times, had a vision which is rendered as a frequently sung waiata in these parts:
He aha te hau e wawara mai. He tiu, he raki, he tiu he raki. Nāna i ā mai te pūpūtarakihi ki uta. E tikina atu e au ki te kōtiu kukume mai ai? Koia te pou whakairo ka tū ki Waitematā i oku wairangi e. What is that wind roaring and rumbling? It was the wind in the north, a wind that brought the nautilus shell ashore. I must fetch that new power and stand it here in the Waitematā alongside and as a new mana.
The vision of that ancient seer sought to enhance the honour and mana due to Ngāti Whātua. The life and work of Joe Hawke has contributed greatly to the mana of his people.
Dr Joseph Parata Hawke MNZM, was born on May 4, 1940, and died on May 22, 2022. David V Williams FRSNZ is a professor emeritus in the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau and had the privilege of being a friend of Joe and Rene for 47 years of Joe's life.
This piece originally appeared in this month's Metro, and was made possible by NZ On Air through the Public Interest Journalism Fund.
For more on Takaparawhau/Bastion Point and Ngāti Whātua, see also: Bastion Point: A desperate struggle and a dream fulfilled Sharon Hawke: The media were there to discredit us Ngarimu Blair: For Ngāti Whātua, a new fight Ngarimu Blair: We'll never lose our mana
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"When Joe Hawke was born in 1940, the only land remaining to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei in the entire Tāmaki isthmus, over which they had exercised their mana for some two centuries, was just 12½ acres of land at Ōkahu Bay." - Professor David Williams.

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Trailblazers - Mabel Howard | nzherald.co.nz

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Joe Hawke made people pay attention.

He was a protester, a politician, and many other things. But across the kōrero and memories shared this week, it became clear that Hawke, at his core, was a man who could bring people together.

And many people came together. At Ōrākei Marae this week, thousands have arrived to pay their respects at his tangi. Politicians from across Parliament, the Māori King, Tūheitia, journalists, former friends and protesters, alongside hundreds of students from kura across Tāmaki Makaurau, came to say goodbye.

Hawke died on Sunday, aged 82.

READ MORE:
* Dame Temuranga June Batley-Jackson, an advocate for urban Māori, dies
* We are maturing as a nation by embracing and progressing our use of te reo and tikanga Māori

Te Arawa lawyer Annette Sykes was still young when Hawke led the 506-day protest, at Takaparawhau (Bastion Point).

It started small, with a few Māori pitching tents atop the hill. But the protest grew, and became a movement. It was a movement Sykes says sent ripples across the globe, inspiring similar stands for indigenous rights across Aotearoa and in countries such as Australia.

She was in Rotorua, at the time, caring for children of protesters such as Tame Iti who had travelled up to support Hawke and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei at Takaparawhau. While Hawke was best known for his role leading the Bastion Point protest, his activism did not stop there.

"This is Bastion Point and here, he created a bastion for the sovereignty of our people," Sykes said.

"He made change seem easy. As a young woman, I looked to him and thought protesting would be easy. With the movements that followed Bastion Point, I was encouraged by him to go Raglan and look after Eva Rickard and their movement there."

Hawke was one of a generation of boundary-pushing Māori activists, such as Rickard, who fought for history-making recognition of Māori rights and culture throughout what became known as the Māori Renaissance.

He worked alongside the likes of Dame Whina Cooper, as secretary of the Matakite organisation during the 1975 land march.

"With the loss of Moana Jackson and June Jackson and many great leaders in recent times, it seems like we are farewelling a generation of people who have fought significantly to decolonise this nation," Sykes said.

Their work to decolonise Aotearoa was hard and often unpopular, but it started to bear results.

At Takaparawhau, the land was finally returned to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei in 1988 as part of the first of the Treaty of Waitangi claims settlements under the David Lange Government.

Just years earlier, the Robert Muldoon Government had met Hawke's movement with force.

On May 25, 1978, the army arrived at Bastion Point. Muldoon sent 800 police and army officers to destroy the settlement. They knocked over the marae, houses and māra kai (vegetable gardens) and arrested 222 people.

Former MP Hone Harawira​ was one of those 222 people.

He and other surviving members "of the 222" reunited on Wednesday morning, 44 years to the day, for Hawke's tangi.

"It's a sad occasion," he said, "but it feels like a wonderful occasion."

"By Joe making a stand, and putting Ngāti Whātua into a position where they could force their way forward and force the Crown to recognise their rights, so many other things have come from that. Joe is the person who made this happen. It's as simple as that."

Since then, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei has transformed into an economic and cultural powerhouse of Auckland - worth more than $1 billion. It provides social services and invests in education and housing for its people.

Since Sunday, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei have hosted thousands of people who travelled to Auckland to pay their respects to Hawke.

On Wednesday afternoon, former colleagues from the Labour Party joined his tangi.

Māori Development Minister Willie Jackson said Hawke's work had been "immortalised in Māori and New Zealand folklore".

"Joe stood up for his people and was a tremendous leader and role model. He will be sorely missed."

Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson remembered working with Hawke when he first entered Parliament. Hawke was a Labour list MP from 1996 to 2002.

"He always had time for a kōrero and his humble words came with wisdom and strength of character. He was a leader of his Ngāti Whātua people, his mahi at Bastion Point and beyond - never forgotten," Robertson said.

Hawke would be laid to rest on Thursday.

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Joe Hawke brought thousands together for decolonisation - they returned for his tangi

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Joe Hawke made people pay attention. He was a protester, a politician, and many other things. But across the kōrero and memories shared this week, it became clear that Hawke, at his core, was a man who could bring people together. And many people came together.

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Led by Joe Hawke, the Ōrākei Māori Action Committee occupied Takaparawhā (Bastion Point reserve), a promontory overlooking Auckland's Waitematā Harbour. Ngāti Whātua maintained the land had been unjustly taken from them and were angered by plans to subdivide it for a private housing development.

In April 1977, a disused warehouse was re-erected on the site as Arohanui Marae, but facilities were rudimentary and in winter the exposed promontory was a bleak place to live. In February 1978, the government offered to return some land and houses to Ngāti Whātua if the iwi paid $200,000 in development costs. The occupiers stayed put, but on 25 May - 506 days after they had arrived - a large force of police moved in to evict them, arresting 222 protestors and demolishing buildings.

When the jurisdiction of the Waitangi Tribunal was widened to cover retrospective issues, Joe Hawke's Ōrākei claim was the first historical claim to be heard. The Tribunal's 1987 report recommended the return of land to Ngāti Whātua, and the following year the government agreed (see 1 July).

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Led by Joe Hawke, the Ōrākei Māori Action Committee occupied Takaparawhā (Bastion Point reserve), a promontory overlooking Auckland's Waitematā Harbour. Ngāti Whātua maintained the land had been unjustly taken from them and were angered by plans to subdivide it for a private housing development.

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Table of Contents

This article was most recently revised and updated by

Kate Sheppard, née Catherine Wilson Malcolm, (born March 10, 1847, Liverpool, England-died July 13, 1934, Christchurch, New Zealand), English-born activist, who was a leader in the woman suffrage movement in New Zealand. She was instrumental in making New Zealand the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote (1893).

Largely raised and educated in Scotland, she moved to New Zealand in the late 1860s, and in 1871 she married Walter Allen Sheppard, a storekeeper. An early feminist, she believed that women should participate fully in all aspects of society, including politics. Among the causes she first adopted was dress reform for women, primarily the abolishment of corsets and other constrictive clothing. In an era when women were encouraged to be "ladylike," she also promoted bicycling and other physical activity for women. In 1885 Sheppard joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and two years later became leader of the WCTU's suffrage campaign. A tireless advocate, she wrote pamphlets, organized meetings and lectures, and presented a series of petitions to Parliament. Several suffrage bills failed before Parliament finally granted women the right to vote in 1893. Sheppard was later active in woman suffrage movements in other countries, including England and the United States.

In 1896 Sheppard helped establish the National Council of Women (NCW) and became its first president. Among the issues she supported were greater equality in marriage and the right of women to run for Parliament. Although poor health forced her to step down as president of the NCW in 1903, she remained a prominent figure in the women's rights movement. Upon Sheppard's death in 1934, a newspaper obituary proclaimed: "A great woman has gone, whose name will remain an inspiration to the daughters of New Zealand while our history endures." Her image appears on the New Zealand $10 banknote.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Amy Tikkanen.

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Kate Sheppard, née Catherine Wilson Malcolm, (born March 10, 1847, Liverpool, England-died July 13, 1934, Christchurch, New Zealand), English-born activist, who was a leader in the woman suffrage movement in New Zealand. She was instrumental in making New Zealand the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote (1893).

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EBSCO Information Services, Inc. | www.ebsco.com

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Michael Joseph Savage was a prominent Australian-born politician and the first Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand, serving from 1935 until his death in 1940. Born on March 23, 1872, in Tatong, Victoria, he overcame early personal hardships, including the death of his mother, to pursue a career in labor and politics. After emigrating to New Zealand in 1907, Savage became actively involved in unions and socialist movements, eventually joining the Labour Party in 1916. His political career was marked by a commitment to social equality and economic reform, particularly during the Great Depression. Savage’s government introduced groundbreaking legislation, including the Social Security Act of 1938, which established a framework for universal health care and pensions, making New Zealand a pioneer in welfare state policies. He earned acclaim as a compassionate and effective leader, often referred to as the father of New Zealand’s welfare state. Savage’s legacy endures in New Zealand, where he is celebrated for his contributions to social justice and remains a revered figure in the nation’s history, evidenced by memorials and continued public admiration. He passed away on March 27, 1940, leaving a lasting impact on New Zealand’s social policies.

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Savage, Michael Joseph | Dictionary of New Zealand Biography | Te Ara

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Michael Savage was born on 23 March 1872 at Tatong, near Benalla in Victoria, Australia, the youngest of eight children of Irish immigrants Richard Savage and his wife, Johanna Hayes. Michael’s mother died in 1878 when he was only five, and he was raised thereafter largely by his sister Rose. Brought up in the Roman Catholic religion, Savage for much of his life was a militant rationalist but returned to the Catholic church a few years before his death.

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Remembering Bastion Point occupation leader Joe Hawke

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Howard, Mabel Bowden | Dictionary of New Zealand Biography | Te Ara

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Mabel Bowden Howard was born in Bowden, Adelaide, Australia, on 18 April 1894, the second of three daughters of Edwin (Ted) John Howard, a labourer, and his wife, Harriett Garard Goring. The family lived mostly in Australia, although sometimes in New Zealand, until Harriett’s death in Adelaide in 1903. Ted then returned to Christchurch with their daughters. He was often poor and had to leave the girls with Harriett’s relatives for lengthy periods while he sought work.

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Michael Joseph Savage | prime minister of New Zealand

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Michael Joseph Savage: Michael Joseph Savage, statesman who, as New Zealand's first Labour prime minister (1935-40), won public support for his administration's economic recovery and social-welfare programs. After working as a gold miner and a labour organizer in Australia, Savage immigrated to New Zealand in 1907, where

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The bloomers she waved before Parliament were large, but Mabel Howard’s achievements were bigger.

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My Favourite Dead Person | Season 1 | Episode 3: Kate Sheppard

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Who is the face on Aotearoa’s ten-dollar note, and how did she help to win women the vote? Find out as our tamariki explore the story of Kate Sheppard.

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In 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world where women achieved the right to vote.

Battle of the buttonholes

For suffrage leader Kate Sheppard and her thousands of supporters, the white camellia became a symbol of women's suffrage in New Zealand when parliamentary supporters were given them to wear in their buttonholes. Those against the movement wore red camellias.

Why camellias?

The white camellia had traditionally symbolised 'womenly excellence' and bouquets of white camellias were presented to early female graduates in New Zealand at their ceremonies. Their political use started in Wellington during the campaign for enfranchisement.

The memorial walk

In 1993, the Kate Sheppard Memorial Walk was officially opened to commemorate 100 years of women's suffrage in New Zealand. One hundred groups, individuals and companies were invited to donate 100 camellias, plaques, a sign and seating to create the walkway.

The Kate Sheppard camellia

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage, a new white camellia was bred by Viv Joyce and her father, Alf Gamlin of Camellia Glen Nurseries in Taranaki.

Camellia japonica 'Kate Sheppard' is a large semi-double to peony form camellia with an upright growth habit. It flowers from July to October, and multiple plants can be seen along the walkway.

Perfect placement

In 1963, the 100-year centenary of the Botanic Gardens, then Curator Lawrie Metcalf proposed to name the unnamed lawns after members of the original Domains Board who helped found the Botanic Gardens.

One such lawn is the lawn directly across the river from the Kate Sheppard Memorial Walk. This lawn - the Hall Lawn - was named for Sir John Hall, who happened to be the biggest parliamentary supporter of women's enfranchisement, and of Kate Sheppard, in the 1890s.

Thirty years later, the Kate Sheppard Memorial Walk was established opposite the Hall Lawn, completely by coincidence.

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This special grove of camellias was planted in 1993 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in New Zealand.

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Community Leaders - My Favourite Dead Person | Princess Te Puea Hērangi | Jelal Netali |

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Herald online15 Oct, 1929 04:44 AMQuick Read

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1929, Te Puea Herangi: Mobilising communities - NZ Herald

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Get the latest local and breaking news, updates, opinion and insights from across New Zealand. News worth knowing - NZ Herald - your source for NZ news.

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Papers Past | Newspapers | Press | 17 October 1952 | Te Puea Herangi

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Te Puea Herangi
The attendance of leaders of the community—both Maori and European—at the ceremonies at which Princess Te Puea Herangi is being mourned is a fitting testimony to the great life work of a remarkable New Zealand woman. Te Puea Herangi, usually known as Princess I Te Puea, was born to high rank among the Waikato and NgatiManiapoto tribes, her mother being the eldest daughter of Tawhiao, the second Maori King. Te Puea had European blood from her paternal grandfather, William Searancke, an early magistrate in the Waikato; but she had no early associations with her European relatives. She grew up with her Maori people, with whom her hereditary rank gave her great influence and ! authority. But these alone were I not responsible for all she achieved. [Te Puea was a woman of remarkisle character and striking personBh- She grew up among a people and embittered by the of their lands after the war of the early sixties, later life, at least, she sign of bitterness. The i people, until fairly tended to keep very J**.,* nselves, any g. cmBL’ in their district was jwr ~ and sus- \ ‘■’■i’.r.‘-d Puea, more than any
I other leader, was responsible for a I better understanding with successive I governments; and the most important part of her life’s work was her ’association (which began in 1928) with Sir Apirana Ngata’s communal land settlement schemes. In face of strong opposition, she agreed to co-operate in land development schemes in the Waikato, seeing clearly enough that the people could not live on the memory of their wrongs. She was for some time in charge of the Waikato schemes herself, organising with great skill and economy the work of the younger Maoris. The finished marae at Ngaruawahia is a memorial to her. Sir Apirana Ngata described it as the fulfilment of a woman’s dream, challenging all those who were pessimistic about the vitality of the race and its adaptability. Te Puea had great gifts of personal leadership, the main strength of which came from personal example. She taught herself to carve, as an example to her people; she was a practical farmer and learnt to drive a tractor. At the same time she was a politician of wisdom and vision. Undoubtedly, she was the most influential adviser of the last three Maori Kings, Mahuta (her uncle), Te Rata (her cousin), and Koroki (both cousin and nephew by marriage). At various times Te Puea was criticised by both Maoris and Europeans; but her critics have long since conceded that her merits far outweighed any deficiencies. Te Puea’s work notably advanced the welfare of the Maori people and was responsible for modifying the anti-European attitude of a considerable section of Maoris. These achievements contributed it no small measure both to the progress of the Maori race during her lifetime and to harmonious associations between the two races. For these notable contributions to the development of her country, Te Puea Herangi will be gratefully remembered by New Zealanders, both Maori and European.

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Te Puea Hērangi was granddaughter of the second Māori King. She was a staunch opponent of conscription for Waikato during the First World War and a prominent advocate for Tainui.

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Te Puea Hērangi was born at Whatiwhatihoe, near Pirongia, on 9 November 1883. Her mother was Tiahuia, daughter of Tāwhiao Te Wherowhero of Ngāti Mahuta, the second Māori King, and his senior wife, Hera. Her father was Te Tahuna Hērangi, son of William Searancke, an English surveyor, and Hāriata Rangitaupa of Ngāti Ngāwaero hapū of Ngāti Maniapoto. Te Puea was thus born into the kāhui ariki, the family of the first Māori King, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, in the difficult years following the wars of the 1860s and the extensive confiscation of Tainui lands. She was to play a crucial role alongside three successive kings in re-establishing the Kīngitanga (King movement) as a central force among the Tainui people, and in achieving national recognition of its importance.

Te Puea's family moved when she was young to Pukekawa and then to Mangatāwhiri, near Mercer, and between 1895 and 1898 she attended primary schools in Mercer and Auckland. She was known to her family as Te Kirihaehae. Her young adult years were exuberant, and she had several short-lived relationships. During one in particular - with a Pākehā, Roy Seccombe - she cut herself off from her people. Mahuta, Te Puea's uncle and successor to Tāwhiao as king, himself intervened in about 1910 to draw her back. He had picked her out in her childhood as having unusual abilities, and had spent many hours passing on his knowledge to her; now he appealed to her to remember her duty to the Kīngitanga and the people. Te Puea returned to Mangatāwhiri and took up a burden that sat heavily upon her.

The early years in particular were difficult, because there was some resentment of her new position (her main support came from the people of Mercer and the lower Waikato); but she persevered with courage against the odds. She had her first test as a leader in 1911. Mahuta had decided to approve Māui Pōmare as parliamentary candidate for Western Māori in place of Hēnare Kaihau, previously the nominee of the Kīngitanga. Te Puea accompanied Pōmare around the villages of the lower Waikato; her support ensured his election.

Te Puea's influence became more firmly established among Tainui people during the First World War, when she led their opposition to the government's conscription policy. She understood the sense of alienation that the military invasion, occupation and confiscation of land had imposed upon the people, and understood, too, that the Kīngitanga held the key to restoring their sense of purpose. Te Puea was guided all her life by Tāwhiao's sayings; more than anyone else, she gathered them together. During the war she drew on Tāwhiao's words forbidding Waikato to take up arms again after he had finally made his peace with the Crown in 1881. She stood firm with those men who did not wish to fight a war that was not theirs, on behalf of a government that had dispossessed and scattered their people. But the government was impatient with what it saw as defiance and disloyalty, and compounded Tainui feelings of injustice by conscripting Māori only from the Waikato-Maniapoto district.

At this difficult time Te Puea's leadership was of great importance to Tainui. The revival of the Pai Mārire faith, brought to Waikato from Taranaki by Tāwhiao, helped to strengthen the people. Te Puea expressed her own opposition to conscription in specially composed waiata such as 'E huri rā koe', 'Kāti nei e te iwi te kumekume roa' and 'Ngā rā o Hune ka ara te pakanga', and gathered together the men liable for conscription at Te Paina (the pā she had rebuilt at Mangatāwhiri) to support them. They were balloted in groups in 1918, then arrested and taken to Narrow Neck training camp at Auckland, where they were subjected to severe military punishments if they refused to wear uniform. Te Puea would travel north and sit outside where the men could see her from time to time; it gave them much-needed encouragement.

Te Puea was now determined to rebuild a centre for the Kīngitanga at Ngāruawāhia, its original home before the confiscation, in accordance with Tāwhiao's wishes. She was dissatisfied with the swampy conditions at Mangatāwhiri and wished to make a new start in the wake of the tragic influenza epidemic of late 1918, which had struck the settlement with devastating effect, leaving a quarter of the people dead. Te Puea gathered up 100 orphaned children from lower Waikato and placed them in the care of the remaining families. But she needed a better home for them. In 1920 Waikato leaders were able to buy 10 acres of confiscated land on the bank of the Waikato River opposite the township and by 1921 Te Puea was ready to begin moving the people from Mangatāwhiri to build a new marae, to be called Tūrangawaewae. It seemed an impossible plan, given the distance the people had to travel and their lack of resources, and Te Puea was frank with them about the difficulties they would face. Years of hard work followed, draining and filling swampy scrub-covered land, and raising funds for the building of a sleeping house for visitors and, later, a large carved house intended as a hospital. They had also to overcome the attitudes of the Pākehā citizens of Ngāruawāhia, who initially tried to have them removed from the borough.

In these years a community was welded together under Te Puea's leadership. In the evenings an expert in haka taught the young people, and Te Puea formed a group named Te Pou o Mangatāwhiri. Its name commemorates the pou (post) erected by the Kīngitanga at Mangatāwhiri beyond which Pākehā were not to acquire land or authority, an injunction they ignored. Te Pou o Mangatāwhiri set out to raise the hundreds of pounds needed for the carved house by performing in halls and theatres throughout the North Island. Te Puea kept morale high on the tours, gathering the young people together to tell them stories and share her hopes with them, joking, jumping to her feet to show them how to improve their haka, how to pūkana. In 1927 they toured the East Coast, where Apirana Ngata, MP for Eastern Māori, led Ngāti Porou in giving strong support to the building of the carved house. It was the start of a long friendship between Te Puea and Ngata. At his suggestion the house was named Māhinārangi, after the ancestor who had united Tainui with the tribes of the East Coast. Six thousand people attended the hui to open the house in March 1929.

Other events of significance to the Kīngitanga occurred in the 1920s. In 1927 a royal commission chaired by W. A. Sim considered the confiscation of land in the 1860s. It recommended the payment of £3,000 annually to Waikato as compensation; both the offer and some of the commission's findings were unacceptable, and negotiations over a settlement occupied the next 20 years. Te Puea was also increasingly becoming known outside Waikato. Her friendship with Ngata and Gordon Coates led her into frequent contacts with government officials, and another friend, Eric Ramsden, a journalist, persuaded her of the value of publicity for her work. Articles about 'Princess' Te Puea began to appear in newspapers and magazines.

With Tūrangawaewae marae established, Te Puea turned her attention to building an economic base for the people, dependent until now on seasonal wage-labour, and already feeling the impact of the depression. Ngata became native minister at the end of 1928, and his legislation providing for state loans to Māori farmers put land development within the reach of Waikato. The development schemes began on small pockets of land at Waiuku and Onewhero. Te Puea became the supervisor of the schemes and travelled constantly among them, taking families from Ngāruawāhia to help with the work. She shared Ngata's vision of land development and dairy farming as the basis of strong communities; and as the farms were subdivided and homes and milking sheds built, she established or extended marae throughout Waikato. Sometimes she chose the place herself, as at Mangatangi and Rākaumanga, supervising all the arrangements from cutting the trees to plastering the walls with cement over soaked, cleaned sacks. At Mangatangi she named the house Tamaoho, and had a great canvas painted telling the story of Tamaoho, and the migration of Ngāti Tamaoho long before from Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) through the Hūnua Range into the Mangatangi area. The dining hall here is named for her: Kirihaehae. New marae were incorporated into the round of Poukai gatherings instituted by Tāwhiao, which are still at the heart of the Kīngitanga: an annual visit by the King - and, more recently, the Queen - to each marae to consult the people.

By the mid 1930s the Tūrangawaewae community was well established. In 1940 Te Puea was able to buy a farm close to the marae, which she hoped would bring in an income to sustain Tūrangawaewae. She and her husband Rāwiri Tūmōkai Kātipa (whom she had married at the wish of the kāhui ariki in 1922) lived there for the next 12 years, and a whole generation grew up working on the farm. Te Puea left the Kīngitanga strong because of the central beliefs with which the young people grew to adulthood: faith, dedication to the Kīngitanga, respect for kawa, the importance of caring for visitors, and the value of hard work. Each day began and ended with Pai Mārire karakia, drawing the people together from wherever they were working. This day-to-day expression of unity was of great importance to Te Puea; it reflected long-held Kīngitanga beliefs that the burden of the wars and the confiscation must be carried by the people together if they were to find the strength to survive it. So Te Puea never mentioned hapū (though she was an acknowledged expert on whakapapa); nor did she encourage the people to identify themselves by hapū. They thought of themselves as Waikato.

By the late 1930s Te Puea and the Kīngitanga had attracted increasing official recognition. She was appointed a CBE in 1937. The following year, the governor general, Lord Galway, officially opened Tūrongo, the striking carved house that Te Puea had built for King Korokī at Tūrangawaewae; it was named for the ancestor who had married Māhinārangi. Because of the improvement in Kīngitanga relations with the government, Te Puea was willing to contemplate Waikato's joining the Waitangi centennial celebrations in 1940. Some years before she had set out to restore the skill of canoe building. Rānui Maupakanga supervised the refitting of the old canoe, Te Winika, by a team of younger carvers. Te Puea's vision of a fleet representing the traditional voyaging canoes came closer to fulfilment. In 1936 the government seemed willing to help a project that could also serve a purpose at the Waitangi centennial; but the funds were slow in coming, and eventually only one canoe, Ngā-toki-mata-whao-rua, was completed in time.

Tainui ultimately stayed away from Waitangi in 1940. Te Puea was affronted by the government's refusal to exempt Korokī from the necessity to register under the Social Security Act of 1938, seeing this as evidence of its continuing failure to recognise his mana. But she was also angered by the fate of an action brought by Hoani Te Heuheu Tūkino, of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, against the Aotea District Māori Land Board to prevent Māori land being charged for the payment of debts. Late in 1938 the case went to the Court of Appeal, which would not countenance Ngāti Tūwharetoa attempts to rely on the Treaty of Waitangi because it was not part of domestic law. The Tainui boycott of the Waitangi celebrations made the headlines, and Te Puea was reported to have quoted with approval the saying of an elder: 'This is an occasion for rejoicing on the part of the Pākehās and those tribes who have not suffered any injustices during the past 100 years.'

Te Puea had been raised with a 'bitter, poignant memory' of the 1860s war and confiscations. As a child she had heard stories first hand from those who had suffered in the fighting. But she was very anxious for a settlement so that the people could begin to put the pain of the past behind them. In 1946 she decided to accept Prime Minister Peter Fraser's offer of £5,000 per year in perpetuity, to be administered by the Tainui Māori Trust Board, not because it was an adequate settlement of the people's losses, but because she was immensely practical, and knew it was the best deal she could get at the time. Above all, it was a vindication.

Te Puea's depth of feeling about the confiscation, however, never affected her many personal friendships with Pākehā - some of them very close - nor her strong belief that the two peoples should learn to respect one another's cultures so that they could live comfortably together. She sometimes talked intensely about this, tracing along two fingers the parallel paths of two canoes - Māori and Pākehā. Māori, she said, should show the Pākehā what was good in Māori culture, and should in turn take from Pākehā friends what was good in theirs. In informal conversation she tried to convey to Pākehā politicians an understanding of central Māori values. When Peter Fraser asked her opinion about a current concern of employers that Māori were unreliable because they tended to disappear to tangihanga, Te Puea tried to explain: Māori had to live and work in a Pākehā world, but a Māori attending a tangihanga or a hui 'comes back right into the middle of things Māori...he recharges his Māori batteries.'

One of the measures of Te Puea's achievements is that she achieved a national status for the Kīngitanga among both Māori and Pākehā. Mahuta had tried to bridge the gap between Tainui and the Crown by going to Wellington as a member of the Legislative Council; Te Puea bridged it by inviting governors general and politicians - Reform, United, and Labour in succession - to Ngāruawāhia. If distinguished visitors came to honour the Kīngitanga it would help the people to overcome their suspicion of government.

Yet friendship with the government never meant compromise when Māori rights were at stake. In 1931 she secured the dismissal of a Pākehā supervisor of the Waiuku land development schemes, Patrick Barry, because she thought him preoccupied with cost-cutting and lacking in sympathy with the broader purpose of the schemes. During the Second World War she still would not encourage Tainui men to enlist, though she raised thousands of pounds for the Red Cross. In 1941 she told Fraser, 'Look, Peter, it's perfectly simple. I'm not anti-Pākehā; I'm not pro-German; I'm pro-Māori.' And in 1940 she supported Ngāti Whātua against the government and the Auckland City Council, who were trying to evict the people from their remaining fragments of ancestral land at Ōkahu Bay. Her friendship with Fraser was strained by her active involvement.

Throughout her life Te Puea strengthened Kīngitanga networks beyond Tainui. She travelled a great deal, often (in later years) with King Korokī, and through personal friendships established lasting relationships among many tribes in Taranaki, the Whanganui district, on the East Coast, and in the far north. This in turn helped the re-establishment of people's belief in the importance of the Kīngitanga and in the Waikato people as its guardian. Te Puea's close friendship with Tau Hēnare of Ngāti Hine, MP for Northern Māori, is reflected in the inscription of her words in the meeting house at Mōtatau, far from home: 'Ka mahi au, ka inoi au, ka moe au, ka mahi ano' (I work, I pray, I sleep, and then I work again). This was the answer Te Puea had given the Pākehā press when they wanted to know what to write about her when she received her CBE. Her vision of the unity of the tribes was obvious in her enthusiasm for the celebrations in 1950 for the 600th anniversary of the arrival of the 'Great Fleet' of traditional voyaging canoes, conceived by Ngata and Peter Buck as a series of national hui. Te Puea joined with Ngata in planning the hui, and she had nine model canoes carved for the final hui at Tūrangawaewae, to be presented to descendants of the chiefs of the first canoes. Beyond New Zealand, she established relationships in the Pacific, travelling in 1947 to Tonga and the Cook Islands. With her she took King Korokī's daughter, Piki, the future Māori Queen Te Atairangikaahu. Te Puea was conscious of past links with other Polynesian peoples, and hoped that this visit would make possible future contact with them. She also saw the importance for the Kīngitanga of strengthening a sense of identity with other hereditary Polynesian leaderships.

In other ways, too, Te Puea looked to the future of the people. She changed her mind about the dangers of Pākehā education, becoming a member of a school committee. Korokī wanted his adopted son, Robert Te Kotahi Mahuta, to be a mechanic, but Te Puea intervened to send him instead to Mount Albert Grammar School in Auckland; he would later become principal negotiator for Waikato's continuing claims against the Crown arising from the confiscation of their land. She also sent Piki to the Anglican Waikato Diocesan School for Girls in Hamilton. She welcomed the various Christian churches back to the marae, but was particularly close to the ministers and deaconesses of the Methodist church, some of whom were good friends and advisers. From the mid 1930s she worked closely with the new medical officer of health, H. B. Turbott, to tackle high mortality rates from typhoid and tuberculosis. Although the Department of Health had long ago foiled her attempt to provide medical care in a Māori environment in Māhinārangi, she succeeded in the early 1940s in opening a clinic at Tūrangawaewae House (the former Kauhanganui house), where the people felt comfortable. When the Māori Women's Welfare League was formed in 1951, she was elected its first patron.

Te Puea took the most active leadership role in Waikato in her generation. Driven by a vision of restoring the strength of Tainui, she was able to achieve it because of her mana, her tremendous will, the strength she derived from her faith and the guidance of her ancestors, the loyalty she inspired in others, and her remarkable planning and organisational skills. She had a great warmth and generosity, and a wonderful sense of humour, and she communicated easily with people, whatever their background, in Māori or in English. She loved children and was greatly loved by them in turn even though they might be growled at. As she grew older the young ones were in awe of her, watching her direct the affairs of the marae. Often she was very unwell, but nevertheless she worked seven days a week all her adult life.

Although she enjoyed big occasions from time to time, such as balls in Kimikimi with the Te Pou Mangatāwhiri band playing, the old people remember her best in her bag apron and hat, working in the gardens, planting flower beds and raspberry canes, grubbing out blackberry roots, feeding the pigs. She feared the purposelessness of life without work for all the people, just as she feared the impact of drink on family life, and would not let alcohol on the marae. She tried to protect her young people from repeating what she later saw as the mistakes of her own early life: forbidding them to smoke, and marching into hotels to order barmen not to serve drinks to the women, banging her walking stick on the floor. But if the young people sometimes found her strict, they also recognised her deep concern for them all.

Te Puea died at home on 12 October 1952 after a long final illness. Tūmōkai Kātipa lived until 1985. They had no children of their own, but adopted many; their favourite, Pirihira Kātipa, passed away aged only nine in 1939. Te Puea's tangihanga lasted a week and thousands of people made their way to Ngāruawāhia. The prime minister and leader of the opposition attended the funeral; the BBC devoted a broadcast to her memory, and telegrams came from many parts of the world.

Te Puea was recognised as a remarkable leader whose achievements communicated across cultures, and she was hailed as 'the greatest Māori woman of our time'. There was little recognition, though, of the poverty and powerlessness that she had spent her life fighting, and the New Zealand government was still a long way from accepting the statement of Māori autonomy embodied in the Kīngitanga. She would not have liked the constant references to 'Princess' Te Puea; it was a title originally bestowed on her by Pākehā, which she never used herself. The strength of the Kīngitanga at the time of Te Puea's passing is the greatest testimony to her life's work; and on the marae at Ngāruawāhia her unseen presence is felt still.
Written with Te Arikinui Te Ātairangikaahu, Heeni Wharemaru, Mere Taka, Tauhou Mokena and Denese Hēnare.

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Te Puea Hērangi was born at Whatiwhatihoe, near Pirongia, on 9 November 1883. Her mother was Tiahuia, daughter of Tāwhiao Te Wherowhero of Ngāti Mahuta, the second Māori King, and his senior wife, Hera. Her father was Te Tahuna Hērangi, son of William Searancke, an English surveyor, and Hāriata Rangitaupa of Ngāti Ngāwaero hapū of Ngāti Maniapoto.

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Princess Te Puea, Te Kirihaehae Te Puea Herangi - CBE — Business Hall of Fame

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New Zealand’s Prime Minister: The Legacy of Michael joseph Savage

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A DigitalNZ story by: Michael Woods - An Essay looking at the life of the first Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand, Michael Joseph Savage (1872-1940)

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Papers Past | Newspapers | Wanganui Chronicle | 30 May 1947 | MISS MABEL HOWARD GETS the PORTFOLIO OF HEALTH

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MISS MABEL HOWARD GETS the PORTFOLIO OF HEALTH
(P.A.) Wellington, May 29 The Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, announced to-day the reallocation of Cabinet portfolios following the swearing-in of Miss Mabel Howard at a special meeting of the Executive Council held at Parliament House this morning, presided over by the Gov-ernor-General. Miss Mabel Howard is appointed Minister of Health, including hospitals, and Minister in Charge of Mental Hospitals. These appointments were previously held by Mr. Nordmeyer. Miss Howard will also be associated’ with the Child Welfare Department and other administrative activities especially affecting women and children. Mr. Nordmeyer has been appointed Minister of Industries and Commerce and becomes Minister of Supply and Minister in Charge of the Scientific and Industrial Research Department. As Minister of Industries and Commerce, he is also in charge of stabilisation.

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Political legend

Mabel Howard was a Christchurch legend. Campbell Smith examines the life of the first woman Cabinet Minister in the Commonwealth in his play "Mabel."

The play, which won the 1981 Playwrights award for the best new play, will be staged at the Court Studio from April 19.

It tells of a woman who was famed for her earthy and practical approach to politics and was champion of the "little people."

In 1943 Miss Howard was elected as member of Parliament for Christchurch East, and in 1946 she became the member for Sydenham, the seat held by her father, Ted Howard. In the election, Miss How-

ard polled the highest majority of any candidate in New Zealand. She became a Minister in the 1947 and 1951 Labour administrations and finally retired from political life in 1969. But the day Mabel Howard is perhaps most remembered for was when she waved two pairs of bloomers in Parliament in defence of standardisation. Her stand has become part of New Zealand folklore. Sara Jones, well known to television audiences, will play Mabel Howard. She will be joined on stage by John Curry, Barry Empson and Mary Spencer. Simon Allison has designed the set and Yvonne Martin will direct the production.

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19830413.2.99.2

Bibliographic details

Press, 13 April 1983, Page 18

Word Count

208

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Papers Past | Newspapers | Press | 13 April 1983 | Political legend

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Political legend Mabel Howard was a Christchurch legend. Campbell Smith examines the life of the first woman Cabinet Minister in the Commonwealth in his play "Mabel." The play, which won the 1981 Playwrights award for the best new play, will be staged at the Court Studio from April 19.

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This article was most recently revised and updated by

Āpirana Ngata (born July 3, 1874, Kawaka, New Zealand-died July 14, 1950, Waiomatatini) was a political and cultural leader of the Māori community in New Zealand. He was a major force behind the improvement of government policy toward the Māori in the early 20th century.

Earning his law degree in 1897, Ngata became the first Māori graduate of a New Zealand university and worked briefly as a lawyer before becoming active in the nationalist Young Māori Party. In 1905 he began his 39-year term of office in Parliament, representing the eastern Māori constituency. He was knighted in 1927, and he served as minister of native affairs from 1928 to 1934.

In 1931 Ngata inaugurated his Māori land-development plan, which improved the quality of his people's agriculture and expanded the amount of Māori land under cultivation. His efforts to improve educational opportunities for the Māori included the founding of the Māori Purposes Fund to finance school construction.

Deeply committed to the preservation of the Māori culture, Ngata helped to found the Māori Board of Ethnological Research and served as its chairman from 1928 to 1934. His contributions to Polynesian anthropology included a nine-year term as president of the Polynesian society and his Nga Moteatea (1929), largely a collection of songs and chants of the various Māori tribes.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica.

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Apirana Ngata | Biography, Education, Achievements, & Facts

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Apirana Ngata, political and cultural leader of the Maori community in New Zealand. He was the first Maori graduate of a New Zealand university, a lawyer, active in the Young Maori Party, and a major force behind the improvement of government policy toward the Maori in the early 20th century.

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Sir Āpirana Ngata | MA and an LLB | University of Canterbury

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Sir Āpirana Ngata was the first Māori to graduate from a University in New Zealand in 1893. Learn more.

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Ngāti Porou leader and politician Apirana Ngata is one of New Zealand’s best-known figures. Working through traditional tribal structures and as MP for Eastern Māori, he worked to strengthen Māori communities and revive Māori culture.

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David Lange | New Zealand Prime Minister, Nuclear Disarmament Advocate | Britannica

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David Lange was a New Zealand lawyer and politician, who was the prime minister of New Zealand (1984–89). Strongly influenced by his father, a physician noted for his socialist views, Lange grew up in a working-class suburb of Auckland. After receiving a law degree from the University of Auckland,

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Lynch, James Robert, 1947- :'The nucl... | Items | National Library of New Zealand | National Library of New Zealand

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Lynch, James Robert, 1947- :'The nuclear issue' 11 February 1985 | National Library of New Zealand

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Shows David Lange with a slingshot at the foot of Goliath. Accompanying note from cartoonist states 'David Lange's campaign to become nuclear free ...

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Seven years and one stomach-stapling operation after entering Parliament in 1977, David Lange became PM at the age of 41.

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David Lange talks No Nukes with U.S reporter (1987)

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‘There are real criticisms of his leadership’: 40 years on, what is the legacy of David Lange?

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Barry Soper and Lara Greaves unpack the popular but contentious Prime Minister’s record.

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Obituary: Labour prime minister of New Zealand who oversaw radical economic reform and championed his country’s nuclear-free policy.

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Maoridom mourns top activist - New Zealand News - NZ Herald

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Get the latest local and breaking news, updates, opinion and insights from across New Zealand. News worth knowing - NZ Herald - your source for NZ news.

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Five storey mural of Māori rights activist unveiled in Ngāmotu

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The mural of Hana Te Hemara is part of commemorations marking 50 years since a petition was presented to the Crown to have te reo Māori taught in schools.

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Anti-smacking bill becomes law - NZ Herald

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Stay informed on the latest political news, insights, and developments with the NZ Herald - your source for in-depth coverage of NZ's political landscape.

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It's the smaller details Irene Cooper​ remembers most about her grandmother.

She remembers playing knucklebones at her feet, half-listening as she talked to Robert Muldoon or Kiri Te Kanawa.

She remembers how her grandmother's voice would sound then - commanding and fiery - and how she taught her to play card games. She also remembers her particular way of eating fruit.

"She loved sliced oranges and would sprinkle glucose on them; she had a bit of a sweet tooth."

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Cooper's grandmother was Dame Whina Cooper, the Te Rarawa leader who dedicated her life to fighting for Māori land rights. Her work earned her both a swag of royal honours and the title of Te Whaea o te Motu, or Mother of the Nation, but to her granddaughter, she was just 'Nanny'.

On Thursday afternoon, Cooper is speaking from the airport before jetting off to the Sydney Film Festival where a film about Whina's life is debuting. Cooper had a big part in its making, and says her nanny's story is particularly relevant right now.

"It's the right moment, the worlds looking for guidance and things that are going to bring some understanding and teaching. Her message does that."

Cooper (Te Rarawa, Nga Puhi) is an executive producer for Whina, the film, and says it's been a strange though satisfying experience watching her nanny's long life play out on screen. One of her roles was schooling the three actors that play her nanny at different ages on her mannerisms and character; it was tough on one of them in particular.

"Rena Owen did a wonderful as my older grandmother. She had to fill some big shoes because as a family we remember our grandmother in her older age; Rena had to climb some mountains there."

The end result is one Cooper and her whānau are proud of; she thinks her grandmother would feel the same.

"She'd be full of pride, and she'd want people, Pākehā and Māori, to understand and see what her message was in the day.

"What was that message? That we need to work together and come together to shape Aotearoa."

Whina Cooper was born Hōhepine (Josephine) Te Wake at Te Karaka on 9 December 1895. Her father was Heremia Te Wake, a leader of the Te Rawara hapū Ngāti Manawa and Te Kaitutae, and her mother was Kare Pauro Kawatihi, of Te Rarawa and Taranaki descent.

Whina received Māori and religious education from her father and started school at about seven, initially walking the six miles there and back. In 1907, she went to St Joseph's Māori Girls' College in Napier.

In 1911 Whina refused to enter an arranged marriage with the widowed leader of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, choosing to work in the local co-operative store instead.

Two years later she was appointed trainee teacher at the Pawarenga Native School at Whāngāpē Harbour, where she was one of three staff - and the only Māori. She resigned in 1914 and the following year started work as a housekeeper at the Catholic presbytery in Rāwene.

While the film delves into the extraordinary events that followed and charts her rise as a leader and visionary, it was the groundbreaking 1975 land march that Whina is perhaps best known for.

In 1975, Whina was asked to lead Te Rōpū Matakite o Aotearoa, formed by a coalition of groups to fight further alienation of Māori from their land.

She did, and at 80 led Te Matakite, a hikoi from Te Hāpua in the far north to Wellington that covered more than 1054 kilometres; "not one more acre" was their catch-cry.

The march culminated with Whina leading about 5,000 people into Parliament grounds on October 13. There, she presented a memorial of rights from 200 Māori elders and a petition supporting the objectives of the march signed by 60,000 people to then-prime minister Bill Rowling.

A biography by historian Michael King describes the effect Whina's leadership had on the country.

"For the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who witnessed the march on the roads or on television, its most inspiring feature was the wizened woman who headed it with such panache and articulated its objectives in a cracked but firm voice."

Whina's voice, the one her granddaughter remembers, resounded throughout New Zealand both for the rest of her life and beyond it.

She presided over Waitangi Day commemorations and conferences of the Māori Women's Welfare League and in 1990 opened the Auckland Commonwealth Games, reminding her audience "the Treaty was signed so that we could all live as one nation in Aotearoa".

When Whina died aged 98 in 1994, thousands of people attended her tangihanga and more than a million watched the live television coverage. Six years later a statue was unveiled on Whina's Panguru marae, depicting the famous photo of her leading the land march, holding the hand of her small mokopuna Irene.

"That photo has been a big journey for me - it speaks so many words without having any words," says the younger Cooper. "It's a blessing, and I'm very grateful that she gave me this."

Nearly 50 years after that photo was taken, Cooper says Whina should be remembered as a wahine toa; a champion of te ao Māori and a woman ahead of her time who came up against religious and gendered beliefs and conquered them.

She was all of those things, but she was also human. Irene Cooper says one of the standout storylines in the film is that of Whina's love affair with William Cooper, who ultimately became her second husband.

"She was a perfectly imperfect person who graciously walked through those times. She just had all these mountains she conquered as she went through life."

Now is the perfect time for people in Aotearoa and abroad to watch the film, Cooper says, because while the milestone events of Whina's life happened years ago, her method of demanding change is more relevant than ever.

"She was all about peaceful marching and making her statements in a peaceful way. There's a lot to learn from that today for a lot of people."

Her grandmother's voice that she remembers so well still has much to say, and Cooper believes her most famous quote is something we all need to remember right now:

"Take care of our children. Take care of what they hear, take care of what they see, take care of what they feel. For how the children grow, so will the shape of Aotearoa."

Whina opens in NZ cinemas on June 23.

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Activist, wahine toa, nanny: Dame Whina Cooper's message more important than ever

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"The worlds looking for guidance, understanding and teaching. Her message brings that," says granddaughter Irene Cooper.

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Te Rārawa leader and woman of mana Dame Whina Cooper spent her whole life fighting for Māori land rights. As a 79-year old she led Māori land protest marchers as they walked from Te Hāpua (in the far north) to Parliament, arriving on 13 October 1975.

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John Minto, national organiser of Halt All Racist Tours (HART)

'I think the most important impact of the tour in New Zealand was to stimulate the whole debate about racism and about the place of Māori in our community.

'In South Africa the tour helped to bring, I think, a quicker end to the apartheid regime, along with all the other pressures from all around the world.

'The huge disappointment for me, though, is the fact that while black South Africans have gained political rights in South Africa, their economic positions, their social position is in many cases worse than it was than when they were under white minority rule and that is because of the free market policies being followed by the ANC government.'

How to cite this page

'John Minto - 1981 Springbok tour', URL: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/video/john-minto-1981-springbok-tour, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 4-Feb-2020

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'I think the most important impact of the tour in New Zealand was to stimulate the whole debate about racism and about the place of Māori in our community. 'In South Africa the tour helped to bring, I think, a quicker end to the apartheid regime, along with all the other pressures from all around the world.

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Whina organized her first protest when she was 18 years old. The protest was against a white farmer's plans to drain a swamp that was used by the Maori. While her father challenged the action through the court system, Whina gathered young protesters. As soon as the farmer drained part of the swamp, the protesters filled it in. Eventually, the government told the farmer he was not allowed to drain the swamp.

Whina continued to work in the community and proved to be a skillful businesswoman as well. She opened a post office, a community center that welcomed women and their voices, and a medical clinic. Whina also played a part in changing the name of the community of Whakarapa to Panguru. By the early 1930s Whina was acknowledged to be the Maori leader of northern Hokianga. She helped carry out a Maori land development plan during the 1930s. She met William Cooper during that time, and they were married in 1941. After his death in 1949, she moved to Auckland.

In 1951 Cooper was elected the first president of the Maori Women's Welfare League. The league was the first-ever national Maori organization. The league focused on the poor Maori housing in Auckland and the racial discrimination the Maori faced in housing, healthcare, and education. By 1956 the league had more than 300 branches and 4,000 members. From her work in the league, Cooper became the most well-known Maori woman in New Zealand. In 1953 she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

In 1975 Cooper led the Maori Land Reform March. The purpose of the march was to bring attention to the continued loss of Maori land. At the age of 79 Cooper led the marchers the length of North Island, from Te Hapua in the far north to Parliament in Wellington. The route was hundreds of miles long. As a result of the march, the Waitangi Tribunal was established. The tribunal is a group that oversees Maori claims to regain land that was unfairly taken from them.

Cooper continued to participate in Maori life for many years. In 1981 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Ten years later she was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand. Cooper died on March 26, 1994, in Hokianga.

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Whina organized her first protest when she was 18 years old. The protest was against a white farmer's plans to drain a swamp that was used by the Maori. While her father challenged the action through the court system, Whina gathered young protesters.

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Tame Iti (born 1952) is a New Zealand Māori activist, artist, actor and social worker. Of Ngāi Tūhoedescent, Iti rose to prominence as a member of the protest

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201K views · 6.8K reactions | Tame Iti's new art exhibition in Wellington I Will Not Speak Māori examines a painful part of Aotearoa's history. 

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Tame Iti's new art exhibition in Wellington I Will Not Speak Māori examines a painful part of Aotearoa's history. 

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When John Minto visited Invercargill during the 1981 Springbok tour, he clashed with police during protest action, got a gash on his head, was arrested, and claimed the city was "deeply embedded with racism".

And when he later returned for his court case, with a minder, he was abused on the street.

"That was Invercargill in 1981. They were a pretty wound up bunch of people," said Minto, the leader of Hart [halt all racist tours], which was involved in nationwide protest marches and field invasions during the tour.

Minto's memories of Invercargill 40-years-ago weren't great.

READ MORE:
* Rally commemorates 1981 Springbok tour, but anti-apartheid struggle continues
* 1981 Springbok Tour 40 years on: How Hamilton became a city of rage
* 1981 Springbok tour 40 years on: '1981 was the battle for the soul of New Zealand'

But for most Southlanders, the tour was about rugby, and they weren't interested in the politics.

The Springboks vs Southland game was played in front of a packed house at Rugby Park, Invercargill, on August 8, 1981, with the tourists winning 22-6.

Leicester Rutledge, a Southland loose forward in '81, recalls walking out of the Rugby Park tunnel ahead of the match and being struck by the "huge" size of their South African opponents, the massive crowd and great atmosphere.

A freezing worker at the time, Rutledge said freezing work plants in Southland had closed so the workers could go to the game.

"As we drove to the ground all these people were carrying booze ... because in those days you could take your own alcohol to the ground, it was just a real party atmosphere."

Apart from the barbed wire separating the field from the spectators, and the large police presence, it was "just a normal game of rugby at Rugby Park".

Of the match itself, Rutledge said: "I remember getting done over in a ruck or two, they were pretty keen to slow us down a bit .... it was just good hard footy."

There were no protests at the ground.

"I think they would have been pretty game to turn up at Rugby Park, they would have got dealt to I think," Rutledge said.

"There's no way Southland people were going to put up with that sort of rubbish."

Southland was a rugby province and most if its people didn't want to get involved in the politics, he added.

Rutledge has visited South Africa five times since 1981 and said he could certainly understand why people were protesting against the tour.

"Looking back, I think if we could all have our time again, the tour may not have happened under the [apartheid] regime. I think you have to go there to appreciate how bad it was, and I certainly saw that side of it."

Though there were no protests at the game there were protests on Invercargill streets.

At 5.30am on game day Minto and more than 30 anti-tour protestors, mostly from out of town, gathered on the street outside the Grand Hotel, where the Springboks were staying.

They made a racket with loud hailers and whistles to wake up the players and "let them know they were in New Zealand".

A confrontation between police and protestors subsequently ensued, which was when Minto received his head gash, and, according to news reports of the day, 24 people were arrested and four were later charged, including Minto.

Minto said he was roughed up by police that morning, but Southland's rural police boss of the day, Neville Cook, said he was disappointed the Hart protestors had tried to paint the police as violent attackers as that wasn't the case.

Cook had little sympathy for Minto's head gash.

"Every time he went near a policeman he ended up with a cut somewhere on his face and a new sticking plaster got applied. I think that was part of his image, I don't really think he had all those injuries."

Minto laughed off those comments, but said he recalled police arriving outside the hotel and one saying: 'There's Minto, I'll have you', before shoving him into a pile of milk crates and ploughing his head into the door of a police car.

"I ended up getting charged with resisting arrest which was all bizarre."

Minto [later convicted of resisting arrest] was released from police custody later the same day and joined protestors at Queens Park ahead of their march through city streets.

He told them Invercargill was a city with "deeply embedded racism".

"We are here today to prove we care more for the rights of 23 million blacks in Africa than for 80 minutes of rugby," he said at the time.

The demonstrators had to contend with a rowdy group of hecklers during the march, but there were no incidents apart from a few eggs, stones and clods of dirt thrown, news reports said.

Strong lines of police walking beside the marchers prevented any physical confrontations.

Minto stood by his racism claim, when asked about it this week, but said he had returned to Invercargill several times since '81 and it was a "lovely place with lovely people. Things do move on".

Reports in '81 said more than 70 per cent of people in Invercargill supported the tour, he said.

Neil Boniface, an Invercargill city councillor in 1981, said he didn't think racism in the city was any worse than other areas of New Zealand at that time.

"It was certainly there, and it was certainly in New Zealand, but we have moved on a long way since then."

Southland's strong support for the tour showed out in spades during the Springboks time in the deep south.

They were met at Invercargill Airport on August 6 with a heavy police presence, but no protestors, and soon realised they were in friendly territory as smiling faces welcomed them.

"This was something new to us [in New Zealand]. Something quite new," manager Johannes Claassen said at the time.

Peter TeTai, a Rugby Southland liaison officer who drove the Springboks team bus during their Invercargill stay, said the players felt safe in the city compared to the larger centres where more protest action took place.

The players were able to "mingle a bit more" in Invercargill, they walked down Dee Street, played golf and visited Bluff.

Indeed, they felt so safe, they later returned to the city for a couple of days to prepare for the first test match in Christchurch.

TeTai, of Ngapuhi descent, said he was a rugby man and felt honoured to help look after the Springboks.

He didn't know much about the apartheid regime in their country at the time which was "probably lucky otherwise I many not have accepted the job".

He got on well with the Springbok players who were a good bunch of men, he said.

In the Springboks squad was Hennie Bekker, and when his son Andries later represented the Springboks in New Zealand he gave TeTai his South African tie, in part for helping look after his father in '81.

Not everyone was so enamoured by the South African visit to Invercargill.

Owen Jones, The Southland Times chief photographer of the time, recalls the hatred protestors directed towards police during the street march in the city on game day.

A Times reporter on the day, Michael Fallow, recalls some nasty comments directed at the protestors from onlookers. They were told they needed a job, were scruffy, communists and one male called them "black lovers".

Southland was "far more pro-tour" than urban centres in New Zealand, but there were also lots of anti-tour people in the province, Fallow said.

Cook was on police duty for the protest march in Invercargill, to ensure they didn't get out of hand and to ensure the rugby people didn't interfere with them.

"There were a few words exchanged but the rugby people were very controlled, and so were the marchers.

"We didn't see the riots we had in other places. They made the point they were opposed to the tour, they had their signs and chants ... but were well behaved."

Cook said it was disappointing to see Rugby Park with barbed wire around the field and police everywhere during the game.

"Southlanders liked their rugby and that's all they were interested in. They weren't interested in the politics."

Lynn McConnell, the Southland Times sports editor in 1981, said the warm welcome the Springboks received in the deep south was typical for the region.

"It wasn't so much about protest or support for the Springboks, it was about giving them a fair go and treating them as visitors to our community."

South African high commissioner to New Zealand, Vuyiswa Tulelo said she believed the nationwide protests against the tour in '81 made a difference to the apartheid regime in South Africa.

"The apartheid regime had managed to hide the truth about its atrocities to the world. The protests showed them the world had seen, and it did not approve."

The protests gave South Africans back home a "visible sign from a corner of the world" that they could do better.

She believed the decision by New Zealanders to not accept a Springbok side that was not representative of its nation's people was a watershed moment for both countries.

South Africa's first democratic elections were held in 1994 and the changes in that country between 1981 and 2021 were as clear as night and day. However, the creation of an equal, free and just society was still a work in progress, Tulelo said.

South Africa's only coloured player on the '81 tour, Errol Tobias, now in his early 70s, declined to be interviewed by Stuff, saying he would only do so if he received payment, as that was how he made his living nowadays.

The Game:

Teams: Southland v South Africa

Date: August 8, 1981

Venue: Rugby Park, Invercargill

Crowd: 20,000

Score: Springboks 22, Southland 6.

Scorers for South Africa: Edrich Krantz, Rob Louw and Johan Marais tries; Naas Botha two penalty goals and two conversions.

Scorers for Southland: Brian McKechnie a penalty goal and a dropped goal.

The players:

Southland

Jeff Gardiner [fullback]

Wayne Boynton [winger]

Kelvin Farrington [winger]

Steve Pokere [centre]

Paul Laidlaw [second five]

Brian McKechnie [first five]

Chris Hiini [halfback]

Bruce Robertson [No 8]

Ken Stewart [openside flanker and captain]

Leicester Rutledge [blindside flanker]

David Orr [lock]

Allan Byrne [lock]

Bruce Lewis [prop]

Lex Chisholm [hooker]

Doug Murcott [prop]

Springboks

G Pienaar [fullback]

D Botha [winger]

W du Plessis [winger]

D Gerber [centre]

E Krantz [second five]

N Botha [first five]

D Serfontein [halfback]

J Marais [No 8]

R Louw [openside flanker]

B Geldenhuys [blindside flanker]

L Moolman [lock]

T Stofberg [lock and captain]

H van Aswegen [prop]

W Kahts [hooker]

P du Toit [prop]

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'Wound up bunch of people in Invercargill': Hart leader recalls '81 Springbok tour

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When John Minto visited Invercargill during the 1981 Springbok tour, he clashed with police during protest action, got a gash on his head, was arrested, and claimed the city was "deeply embedded with racism". And when he later returned for his court case, with a minder, he was abused on the street.

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Tame Iti shooting a flag, 2005 | Flags | Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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In 2005 Tūhoe activist Tame Iti shot this flag – reputedly an Australian flag which he used as a substitute for the New Zealand flag – during a Waitangi Tribunal hearing at Tauaarau marae in Bay of Plenty.

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Sue Bradford reveals how personal tragedy inspired her to become a politician

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Death threats, drug taking and protesting – the former Green MP and social justice advocate opens up about her life.

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[Volume:638;Page:8440]

SUE BRADFORD (Green): I would like to take a call, because we are finally getting to the very heart of my bill. The purpose of what we are trying to achieve here, as amended by the Justice and Electoral Committee, is to make better provision for children to live in a safe and secure environment, free from violence, by abolishing the use of parental force for the purpose of correction. This bill is all about putting children first.

I would like to refer briefly to some comments made by Judith Collins in the debate just a little while ago on clause 2A. She said: "This bill should be about what is in the best interests of children." and went on to say: "I heard the most appalling suggestions tonight from Labour Party members that we ... should have a voice for children here in Parliament." What a disgraceful statement from a National member. This bill is all about giving a voice to children in this Parliament. For far too long, the voices and interests of babies, children, and young people have been denied in this place of power. Nearly 20 years ago we got rid of the defence under section 59 of the Crimes Act that had allowed our children, for generations, to be beaten in our schools. That was a tremendously progressive step, but I still cannot understand why this part of the Crimes Act was not got rid of at that time. It was, sadly-

Hon Chris Carter: An omission.

SUE BRADFORD:-an omission on the part of the then Government, if I may say so. But at least we are finally reaching the point in this Parliament where children's interests can be represented.

Section 59 of the Crimes Act, as it is currently framed, gives parents the right to beat their children in the most appalling ways, as we have seen over and over again in court cases. This is an anti-beating bill, not an anti-smacking bill. Section 59 of the Crimes Act provides less protection for children than we provide for adults in this country, and I think that it is disgraceful that we continue with that-that anyone should think that our babies and children, who are smaller, more vulnerable, less mature, and know less about the world than us, should somehow be obliged to endure this ongoing culture of violence against them in a way that we do not permit adults to endure.

Hon Chris Carter: Less protection than a dog.

SUE BRADFORD: Yes. This whole culture of violence against children is something that has brought us into international disrepute. We have had United Nations reports-and, most recently, the Unicef Innocenti report-describing how one of the worst aspects of the way in which we treat children in this country is that we simply do not respect them We do not value them. I think this is part of the unfortunate and ugly side of our culture that those of us who are Pākehā have inherited from our settler ancestors who came here in the 19th century with the law and mores of Victorian England. Some of our ancestors brought with them, unfortunately, a culture and law that said that women, wives, servants, and children were the property of the master, the man, and the husband. With that attitude came a law that said it was OK to beat the wife, the servants, and the children.

We have got rid of those laws. We used to have them, but we have got rid of the laws that allowed the husband to beat the wife. We got rid of the laws that said it was OK for a master to beat a servant, or an employer to beat an employee. But the relic of those laws is section 59 of the Crimes Act, which allows all of us as parents to beat our children in the name of child discipline. What a disgrace! It is time we got rid of this section, and I am hoping that that will happen extremely soon.

Beyond that, there has been much research done here and overseas that shows, in fact, that physical discipline is the most ineffective way of trying to bring up our children. To humiliate children-to beat them-has exactly the opposite effect of what we might be aiming to achieve if we are trying to bring up children to be proactive and to have self-respect-children who have self-sufficiency, pride in themselves, and hope for the future. The research that we have seen over and over again is that, in fact, the most negative outcomes come from children brought up in a family home filled with violence. They are the ones who are most likely to end up with mental health problems and addictions, to turn to crime, and to leave school too soon. Those sorts of children are most often the product of violent homes, not of peaceful, loving homes where violence is not used as a source of child discipline.

Before I finish on this overarching purpose clause, I would just like to say that some of the criticism levelled against this bill has been from people who say that somehow we say this bill will solve all the issues of violence and abuse of our children. Of course that is not the case-I have never pretended that that was the case-but it is one small step in trying to reduce the level of violence against kids in this country. I find it amazing that every time we have a case such as the death of the Kahui twins, the death of James Whakaruru, and all of those other dreadful incidents, some of those who oppose this bill are the first to ask why Child, Youth and Family or the police did not take more action. Yet this is about trying to reduce that. This bill will not solve it, but we need somehow to turn the mind-set of New Zealanders from saying that it is OK to beat our children. That we legalise the beating of children in this country is, in the end, what leads to a culture that has child deaths occur and child injuries show up every day in our hospitals.

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Bradford, Sue: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill - In Committee - New Zealand Parliament

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Hansard editors report what politicians say in the House of Representatives. Here you can read our near-verbatim reports on all debates, including oral questions and proposed laws (bills).

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Amending the Crimes Act, 2007 | Human rights | Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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Members of Parliament, including Green MP Sue Bradford (fourth from right), display a banner in support of Bradford’s bill to remove the statutory defence allowing parents to use ‘reasonable force’ to discipline their children. The private member’s bill, passed in 2007, amended section 59 of the Crimes Act. The change was highly controversial. Some saw it as extending the rights of the child to protect them from assault, while others viewed it as state interference in the rights of the parent and dubbed it the ‘anti-smacking’ bill.

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The Niu Dawn - lessons of the Dawn Raids | Ep 1 - New Stories for New Generations

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Oscar Kightley: Waking up to the Dawn Raids | E-Tangata

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“There was no one discussing it. There was no one feeling bad about it. . . We just had to deal with it on our own as a bad memory. And that’s why I wanted to write it.” — Oscar Kightley on the Dawn Raids and the play he wrote about it.

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Watch NZH Focus: Funny man Oscar Kightley gets serious for Poppy Day - NZ Herald

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Oscar Kightley joins Laura McGoldrick to raise awareness on the relevance of Poppy day.

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“Being a short-arse, I got bullied hard by people. So I had to learn how to move, to look after myself.” — Tame Iti.

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On February 3, a memorial to Whina Cooper was unveiled in Panguru, in the Hokianga. Tainui Stephens was among those who went to honour the indomitable woman who led the historic 1975 Land March.
The first time I met Whina Cooper, her charisma hit me like a bus. This was the '80s. She was in her 90s. I was in my 20s.

It was at a hui at Te Puea marae, Māngere, where all eyes and ears were on her as she delivered her whaikōrero from her wheelchair. That it was a woman speaking was an issue, but then again not. Because this was Whina. Her long and lofty reputation preceded her and drew you close, out of respect.

Whether in Māori or English, she was fluent and funny. She acted out her activist message in character, according to her whim. Her timing was impeccable and the bon mots rolled trippingly off her tongue. Then, with shrewd relish and clutching ancient fingers, she concluded:
Ka haere au ki Pōneke, ki te mirimiri i ngā raho o te Kāwanatanga. (I go to Wellington to fondle the government's testicles.)
That brought the house down. The oratory of the moment lodged into my heart. Everyone knew that she understood more than anyone the weight of each of those irreverent words.

Afterwards, when we met, I could feel her dark, deep-set eyes scan me as we pressed noses. Up close, she was sweet and solicitous. And, clearly, very, very smart.

As a young man, I enjoyed being with the elders of my own northern Māori world. I was hungry for their beliefs, and for the way they would articulate them in classic Māori, or eloquent English. Whina Cooper used her oratory and her charisma to rattle the unwise and battle the status quo of a nation still in denial about the Treaty. She did it for most of the 20th century.

A few weeks ago, on February 3, those who knew Whina, or appreciated who she was, gathered in Panguru, Hokianga, to unveil a memorial in honour of her words and actions.

The single road into town was clogged with locals and visitors. A hīkoi that had started in the Far North and was heading to Waitangi, came via Panguru, bearing their flags laden with history and tears. They were a new generation of young citizens whose native hearts were beating to the memory of Kahurangi Whina Cooper.

As I consider what she did in her era, I'm proud when I see the faces of my peers. We were all teenagers at the time of the 1975 Land March. It was the second big event of the decade that turned some of us into activists in our own lives. The first was Hana Jackson and Ngā Tamatoa's 1972 petition for the Māori language. The third was Joe Hawke and Ngāti Whātua's occupation of their own Bastion Point land in 1978.

As young people, we left the 1970s forever changed by what we had learned about our language, our land, and our tribal sovereignty. We wanted it all back. We went to Wellington often to demand it.

But this February day, Wellington had come to Panguru. Jacinda Ardern, the PM, was happily present, along with her partner Clarke Gayford and their daughter Neve Te Aroha. Her retinue of fellow Māori parliamentarians were, for the most part, northerners - their surnames (Peters, Jones, Davis, and Hēnare) reminding us of families who've contributed greatly over decades to the lives of the Tai Tokerau tribes.

As ever in the forum of the people, a place was found for everyone to speak, or at least be represented. There was a stunning array of wonderful orators who never got a look in. No one cared, because it wasn't about us, it was about Whina. The glorious day offered a delicious soundtrack of speech and song, lessons and laughter, in generous measure.

For several decades, Whina's astute brand of leadership had been shaped by the traditions of her elders and powered by her own mighty self-confidence.

Whina was born in Te Karaka in northern Hokianga on December 9, 1895. Her father, Heremia Te Wake, was a leader of Ngāti Manawa and Te Kaitutae hapū of Te Rarawa and the son of an Amerian whaler. He was also a catechist in the Catholic church - to which she remained faithful throughout her life. Heremia provided Whina's Māori and religious education, stimulating her early interest in genealogy and history. She could recite her tribal genealogy all the way back to Kupe.

Clever, strong-willed, and tenacious, Whina haunted Māori and Pākehā bastions of male power with neither fear, nor any likelihood of being ignored.

Her catchcry of "Not one acre more" ignited the modern Māori land rights movement. The 1975 Land March started at the very tip of the tail of Māui's fish, in Te Hāpua. For one month, the 80-year-old Whina led the marchers for a thousand kilometres. They stayed at 25 marae as they ascended all the way to the head of that fish, the seat of Pākehā political power.

This indigenous land rights movement known as Te Roopu o Te Matakite started with 50 marchers and ended up with 5,000 assembling on the forecourt of Parliament. A 60,000-signature Memorial Of Rights was presented. It was a demand for justice that had a profound impact on New Zealand's emerging nationhood.

The history of Māori shows that social progress comes only after mobilisation. Collective effort occurs only where there is hope. Hope is an act of love. And, for Māori, that love is shaped by our relationship to the land, our environment, and one another.

But it was the moment when Whina and her mokopuna Irene started the march along the dusty northern road which provided the inspiration for the new monument.

When the time came to unveil the memorial, her son Hōhepa pressed the button that started the slow emergence of the statue on its tall plinth. Time then stood still as the Māori Psalm For The Dead soared above us all. This exquisite hymn of harmonious statement and response is one of my favourites. I go howly bags right away. It never fails to conjure up, for me, long-lost faces and aching feelings for the dearly departed.

And so, the statue was revealed in its place, among the people, with the bittersweet aroha of our memories.

For some, naturally, memory only goes back so far. Outside of Tai Tokerau, I come across a startling number of people under 30 who don't know of Whina Cooper. Or they only know of the iconic photo. They may be familiar with the story of Pania Newton and Ihumātao but know little, too little, of those who came before. The expected new school history curriculum must fix that.

Whina was 98 when she died in 1994. The indomitable spirit of a frail old lady who was never frail resides in the Nahareta cemetery beneath her beloved Panguru mountain. Whina Cooper's spirit also lies with the veterans of the momentous Land March and is born again in new generations of Māori activists. This iconic Kiwi earth mother dubbed Te Whaea o te Motu (Mother of the Nation) continues to speak. In death, as in life, she will be listened to.

In the discussions around the marae, I heard Whina's main concern repeated many times. It's a simple one:
Herea te tangata ki te whenua! (Bind the people to the land!)
This is what makes us tangata whenua. This is what opens us to the truths of nature. This is us.

I'm in my 60s now and still collecting the uttered wisdoms of the old people. I left the gathering at Waipuna with more of Whina's oratory carved upon my heart.

Take care of our children
Take care of what they hear
Take care of what they see
Take care of what they feel
For how the children grow
So will be the shape of Aotearoa.
© E-Tangata, 2020
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Whina Cooper: Fearless and unforgettable | E-Tangata

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"For several decades, Whina's astute brand of leadership had been shaped by the traditions of her elders and powered by her own mighty self-confidence."

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Matthew Cunningham, a historian who's worked for the Waitangi Tribunal, has been reading what supporters of the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill have been saying. This is his open letter to them.
Dear supporters of the Treaty principles bill.

If you think all New Zealand historians harbour a woke agenda to corrupt the Treaty of Waitangi, this article probably isn't for you. After all, I'm a qualified, professional historian who's worked for the Waitangi Tribunal. I must be in thrall to the liberal elites, right? And no doubt I'm also riding the Treaty gravy train and conspiring with all my woke colleagues to hide evidence of the ancient red-haired Celts who lived here before Māori (a claim I've seen worryingly often).

Still, I think most New Zealanders are pretty fair and open-minded, even the ones I disagree with. I've read and listened to what many of you have been saying about the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, and I understand where you're coming from.

You've seen the banners proclaiming that Māori never ceded sovereignty, and you've struggled to reconcile it with the (apparently) clear cession of sovereignty in Article 1 of the English text of the Treaty. You know the word "partnership" isn't in the Treaty, and you doubt that the mighty British Empire would ever have contemplated sharing sovereignty with hundreds of Māori chiefs on the far side of the world.

Perhaps you've read William Colenso's account of the kōrero at Waitangi on February 5, 1840, where Tamati Waka Nene asked Hobson to remain as "a father, a judge, a peacemaker". You might also have heard of the 1860 Kohimarama Conference, where around 200 rangatira declared their "recognition of the Queen's sovereignty". Or maybe you've read Apirana Ngata's 1922 essay on the Treaty, which he describes as a "complete cession" of sovereignty.

And if that wasn't proof enough for you, there's the fact that there were no "principles of the Treaty" before 1975, nor any statutory obligation to uphold them before the 1987 Lands case.

So, why wouldn't you conclude that all this talk of "partnership" must be a modern (mis)interpretation of an otherwise straightforward document?
Because context is everything.
One of the great ironies of the Treaty principles bill is that it proposes to protect the rights of hapū and iwi "at the time they signed" the Treaty - but, rather perversely, only when recognised via contemporary Treaty settlement legislation.

I suspect this is limited to property rights, in line with the Act Party's libertarian leanings, although this isn't specifically stated.

To David Seymour's credit, his views on property rights in te ao Māori are more nuanced than might seem. He has previously used property rights to justify existing co-governance arrangements for natural resources, including those Act voted against - even going so far as to suggest that " those assets should have been returned in full". Of course, this ignores the fact that these arrangements involve regulatory and decision-making powers, not just property rights. Seymour has also suggested that the perennial policy problem of Māori rights and interests in freshwater could be recognised through water allocation rights.

The irony is not in the Treaty bill's selective recognition of hapū and iwi rights, but in that it captures one of history's most important maxims: Context is everything.

Our forebears, both Māori and Pākehā, understood their world far differently than we do, and it's the job of historians to strive to understand their actions on their terms rather than ours.

Context is the dictionary by which we can decipher what they meant (noting, of course, that "they" held multiple and conflicting views of what they were experiencing). And the historical record is never complete. Historians are obliged to piece things together from biased, incomplete and often contradictory sources, coupled with a liberal dose of educated inference and reasoned argument. Thus, context is also the illustration of a jigsaw puzzle where some of the pieces are missing.

It's therefore unsurprising that history evolves as new sources come to light or are interpreted in new ways, and our understanding of the past becomes more sophisticated. Think of it as updating the vocabulary in our dictionary or substituting one jigsaw illustration for another that better matches the pieces. Historians regularly build on the work of others, critiquing their conclusions and building new orthodoxies.

The more history is written, the more we push the frontiers of what is known - just like any other discipline. The historical discipline is also still relatively young in New Zealand. It's no coincidence that Ruth Ross's well-known 1972 article on the Treaty was the first time historians had seriously engaged with the Māori text (although it's important to note that the genesis of her conclusions emerged partially from discussions with Māori in the 1950s). She was expanding our contextual dictionary, not tearing it to pieces.

The examples I opened with (including Ngata and Kohimarama) are regularly raised by those who are sceptical of modern understandings of the Treaty, including Winston Peters. However, they rarely take account of the broader historical context. Some bad-faith actors wilfully ignore it.

So, what did the Treaty mean to the Crown and Māori "at the time they signed" it, to use the language of the Treaty principles bill?

To answer that question would require far more words than an opinion piece would allow, but I'll do my best. Fortunately, there's nearly 50 years of research available to draw on, including the works of Claudia Orange, Ranginui Walker, Margaret Mutu, Moana Jackson, Anne Salmond, Merata Kawharu, Bain Attwood, Paul Moon, David Williams, Shaunnagh Dorsett, Ned Fletcher - and, of course, the Waitangi Tribunal.

Before diving into it, four points are worth stressing.

Firstly, and most obviously, there were two Treaty texts - an English one and a Māori one (commonly referred to as Te Tiriti). Most rangatira signed the Māori text, which was verbally explained to them in Māori. Hence, the Māori text is seen as most representative of what Māori understood when they signed. There are some differences between the Māori and English texts, although recent scholarship ( including that of Ned Fletcher) suggests the differences were not as vast as we once thought.

Secondly, and unsurprisingly, the Treaty (which will hereafter be used to refer to both the Māori and English texts unless otherwise stated) meant different things to the British and Māori actors involved in crafting and signing it. There was no single understanding, and disputes over its meaning commenced almost immediately after it was signed.

Thirdly, the Treaty was merely one thread in a complex tapestry of engagement between the Crown and Māori that commenced well before 1840, and extended well after it. There were many steps along the road of colonisation, and neither Māori nor the Crown were fundamentally transformed overnight.

And fourthly, the Treaty was not the sole arbiter of the Crown-Māori relationship in the decades after it was signed - nor, in many cases, was it even considered that important. Other arbiters frequently came into play, such as sovereignty, jurisdiction, native title, racism, changing demographics, whenua, mana, and rangatiratanga.
What did the Treaty mean to the Crown?
The British Empire was a hotbed of radical ideas in the 1830s. Classical liberalism, imbued with the ideas of thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith on individualism, property rights and free markets, clashed with the staid traditions of Tory conservatism on the primacy of the monarch and the church.

Abolitionists had also begun turning their attentions from slavery to the plight of Indigenous peoples who had come into contact with the British Empire. These "humanitarians", as they came to be known, were closely intertwined with Christian missionary movements. They believed the Crown had a duty to recognise and protect the rights of Indigenous peoples against the depravities wrought by British settlers. The Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes in the 1830s represented a high point of their influence.

While this was happening, Māori were beginning to engage with the wider world as traders and travellers. The wider world was also beginning to engage with Māori.

By 1839, there were approximately 2,000 immigrants living in New Zealand, ranging from pious missionaries to ship deserters and escaped convicts. Questionable land purchases peaked in the same year, and ranged from small individual plots to the 20 million acres claimed by the New Zealand Company (who despatched several hundred settlers to take up these lands in 1839). Speculators in Sydney and London were already trading in highly specious land claims.

These developments touched on three key British concepts in the 1830s: Sovereignty (the right to make and change laws), jurisdiction (who and what falls under the authority of the sovereign and its organs, such as the judiciary), and native title (whether Indigenous peoples held full property rights in their lands, or merely use rights).

The Crown had already recognised the sovereignty of Māori over New Zealand on several occasions, most notably in 1835 when British Resident James Busby facilitated the signing of He Whakaputanga (the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand). This commitment was viewed with great solemnity at the time, despite subsequent claims that Māori were " incapable of performing the duties, and therefore of assuming the rights, or a civilised community. "

Then and now, authority in te ao Māori resided with hapū. It was intrinsically local and place-based. Whakapapa networks drew hapū together for certain common endeavours, such as facing a threat from a common enemy, but there was no single national sovereign individual or institution in the British sense of the word. He Whakaputanga had proposed an annual congress of chiefs to enact laws (while acknowledging that sovereignty resided with the chiefs), but this did not eventuate (although Ngāpuhi oral tradition suggests such congresses were held in secret from Busby), nor was He Whakaputanga universally signed.

Meanwhile, humanitarianism had come to dominate British colonial policy by the end of the 1830s. Its most vocal proponent was James Stephen, permanent under-secretary to the Colonial Office. The report of the Aborigines Select Committee in 1837 had revealed the extent of British lawlessness and land speculation in New Zealand, and the powerlessness of the Crown to intervene. Officials in New South Wales lacked the resources to enforce British laws over British subjects living in New Zealand, despite several local ordinances designed to do just that.

In any case, the Crown had recognised Māori sovereignty over New Zealand, casting doubt over the jurisdiction of British laws and institutions. This was a political question as well as a legal one. Powerful and influential opponents of Crown intervention in New Zealand (including land speculators and the New Zealand Company) argued that sovereignty gave Māori the right to dispose of their lands as they saw fit, without the Crown meddling in their affairs.

Controlling British settlers and speculators required the extension of Crown sovereignty over all or parts of New Zealand. Proclaiming sovereignty by right of discovery was one option (in fact, Hobson later did just that over the South Island), but moral imperatives and political expediency obliged the Crown to honour the Māori sovereignty the Crown had previously recognised.

The Treaty of Waitangi was the result of this conundrum. Hobson's instructions from Lord Normanby (Secretary of State for the Colonies), which James Stephen drafted, provide invaluable insight into the Crown's intentions. Normanby acknowledged that Māori "indisputably" held "title to the soil and to the sovereignty to New Zealand". However, to protect Māori from settlers and land sharks, and "to rescue the emigrants themselves from the evils of a lawless state of society", the Crown now desired to establish "a settled form of civil Government."

Hobson was instructed to treat with Māori to recognise the Queen's sovereignty "over the whole or any part of those Islands which they may be willing to place under Her Majesty's dominion", and to agree that all future land sales would be to the Crown only. In addition, all private land sales that had occurred prior to the Treaty would be investigated by an independent commissioner, and recognised with Crown Grants only if the transactions were bona fide.

Crucially, while the instructions envisaged extending British sovereignty, they did not assume that Māori would be subject to British jurisdiction - not at first, anyway. Until Māori could be "brought within the pale of civilised life", Normanby instructed that they were to be "carefully defended in the observance of their own customs", except where they contravened "the universal maxims of humanity and morals" (such as cannibalism, human sacrifice and infanticide).

The distinction between sovereignty and jurisdiction is important, and has been stressed by scholars such as Shaunnagh Dorsett and Ned Fletcher. In essence, the Crown sought sovereignty over all or parts of New Zealand, so it could exercise its jurisdiction over British subjects residing and acting in New Zealand, including their interactions with Māori (which revolved primarily around land).

They did not seek to exercise jurisdiction over intra-Māori affairs, except in extreme cases.

This makes perfect sense when you remember that British settlements in 1840 were small, isolated outposts within a vast Māori world. Even if he had wanted to, Hobson's government in 1840 - which consisted of five officials and 80 troops - lacked the ability to enforce its will outside of those isolated outposts. Hobson and his successors had to rely on moral persuasion and mediation, at least until Māori realised the benefits of "civilisation" on their own.

Bringing Māori within the pale of "civilised" life was the end goal, but it was a long-term one - and, importantly, one where the pace would be set by Māori themselves. Hobson's instructions after sovereignty was proclaimed were that Māori customs were to be "gradually overcome by the benignant influence of example, instruction, and encouragement . . . until they shall be voluntarily laid aside by a more enlightened generation."

The English text of the Treaty was designed primarily to acquire the sovereignty necessary to carry out these objects. Hence, the clear use of the word "sovereignty" in Article 1. Article 2 recognised Māori property rights while granting the Crown the sole right of purchase of Māori lands (although some Māori believed this only offered the Crown a right of first refusal). It was Busby who insisted on the specific wording used in Article 2, which explicitly recognised the collective and individual ownership of lands, estates, forests and fisheries.

The Crown's jurisdiction with regard to Māori was not mentioned in the Treaty, except insofar as Article 3 granted Māori the same rights and privileges as other British subjects. Ned Fletcher's seminal work on the English text argues that Māori custom was implicitly protected in Article 2, although Peter Cresswell has written an impressive rebuttal on this point. Hobson verbalised it at Waitangi on the morning of February 6 when he promised (in what has been called the Treaty's "fourth article") to protect the various Christian faiths, along with "Māori custom". He also circulated letters to "all chiefs" in April and September 1840 promising to protect their rules and customs.

The Crown's recognition of Māori custom was an established part of Crown practice until at least the early 1860s. The Crown assumed the right to intervene in any serious disputes between Māori and British settlers (although the limitations of the fledgling bureaucracy and judiciary sometimes prevented them from doing so). Disputes between Māori, however, were to be left to themselves to resolve, although they would be encouraged to make use of the Pākehā courts. This policy was encapsulated in the instructions of the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Acting Governor Willoughby Shortland in 1843:

. . . there is no apparent reason why the aborigines [Māori] should not be exempted from any responsibility to English law or to English courts of justice, as far as respects their relations and their dealings with each other. The native law might be maintained, and the native customs tolerated, in all cases in which no person of European birth or origin had any concern or interest. An exception should indeed be made of such customs as are in conflict with the universal laws of morality, such, for example, as the customs of cannibalism and human sacrifice. But, with this exception, I know not why the native New Zealanders might not be permitted to live among themselves according to their national laws or usages . . .

Governor Hobson and the Chief Protector of Aborigines, George Clarke, developed proposals for "Native Courts" in the early 1840s that would have provided specific judicial forums for Māori to resolve disputes among themselves (Clarke's proposal envisaged formalising tikanga into a code of native laws, and empowering local Māori as Magistrates to judge disputes alongside Aboriginal Protectors). Neither was ultimately pursued, and, in 1844, Governor Fitzroy passed an ordinance that specifically exempted most intra-Māori matters from English laws.

Fitzroy's successor, Governor George Grey, was more determined to encourage legal assimilation, albeit by institutionalising some traditional forms of Māori governance. In 1846, he passed an ordinance establishing a system of Resident Magistrates with the power to hear less serious civil and criminal cases. These Magistrates were given sole jurisdiction over disputes between Māori and Europeans. However, where disputes between Māori were brought, the Magistrate was required to sit with two Māori chiefs or "assessors". It wasn't compulsory for Māori to bring their disputes to the Magistrates (who were few and unevenly scattered across the country), but Grey hoped to incentivise Māori to do so of their own accord, so that their "traditional customs . . . become obsolete and useless".

British settlement was still largely limited to the major urban centres in the 1850s, although their total population surpassed Māori by the end of the decade. This was also the time when land-hungry settlers successfully pushed for their own self-government, although the Governor initially retained control over native affairs. The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 allowed for "Māori districts" to be proclaimed wherein the "Laws, Customs, and Usages" of Māori would remain in force "for the present", provided they were "not repugnant to the general principles of Humanity". Although this was never implemented, the Māori King movement (the Kīngitanga) and the Māori Kotahitanga Parliament would later cite it to support their requests for self-governance.

The Kohimarama Conference in 1860 represented the height of the Crown's pluralistic recognition of Māori autonomy. Treaty sceptics enjoy pointing out that the chiefs who attended resolved to affirm the Queen's sovereignty, and that the word "mana" was substituted for "kāwanatanga" when the Treaty was explained to them.

They're right, but they conveniently ignore the broader context. Governor Browne called the conference in part to undermine Taranaki Māori and the Kīngitanga, but he also wished to discuss the administration of law in "native" districts, and a suitable means for establishing Māori land titles. It was proposed to the assembled chiefs that tribal rūnanga (or councils) be established in Māori districts to manage intra-Māori affairs (except for "heinous crimes" like murder), presided over by a Māori Magistrate (or Kaiwhakawā) and two assistants. Committees of "disinterested and influential chiefs" were also proposed to resolve land disputes.

Attendees warmly received the Crown's proposals, and further requested that the Kohimarama Conference be made an annual affair. Governor Browne was receptive to the idea, and even went as far as circulating an agenda for a second conference. He also explored the idea of establishing a permanent "Native Council" attached to the Legislative Council in Auckland.

Browne was recalled before these ideas came to fruition, and his successor (the assimilation-minded Governor Grey) did not believe it was "wise to call a number of semi-barbarous Natives together to frame a Constitution for themselves." Instead, he proceeded with a modified version of Browne's tribal rūnanga proposal. Rather than one powerful "Native Parliament" - which probably seemed a little too like the Kīngitanga for his liking - his local rūnanga would create "twenty Kings in New Zealand . . . and those kings who work with me shall be wealthy kings, and kings of wealthy peoples."

Grey began rolling out his "new institutions" in the early 1860s, but the renewed outbreak of war in 1863 forestalled its fruition. After the war, the triumphant settler parliament began exerting a more unilateral and singular sovereignty, and the rūnanga system withered away through a lack of resourcing.

Several prominent public figures spoke out in favour of the Crown's original intent with the Treaty, which was rapidly being sidelined. In 1860, Former Chief Justice William Martin, in a pamphlet reflecting on the outbreak of hostilities in Taranaki, wrote:
The rights which the Natives recognised as belonging to the Crown were such rights as were necessary for the Government of the Country, and for the establishment of the new system. We called them "Sovereignty"; the Natives called them "Kawanatanga", "Governorship". This unknown thing, the "Governorship", was in some degree defined by a reference to its object. The object was expressed to be "to avert the evil consequences which must result from the absence of Law". To the new and unknown Office they conceded such powers, to them unknown, as might be necessary for its due exercise. To themselves they retained what they understood full well, the "tino Rangatiratanga", the "full Chiefship", in respect of all their lands.
Martin was specifically pondering whether the nature of the property guarantee contained in Article 2 protected the custom of collective land tenure (he believed it did). George Clarke wrote the following in response to James Busby's critique of Martin's pamphlet:
. . .when the subjects contained in the Treaty were under consideration, the subject of Tribal rights and the full power of the Chiefs over their own tribes and lands was explained to the natives, and fully understood by the Europeans present . . . it was evident that not one Chief would have signed the Treaty had not Tribal rights been fully recognised and protected.
As the war neared its close, Henry Sewell (the former Premier and Attorney-General) wrote:
Did the New Zealanders [Māori], any more than the American Indians, imagine that by placing themselves under the guardianship of the British Empire they forfeited their inherent rights to govern themselves according to their own usages? . . . [I]t is true they surrendered to the Queen the 'Kawanatanga' - the governorship - or sovereignty; but they did not understand that they thereby surrendered the right of self-government over their internal affairs, a right which we never have claimed or exercised.
But their views were quickly fading.
What did the Treaty mean to Māori?
We are fortunate that written accounts exist of several Treaty signings, particularly those in the north. However, for most of the signings, we know little or nothing of what was said by the participants. Subsequent recollections and oral traditions help fill some of these gaps, as do Hobson's instructions to his delegates (he'd suffered a stroke shortly after the first signing at Waitangi).

But for the most part, we have no first-hand evidence of why many Māori signed the Treaty, or how it was explained to them. We also don't know why some Māori chose not to sign the Treaty when they had the opportunity (with a few notable exceptions).

But context is everything, remember?

We know that Hobson instructed his delegates (who included missionaries and military officers) to carefully explain the purpose and articles of the Treaty, and invite them to make comments or ask questions. We know that the Treaty was explained in Māori, either by the delegates or a translator (this being the lingua franca of New Zealand at the time), and that all but 39 signatories signed the Māori text of the Treaty.

We know that the Māori text conceded "kāwanatanga" to the Crown (the Māori word for "Governor" with the suffix of "tanga"), while guaranteeing "tino rangatiratanga" (full and unqualified chieftainship) over lands (whenua), villages (kāinga), and other treasures (taonga) to the chiefs, hapū, and all New Zealanders (which, in 1840, meant Māori, despite the creative interpretation of some bad faith actors).

Five years earlier, in He Whakaputanga, "Rangatiratanga" had been used to describe "authority and leadership", while "sovereignty" was translated as "Kīngitanga" and "mana".

"Rangatiratanga" and "Kīngitanga" had also been used in the Māori translation of the Bible to represent "Kingdom" and "authority", and (less often) "freedom". Māori also knew about "Kāwana" from the Bible (particularly Herod and Pilate), and through their interactions with the Governor of New South Wales.

Key participants in drafting and presenting the Treaty later explained how they had described it to Māori.

Missionary Henry Williams recalled in 1847 that he had advised Māori that the Queen, who wished "to protect them in their rights as chiefs, and rights of property", had sent Hobson as "a regulator of affairs with the natives of New Zealand". The Treaty's purpose was to "admit the Government of the Queen throughout the country, from the circumstance that numbers of her subjects are residing in the country"; and further, "to establish a settled government, to prevent evil occurring to the natives and Europeans who are now residing in New Zealand without law." In the Treaty's first article, Māori were asked to "surrender to the Queen for ever the Government of the country". In turn, the second article "confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and tribes, and to each individual native, their full rights as chiefs, their rights of possession of their lands, and all their other property of every kind and degree." Note that Williams stressed the rights of property and rights of chieftainship separately.

The views of George Clarke, the first and only Chief Protector of Aborigines from 1840 until the office was abolished in 1846, shed further light on how Māori viewed the Treaty. When dissent arose within the Executive Council in late 1842 over whether the Crown's sovereignty extended to hapū who had not signed the Treaty, Clarke advised:
The natives alone who signed the treaty acknowledged the Queen's sovereignty, and that only in a limited sense, the treaty guaranteeing their own customs to them; they acknowledge a right of interference only in grave cases, such as war and murder, and all disputes and offences between themselves and Europeans, and hitherto they have acted upon this principle. The natives who have not signed the treaty consider that the British Government, in common with themselves, have a right to interfere in all cases of dispute between their tribe and Europeans, but limit British interference to European British subjects. . . . treating those tribes as British subjects by force, who have refused to cede the sovereignty to Great Britain, would not only be considered by the natives as a breach of faith with the principles originally professed in negotiating for the sovereignty, but would, I am apprehensive, lead to a destructive war . . .
These first-hand accounts complicate the simplistic claim that Māori ceded complete sovereignty to the Crown. Remember, Williams and Clarke were drawing on multiple encounters with Māori to give general advice on what Māori understood by the Treaty. Modern-day Treaty sceptics, in comparison, tend to pull isolated quotes from Colenso's account of the signing at Waitangi, or Hobson's (possibly apocryphal) claim after the signing at Waitangi that "he iwi tahi tatou" (we are one people).

Nevertheless, it's reasonable to infer that Māori understood the Treaty ceded something to the Crown. This included the right to control British settlers, and to intervene to some extent in disputes between settlers and Māori.

They may also have conceded a nebulous cluster of "national" rights, which had heretofore not been practised or given institutional form outside of He Whakaputanga - protecting them from other foreign powers was one commonly recorded concern.

In return, they understood their existing authority and customs would be recognised and protected. Their "parent", the Governor, would also guide them in engaging with British laws and trade opportunities, much as the missionaries had guided their engagement with God. Crucially, however, they understood that this engagement would be on their terms - a view that had been encouraged by the Crown's tolerance of Māori custom.

Events on the ground in the following decades bolster this conclusion. As I noted earlier, most districts in New Zealand remained wholly under Māori control until the 1860s. The few Europeans living among them did so on Māori terms. Māori custom continued to govern the rhythms of everyday life: the writings of missionaries and Pākehā traders are full of stories of tapu, makutu (sorcery), taua muru (ritualised plundering), and even murder and localised tribal warfare.

This undermines another simplistic claim often recited by Treaty sceptics: that Māori were desperate to cede their sovereignty in 1840 to escape the destructive cycle of the Musket Wars. While there are anecdotal accounts of Māori expressing weariness with musket warfare, the reality is that the level of death and dislocation in the 1820s had dropped considerably by the late 1830s after parity in arms was achieved.

The fact that Māori continued to resort to traditional means of dispute resolution demonstrates how important this remained. It also explains why tensions inevitably flared whenever the Crown assumed a right that Māori did not believe they had ceded. Land sales were a common cause of tension, and were one of the factors leading to the establishment of the Kīngitanga.

This is not to say that Māori isolated themselves from the Pākehā world. Hapū enthusiastically traded flax, timber, produce and livestock for European goods and technologies, and invested their capital in trading vessels and flour mills. Māori also increasingly engaged with the Pākehā judiciary, particularly the Resident Magistrates' Courts. Governor Grey's rūnanga system was also cautiously taken up in the early 1860s, in part because tribal councils were already a customary form of authority for Māori.

But some scepticism was expressed. Hori Kawakura, a Ngāti Awa rangatira residing in Whakatāne, said:
I do not understand the Pakeha; first he brought us Christianity, then guns to destroy each other with; then came the Government and the law and the Magistrates; then Runangas. Now it is a new thing, and by and bye it will be some other new thing. We are bewildered with all these things, and think we had better be let [sic.] alone. We know that Christianity has done us good, and we are content with that. Does the Governor think to occupy our attention with these new things, while he is contriving plans to get hold of our land?
Te Hura Te Taiwhakaripi, another Ngāti Awa rangatira residing at Matatā in the Bay of Plenty, agreed to try the new institutions, but "should it hereafter appear that they had been deceived, he could as easily renounce his connection with the Government as he now entered into it, and would not scruple to do so." Such interactions showed that Māori still considered their local authority remained intact on the eve of war.
What about Ngata?
Apirana Ngata was arguably one of the greatest New Zealand statesmen of the 20th century. His tireless efforts to utilise the state apparatus to preserve Māori culture, settle Māori land grievances, and foster Māori economic development remain among the greatest achievements for Māori of their time.

That doesn't mean his views on the Treaty were correct. Not everything he said should be taken uncritically - he and Peter Buck were both avid proponents of eugenics and racial theory, too.

But, more importantly, context is everything.

Ngata was one of several leading Māori figures of the early 20th century who had been educated under the assimilationist school curriculum of the late 19th century.

Influential educators like James Pope had rolled out a native schooling system under which Māori were encouraged to cast aside much of their culture and rapidly assimilate to stave off extinction as a distinct people. Immense pressure continued to be exerted on Māori to alienate their lands to Pākehā, and to convert what remained into individualised titles, thereby destroying what Henry Sewell called "the principle of communism which ran through the whole of their institutions, upon which their social system was based, and which stood as a barrier in the way of all attempts to amalgamate the Native race into our own social and political system."

Ngata would also have been aware that decades of Māori protest about the Treaty did not appear to have improved their material circumstances.

Since the 1860s, Māori had continued to push back against the Crown's increasing intrusion into their affairs. Sometimes, they did so within the political system (such as through letter-writing, parliamentary petitions, and participation in the various proposed incarnations of the native council system). And other times, they went outside the system (as with the Kīngitanga, Te Whitu Tekau, and the land repudiation movement).

Land remained the epicentre of disputes. Various Māori leaders and organisations called for the Native Land Court to be abolished or boycotted, and for its judicial powers to be returned to Māori. Sometimes, Māori drew on the Treaty to justify their claims to autonomy, while at other times, they relied on their inherent rangatiratanga and mana.

The desire of Māori to govern their own lives and affairs was a common factor throughout these forms of resistance. This was not some Lockean individualism, as Peter Cresswell has claimed, but a desire for regulatory and judicial power on their own whenua. When Donald McLean introduced an abortive Native Councils Bill to parliament in 1872 to devolve local self-government to Māori, he said:
There had been for some time past a very great want felt in some parts of the country for more local self-government in Native districts. During the last session of Parliament, a great number of petitions had been presented from Natives requesting that they might be allowed to form themselves into Committees to manage their own local affairs, subject to the advice and direction of the Resident Magistrates in the Native districts. The intention, so far as he could gather from the petitions and letters sent to the Government, was that those Committees should have power to adjust all differences and disputes among themselves, without having recourse to the Courts of law.
Such desires echoed the pluralistic approach to sovereignty that had governed the Crown-Māori relationship before the war. McLean's bill was ultimately unsuccessful, as the majority felt that it would undermine the work of the Native Land Court in opening up Māori lands for settlement. However, a much watered-down version was passed in 1883.

Many of these threads of protest came together in 1892 under the Kotahitanga Parliament, a national Māori parliament that claimed the right to govern Māori affairs based on He Whakaputanga, the Treaty of Waitangi, and the provisions of the 1852 Constitution Act relating to autonomous native districts.

A petition in favour of the Kotahitanga Parliament received 21,900 signatures - about half the Māori population, and a higher proportion of adult Māori. The parliament sought "to create laws for all the lands held by the Maori people because the Maori people have seen the wrongs in the creation of laws by the Pakeha Parliament." It also claimed the authority to regulate other aspects of Māori life, including fisheries, farming, and employment.

The British settler parliament never recognised the Kotahitanga Parliament, and it held its final sitting in 1902. Some of its objectives were achieved with the passage of legislation in 1900 that introduced a small degree of Māori autonomy over land and other local matters, although this was quickly whittled away by a lack of resourcing and weakening of the legislation. Nevertheless, the Māori committees of the early 20th century laid the foundation for the tribal committees that emerged during World War Two, and the New Zealand Māori Council in 1962.

Ngata was also trying to combat the growing influence of the Rātana movement. Its founder, Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana, had spent 1921 and 1922 travelling around the country converting Māori to his new faith. The spiritual and political importance of the Treaty was central to Rātana's message, and he later petitioned parliament for it to be ratified via legislation (the Treaty of Waitangi Act in 1975 was a partial fulfilment of this, through the long-standing political alliance between the Labour Party and Rātana-aligned Māori members of parliament).

New Zealand also experienced a sharp economic recession in 1920-21, which hit Māori, who were already economically marginalised, hard. Ngata was determined to use every means at his disposal to encourage Māori land retention and development to better their material circumstances. The Treaty, while historically important, was a distraction from achieving his goals.

Ngata's views on the Treaty in 1922 are historically important. They speak to the dominant attitudes of Pākehā, and undoubtedly some Māori too. But his was not the only voice speaking for Māori.

Thirty years earlier, the Ngāti Whanaunga rangatira Hāmiora Mangakahia described the Treaty to the large gathering where the Kotahitanga Parliament was founded:
By that Treaty the chiefs of the Maori race gave the Queen and her people license to live in Aotearoa and Te Waipounamu, that is, it was an agreement that the mana of the Government of the Queen could obtain in all places in New Zealand. Therefore, it was agreed that the people without shares could have shares in this island, that is, only with the consent of the person owning the land, and to be sold at the price arranged by the buyer together with the landowner. By that Treaty too it was settled by the two sides that the Maori people alone had mana over the lands. You know our meaning for this word in our own language because this word mana is something exceptional. According to our custom one chieftain would never proceed to arrange conditions for the property under the mana accorded to another chieftain.
Mangakahia was also only one voice, but he spoke with the tongues of nearly 22,000 Māori who signed the petition calling for an independent Māori Parliament. To put that number in perspective, the third women's suffrage petition of 1893 was signed by just over 30,000 people.
An ongoing relationship
This potted history of the Treaty of Waitangi reveals a common thread of Māori claiming the right to control their affairs - to exercise their rangatiratanga, in other words. The advent of the principles of the Treaty in 1975 can be seen as simply another part of this thread. While this seemed to some as if the Treaty was being distorted, it was merely an affirmation of what generations of Māori had understood all along - and, equally importantly, which the Crown had also understood in the first few decades after 1840, even if its end goal had been for Māori to voluntarily abandon their customs in favour of British laws.

When the Treaty is placed in context, it is clear that it recognised two forms of authority in New Zealand - kāwanatanga and rangatiratanga - and that discerning the boundaries between the two required an ongoing relationship between the two authorities: the Crown and hapū, along with the institutions in which hapū come together, such as iwi. This is not unlike the situation in other English jurisdictions, such as the US, where Congress has devolved some local executive and judicial powers to 574 tribal nations.

It's not a question of dividing people by race - as David Seymour has framed it. It's a matter of two polities agreeing on the division of authority between them.

The difficulty that contemporary policy-makers face is that, as Māori and non-Māori have increasingly intermingled and cohabitated, and the bureaucratic reach of the Crown has expanded to include more aspects of our lives, the interests of Māori and the Crown have become heavily intertwined.

Autonomous "native districts" are arguably no longer possible. So how do we give effect to our evolving and sometimes conflicting understandings of the Treaty in the 21st century?

The answer to that question sounds a lot like partnership to me.

Matthew Cunningham is a historian specialising in Māori-Crown relations, and a former senior policy analyst at the Ministry for the Environment. He has produced historical evidence for the Waitangi Tribunal in the Porirua ki Manawat ū, Te Rohe Pōtae, and Te Paparahi o te Raki inquiries, and for several marine and coastal area applications. He also specialises in the history of radical right-wing groups, and was a co-editor of Histories of Hate: the radical right in Aotearoa New Zealand (2023).

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In history, context is everything | E-Tangata

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"Apirana Ngata's views on the Treaty in 1922 are historically important. They speak to the dominant attitudes of Pākehā, and undoubtedly some Māori too. But his was not the only voice speaking for Māori." - Historian Matthew Cunningham.

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A leap into the light

How was it that a tiny colony far from the centres of political power and influence became the first self-governing country in the world to grant its women the vote?

Opponents of women's suffrage in late-1880s New Zealand called the movement "a leap in the dark" which would transform women from angels of the home to ill-tempered crones. The vote, they said, would unsex women and destroy their lovableness.

Newspaper critics mercilessly lampooned the suffrage campaigners, calling them "the shrieking sisterhood" and depicting them as neurotic, senseless creatures "as ignorant of needlework as a Hottentot."

Yet as the 1893 elections came to a close, it was obvious that politics in New Zealand would never be the same again.

Contrary to the predictions of critics who had maintained that the demand for the vote came from a handful of discontented wowsers, no fewer than 90,000 women had cast their votes-two-thirds of the country's adult women.

And there had never been a polling day more peaceful and orderly. General elections were usually rowdy affairs with much throwing of stones, eggs and flour. The pubs invariably did a roaring trade, and the police were run off their feet with drunkenness and brawls.

But on Tuesday November 28, 1893, when the women came out to cast their votes for the first time, the mood was festive, and everyone agreed that election day had been transformed.

The lead-up to the day had not been without excitement. Scarcely two months had elapsed since the legislation granting the vote to women had been signed by the Governor of the day. Lord Glasgow, and feelings about the issue still ran high. In Christchurch, a practical joker had hoisted a petticoat on a prominent flagpole to make his protest.

Nevertheless, astute politicians were not slow to detect a whiff of perfume on the winds of change. They courted their female constituents by writing letters on scented notepaper with forget-me-nots. They held "ladies" meetings-although in Reefton a Mr Collings upset the local women by scheduling his meeting for a Monday. traditionally women's washing day. The women retaliated by denouncing Mr Collings and unanimously decreeing that their husbands should do the washing instead.

In Christchurch, Kate Sheppard, who had led the suffrage campaign to victory, noted with disgust the "bland and oily manner" of politicians who had opposed the suffrage now trying to pass themselves off as supporters of women.

The women themselves were more interested in practical matters. Amey Daldy, the grande dame of the suffragists in Auckland, led meetings at which women were treated to a demonstration of how to fill out a ballot paper. This activity was greeted with considerable alarm by some candidates who thought she must be instructing them in who to vote for. Amey, however, was simply trying to ensure a good turn-out at the polls. "Let not babies, the wash-tub, or even dinners prevent the women going," she said.

Women responded with delight. According to the Auckland Star, reporting on the scene in Auckland, "They emerged in all the glory of their summer apparel, and perambulating the streets in numbers far exceeding the members of the coarser sex, seemed to be enjoying their new power before they took the trouble of exercising it. There was a general air of self-confidence-nay, some say an assumption of superiority in their faces, which was perfectly excusable when we consider the novelty of their position."

The novelty of their position was not just because this was the first vote cast by women in New Zealand. Although women in some other parts of the world could vote before 1893-the Cook Islands, the American territories of Wyoming and Utah, and Pitcairn Island, for instance-New Zealand was the first self-governing country in the world to legislate for universal female franchise. It was also the first country in the world where a campaign for women's suffrage had succeeded. The British suffrage campaign had commenced in 1866, and there were large campaigns in Australia and America, but some of these were destined to last for decades before women won the vote.

New Zealand's campaign began in 1885, and was successful after eight intense years of struggle. When British women finally won a partial franchise in 1918, they had been campaigning for 55 years, and had resorted to increasing militancy. During the British campaign,women were imprisoned, houses and letter-boxes were fire-bombed, paintings were slashed, shop windows smashed, and Emily Davison died after throwing herself under the hooves of the King's horse at the Derby. American women won the vote in various states from the late nineteenth century, but the necessary amendment to the United States Constitution was not made until 1920.

Only four countries in the world-New Zealand, Australia, Finland and Norway-and 11 states of America had achieved the franchise before the First World War. France, the birthplace of "Liberte, egalite and fraternite," did not grant its women citizens the vote until after the Second World War; neither did Japan, Italy and Hungary.

So how was it that a small colonial nation, physically remote from the intellectual and political ferment of Europe, was able to achieve this democratic advance so far ahead of more established nations?

To answer this question, it is necessary to understand the kind of country New Zealand was in the late nineteenth century-its stage of development, its ideals and culture, the place of women in society-as well as to examine the feminist context which nurtured the suffrage campaign.

In fact, the campaign for the vote was just one aspect of an emerging re-examination of the role of women. In the late 1800s, women who had been confined to a domestic, private role within families were expanding their horizons and staking their claim to paid work, higher education, political involvement and physical freedoms. Suffragists, while agreeing that women's role as wives, mothers and as the pivot of home life was important, argued that baking cakes and boiling potatoes should not be the sole purpose of women's lives.

The "New Woman," said Gisborne suffragist Margaret Sievwright, was "she who had discovered herself, not relatively as 0 mother, wife, sister, but absolutely . I would rather have this new woman-even in her occasional perversity, exaggeration and revolt-than the female oyster who discovers no interest in life outside the limits of her own shell."

The movement for the female franchise first emerged in New Zealand with the formation of the Women's Christian Temperance Union in 1885. In that year, Mary Clement Leavitt, the travelling envoy for the American Woman's Christian Temperance Union, had journeyed through New Zealand urging local women to form unions. She called on women to fight the drink trade as a source of suffering for wives and children, and went on to argue that there were no avenues of life from which women should be excluded. She advocated that women could be judges, doctors, attend universities, serve on juries, even go to war. Let men and women be treated alike,she urged. Of course, this included the right to vote. The present system, she said, "classed women with children, idiots and criminals, who were the only other classes incapable of voting."

Her appeals fell on receptive ears. New Zealand women were ready to insist on a broader and more public role in life. When Leavitt left New Zealand to continue her global crusade, ten unions had been formed, and 600 women had been called to the ranks.

By the 1880s, the pioneering stage of New Zealand's development was drawing to a close. Significant towns were developing, with substantial buildings-libraries, theatres, factories, multi-storied department stores and imposing churches. Some areas had gas street lighting, and at dusk men with long poles went around the streets to turn on the 'gas and ignite the hissing fish-tail flames.

There were telegraph offices and the first telephone exchanges. A network of railways connected many areas, and in 1885 the first sod was turned for the North Island main trunk railway. Newspapers and weeklies circulated colonial news and gossip; there was even a society magazine for women, The New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Home Journal, which reported on the latest Parisian and London fashions and recorded what Mrs Fitzherbert wore to Mrs Baldick's ball.

While the not-so-well-to-do found work-if they were lucky, for New Zealand was economically depressed in the 1880s-in industry, many middle-class urban dwellers lived lives of comfortable respectability, attending church and depositing their visiting cards around town.

Socially-concerned middle-class women did not just gather to drink tea and nibble Madeira cake. Although the government had passed a Hospitals and Charitable Institutions Act in 1885, establishing a national system of hospitals and welfare payments under the control of local boards, women undertook the bulk of voluntary charitable work, helping the poor, the sick, the widowed and the deserted.

Much of this work was carried out under the auspices of the churches. In colonial New Zealand, the churches were a strong force. Social life, particularly for respectable women, often revolved around church affiliation. In successive censuses, 95 per cent of the population were able to nominate a religion. A survey by the Auckland Star on one Sunday in 1882 found that nearly half the population attended church, and that women outnumbered men.

Through groups within churches, and temperance groups attached to churches, women were able to play a role in their communities which was wider than their home life, but their membership of such groups contained inbuilt contradictions, for in these groups women were doomed to be always the led, and never the leaders. They raised money, took Sunday School, kept the church clean and looked after ailing parishioners, but they were barred from making important decisions.

The churches and the temperance groups-with the exception of a group called the Good Templars-did not allow women to hold office. Convention decreed that women could not lead meetings or speak publicly. The concept of woman as man's "helpmeet" was strongly ingrained. The wife was to assist and support her husband's work, but to stand in his shadow. In the wider life of the community, this was women's purpose, too. It was a straitjacket from which women were chafing to escape. "There are still many men who regard woman as a thing created solely for the pleasure of man," complained Kate Sheppard. "Woman is useful for making puddings and savoury dishes, and also performs the very necessary duty of rearing young citizens. But her sphere must be limited by her household duties, and anything like spontaneous or independent thought or action must be firmly repressed."

When Mary Leavitt introduced to New Zealand her concept of strong, visible, women-only and women-led organisations, she met an immediate response. The WCTU offered women the opportunity to exercise real leadership, and to do so in the pursuit of an important cause.

The overt purpose of the WCTU was the control or banishment of alcohol. This was a righteous issue, as the abuse of alcohol was rife in colonial societies. In 1877, almost 26 million litres of beer were produced by local brewers; in 1880 there were almost 2000 public houses. At that time there were just over 300,000 people over 15 years of age in New Zealand, amounting to one pub per 150 adult persons. There were pubs on every corner, and the legacy of the mobile, disproportionately male frontier societies of the early years of New Zealand's European settlement was a tradition of crude, hard-drinking habits centred on the pubs.

Women were frequently the victims of men's alcohol abuse. Men drank their earnings away in the pubs, and drunkenness was frequently involved in cases of violence towards women and children. Mary Lee-mother of the Labour politician John A. Lee-recorded that when she remonstrated with her husband Alfredo about wasting money in the pub, "he run at me to Strike me-But the blow missed me & my Girl got it on the Side of her face." Alcohol abuse was a women's issue.

The WCTU worked for law changes, and crusaded among women and children to pledge themselves not to drink alcohol. (Maori women were also asked to stop using tobacco and having their faces tattooed.) The union lobbied to have temperance teaching in schools (unsuccessfully), to see the ban on the supply of alcohol to Maori women rigorously enforced, to cut down the use of alcohol as a medicine in hospitals (one convalescent patient in Wellington Hospital in 1880 drank 581 ounces of spirits, 88 bottles of port, and 696 ounces of wine), and the women set up temperance tea rooms and booths at fairs and exhibitions. The female franchise was seen as a strategy to enable women to have more say in liquor laws, as women would vote for men who shared their goal of purifying and stabilising society.

But the suffrage campaign was more complex than the focus on alcohol would suggest. The vote was also a matter of simple justice. Intelligent, educated women who were increasingly participating in the wider society lacked the most basic of civil rights, and there were a number of discriminatory laws on the statute books which these women wanted changed. Without the vote, women lacked direct influence.

It rankled with these women who wanted to uplift society that girls as young as twelve could legally consent to sexual intercourse and marriage. The infamous Contagious Diseases Act perpetuated a double standard in sex, by permitting any woman, merely suspected of being a prostitute, to be picked up off the streets, taken to a Lock Hospital and detained while she was compulsorily treated for venereal disease.

Opponents of the Act called this gross discrimination against women, as men who used prostitutes got off scot free. The act put women "absolutely in the power of the police," said one campaigner, "for if a single policeman chooses to think he has 'good cause for believing her to be a common prostitute' he can cause her to appear before a Justice of the Peace who can deprive her of a woman's most sacred right-the right over her own person." Critics regarded the compulsory examination as medical rape; the youngest female taken into the Auckland Lock Hospital was ten years old.

Another double standard operated with the divorce law. Both sexes could divorce for adultery, but a woman had to prove violence as well, and the judges often told a battered woman to go home and patch things up with her husband. If a husband died, a woman did not automatically have guardianship of her children, for her husband had the right to appoint someone else.

There was no such thing as equal pay, even where women were doing the same work as men, such as teaching. Women could not vote or stand for local bodies unless they were ratepayers, and local authorities did not appoint women to hospital boards.

On all these issues, the suffragists wanted action. They wrote pamphlets and letters to newspapers, and held public meetings. Some had to work incognito because of the opposition of husbands or children. Mary Muller of Nelson, whose husband was the resident magistrate of Marlborough, wrote secretly, "like a mole," under the pen name Femina.

In the early 1870s, Auckland schoolteacher Mary Colclough, alias Polly Plum, succeeded in stirring up strong feelings at lectures with titles such as "The Subjection of Women." Satirical poems were written about her, cartoons drawn, and letter-writers and newspaper editorialists predicted the death of womanliness were Polly's ideas for emancipation to take hold. The Waikato Times thundered that "the majority of women are unfit even to have authority over their children . . . To make them legally equal to their husbands would be disastrous in the extreme . . . Woman's power is her weakness, her tenderness, and her ability to love deeply . . . May the day be far distant when the agitation in favour of 'Women's Rights' shall destroy the charm of English home life."

This diatribe was published in 1872, but such opposition was reiterated once the campaign for suffrage proper got under way in 1885. There were still many who thought that women should be confined to the domestic sphere, and that the comfort of home life would be ruined for men were women to escape. But in the intervening 13 years the lives of New Zealand women had undergone significant change.

Although most girls, on finishing their schooling, stayed home to help their mothers, a steadily growing band of women was entering the paid workforce. Most worked as domestic servants and in manufacturing, primarily in the clothing industry. They stitched all day, and sometimes into the night, or stood in laundries with their arms in tubs full of hot water, or wielded irons weighing eight or nine pounds.

In 1881, nearly 12,000 women worked as domestics, and 4,594 worked in the clothing industry. Only a very few women worked as shop assistants (237) or in offices (14). These latter employment categories did not really open up for women until the early years of the twentieth century.

Women in the clothing industry were usually paid far less than men, and they were often paid by the piece, rather than by the hour. Although the law said that no person under 14 could work in a factory, 12-and 13-year-old girls and boys were apprenticed, often on no wages. In 1889, after a public outcry about such conditions, a Tailoresses Union was formed in Dunedin. Dunedin was at the time the most industrialised city in New Zealand: 27 per cent of the city's workforce were employed in the clothing industry, and 80 per cent of these were women. The following year, a Sweating Commission was established by the government to investigate workplace abuses; its report led to reforming factory legislation in the early 1890s.

Harriet Morison, a young dark-haired Irish tailoress who was a key figure in the Tailoresses Union, also tried to start a union for domestic servants. This never got off the ground, but there were fiery public meetings at which the servants aired their grievances and chastised mistresses for their harshness. "The domestic servant of to-day." complained one Christchurch servant, "is more a slave than the niggers were [which] the British helped to free. The niggers could go to their cabin at sundown, but does 10 p.m. finish a servant's day? Seldom so."

Servants worked 16-hour days, and were lucky to be given a Sunday afternoon off. There were good reasons why the servant was colloquially known as "the slavey," but none of the Liberal government's labour force reforms applied to them. When a Domestic Servants Half Holiday Bill was introduced into Parliament in 1896, allowing for one afternoon off a week, it was laughed out of Parliament. Later, the registrar of unions decreed that a servant was not even a "worker."

Despite their industrial problems, the existence of working women who were self-supporting, who might even be supporting families where the mother was widowed or deserted, or the men of the family unemployed, challenged the Victorian concept of the dependent, helpless daughter who had to be provided for by her father until her own marriage. Women's presence in the workforce also supported the claim for civil rights for women. The maxim "No taxation without representation" could be used by New Zealand working women as it had been by working men in suffrage campaigns overseas.

[Chapter-break]

Educationally, New Zealand women began challenging stereotypes of women from a very early date.although a minority of girls entered secondary schools before the Free Place system was introduced in 1903, a growing number of girls went on to university. Unlike their hide-bound counterparts overseas, all New Zealand universities were open to women from the beginning, and it was not long before women took advantage of that opportunity. When, to deafening applause, shy, fair-headed Kate Edger mounted the platform in the Choral Hall in Auckland to accept her Bachelor of Arts in 1877,she became only the second woman in the British Empire to have earned a degree, and the first BA. "Let us hear no more of the intellectual inferiority of women," trumpeted the New Zealand Herald when reporting her graduation ceremony.

Kate had studied at the Auckland College and Grammar School, then a boys-only school. A condition of her enrolment was that she enter the classroom with eyes downcast.

Later, when she applied to study for a degree, she did not mention her sex, stating only that her age was "within the specified limits" and that she had studied the required subjects. The senate of the University, not wanting controversy, quietly accepted her enrolment.

By the end of the nineteenth century, women were making up a significant proportion of students at universities in New Zealand, and an intrepid few had begun to move into faculties other than the arts. Ethel Benjamin graduated as a lawyer in 1897, the first woman in the British Empire to do so. Her achievement was the more remarkable in that during her years of study the Otago Law Society denied her access to the Supreme Court Library, and she was excluded from the Society's annual Bar dinners.

The first New Zealand woman to enrol as a medical student was "hounded out" through lack of support. A teacher from Gore, Mary Tracey enrolled in 1884, but withdrew the following year. Emily Siedeberg persevered, and graduated in 1896, despite being asked to absent herself from lectures on certain aspects of anatomy (these were delivered to her alone), and despite the fact that her male colleagues sometimes threw pieces of flesh at her in the dissecting room.

Kate Edger and other women prominent in educational circles played key roles in the suffrage campaign. The president of the Feilding branch of the WCTU, Learmonth Dalrymple, a Scottish immigrant woman, had fought for the establishment of Otago Girls' High School-the first state secondary school for girls in Australasia-and for the admittance of women to Otago University. She was inspired to do this by her own experience of being prohibited from studying mathematics by her father.

These women who were breaking the boundaries in work, education and politics also sought more personal and physical freedoms. As a student at Canterbury College (university) in 1894, Alice Burn shocked authorities by appearing in knickerbockers, even though they were discreetly hidden by her undergraduate gown. She was asked to provide a photograph of the offending costume to the university authorities, who promptly banned the wearing of such outfits.

There were rational dress associations in Europe and America, and Alice and other Christchurch women-and some men-founded their own Rational Dress Association. They lambasted women's regular dress, with its tight waist and voluminous heavy skirts. They pointed to cases where women's livers had been cut in two by tight lacing, and maintained that Victorian dress shackled women, making them lethargic and unhealthy. "When I see a ruddy, romping school-girl in her first long dress," said one critic, "afraid of the stone walls in the fields, or standing aloof from the game of ball, or sadly turning away from the ladder which her brother is climbing to the cherry-tree . . . I feel that I have ceased to deal with blunders in dress, and have entered the catalogue of crimes."

The dress reformers advocated loose woollen undergarments, covered by a "bifurcated" costume-divided skirts or knickerbockers. Alice Burn supplied patterns and later designed the costumes for the famous reform dress wedding between James Wilkinson and Kate Walker, where the entire bridal party wore pants. Victorian society was shocked at this brazen display of women's legs-usually kept well covered-and the cartoonists had a field day.

It was no accident that the home of the short-lived Rational Dress Association was Christchurch. One letter-writer to a local newspaper called Christchurch of the period "the happy hunting ground of eccentric persons and the hot-bed of all new and uncanny ideas." This judgment may have been somewhat unkind, but Christchurch certainly was the focus of feminism and advanced ideas in the late nineteenth century. Kate Sheppard was based in Christchurch, and the Canterbury Women's Institute (formed 1892) in which she was a leading light was probably the first specifically feminist society in New Zealand. Through Sheppard's editorship of the women's pages in the temperance paper The Prohibitionist and later the WCTU magazine The White Ribbon, the most radical views on women's roles were circulated widely around New Zealand.

Rational dress was a shocking idea at a time when women were literally swaddled from head to toe in clothes, but it provides a good example of the radicalism of some late nineteenth century social reformers.

It is usual to think of the Victorians as puritanical and stuffy, but many educated middle-class Victorians were intellectually curious people. Major changes in thought and belief were afoot. Charles Darwin's concept of evolution challenged accepted Biblical versions of creation, and although Victorians were highly religious, they were exploring other forms of spirituality, including magic, spiritualism and Eastern religions.

When Annie Besant, the controversial English theosophist and radical exponent of birth control, visited New Zealand in 1894, she drew packed crowds to hear her describe her "Spirit Masters" and the doctrine of karma and rebirth.

The ideas of the French and English philosophers of the eighteenth century Enlightenment and the French Revolution had given birth to ideals of rational thought, equality, democracy and personal freedom which resonated through the nineteenth century. Women's rights were espoused as part of a wider movement towards rights for groups such as slaves and working people. In New Zealand, such ideals of democracy and egalitarianism were widely held.

A social climate favouring experimentation and new ideas had practical outlets, too. In Christchurch, the Canterbury Women's Institute taught the new skill of photography and the use of the darkroom. A leading member of the Institute, Ada Wells, roundly condemned conventional medicine in favour of alternative healing methods. These included hydropathy (water cures), vinegar washing and vapour and sitz-baths. Alternative healers offering a range of cures were readily available in colonial society. The suffragists wrote about vegetarianism, food reform and the benefits of wholemeal bread. They had a new view of the female body which emphasised healthy normality rather than weakness and morbidity.

Cycling was also promoted, not just as a sport but as a symbol of emancipation, for it induced vigorous good health and provided a reason for donning knickerbockers. The "New Woman," as the feminist of the 1880s and 1890s was called, was synonymous with the bicycle.

As women questioned traditional conceptions of femininity, and increasingly violated ideals of proper female behaviour, other sports were adopted. Gymnasium work, golf, swimming and bowling were first taken up by women in the 1880s and 1890s, but the greatest innovation was in team sports, hitherto an exclusively male preserve. Rowing and boating teams were formed, cricket was first played at Motueka in 1886, and hockey appeared in the 1890s.

There was even a rugby team in 1891. In that year Aucklander Nita Webbe announced she would tour a women's side through New Zealand. The response in the media to this plan was ferocious, and it is not clear if the tour ever went ahead.

[chapter-break]

The suffrage campaign was largely an urban, Pakeha movement. Only a handful of signatures of Maori women have been found on the suffrage petitions, although more might be identified in time. The Prohibitionist does record visits of WCTU women to Maori communities seeking signatures and leaving franchise literature.

Nevertheless, Maori women were advancing similar ideas within their own communities. In doing so, they did not have the same barriers of propriety and femininity to break down. Maori women had always enjoyed more sexual freedom and fewer rigid controls on their personal behaviour, and Maori history contains many examples of powerful chiefly women who adopted leadership roles. Even so, feminism was a European concept which could not have the same meaning for another culture, and feminism contained strands of individualism and individual rights which did not mesh readily with a communally-based society.

In the late nineteenth century, Maori women-and men-were an almost exclusively rural people, preoccupied with issues of survival and land. The Waikato and Taranaki wars were not long over, large tracts of land had been alienated, and introduced diseases continued to ravage communities. Maori women's principal interests were with their communities, rather than with other members of their sex across the racial divide.

Traditionally, Maori women could inherit land rights and control their inherited land. There are many examples of Maori women who argued cases in the Land Court once this was established in 1862.

In fact, before the passage of the Married Women's Property Act 1884, some Maori women were outraged to learn that if they married under European law, their husbands gained control of their land. In the 1870s, Mr Williams of Hawkes Bay reported that some local Maori women were declining to marry for this reason. Indeed, the favourable position of Maori women was used in debates on married women's property law within the New Zealand Parliament to argue that European women should be put on the same footing as their Maori sisters.

Maori women clearly had no problem with the idea of women voting and exercising political power. During the campaign for the first election in 1893, Maori women formed committees to support candidates and held large meetings to review the policies of candidates.

The Maori voting day was December 20, and newspapers record that women "took a very keen interest in the matter, recording their vote and emulating their Pakeha sisters in the satisfaction which they manifested in the exercise of the franchise conferred on them for the first time."

So if Maori and Pakeha women alike supported the acquisition of the vote-and enthusiastically exercised it in 1893-the question remains as to why New Zealand was in advance of much of the rest of the world in enfranchising women.

The answer lies in an intermeshing of historical and social factors. Urbanisation and industrialisation had led to new roles for women outside the domestic sphere. But women could still call on their essential helpmeet role in the pioneering period in support of their claim to equal voting status. Women had been vital to the strength of families and in the building of homes and communities; they had played a key economic role, and consequently had earned a measure of respect for their hard work and stamina. Women believed their role in society had earned them the right to equal voting status with men.

In frontier societies, men's uncontrolled use of alcohol was a major social problem, threatening family life and women and children. Unlike the British suffrage campaign, the New Zealand campaign-and those in other frontier societies such as Australia and America-was closely tied to temperance. This connection undoubtedly assisted the cause by drawing on a general concern about the damaging effects of alcohol abuse.

The rise of an urban middle class provided women with the motivation and time to fashion a campaign. Most suffragists were members of Protestant churches-Methodists, Presbyterians and Anglicans. These respectable matrons believed that God had instructed them to cleanse society and banish the demon drink. No amount of opposition from mere mortal men could countermand the divine word. For their part, most of the churches wholeheartedly supported female suffrage.

The newness and fluidity of New Zealand communities also laid the ground for the acceptance of new ideas. Most of the towns in New Zealand were only a few decades old, and people and their institutions were not yet set in their ways. Many of the new settlers prided themselves on the opportunities New Zealand presented; the ability to cross class boundaries, and for the ordinary person to make his or her way. This was the promise which had lured many of the new settlers into emigrating. While they held dear many of the values of their homeland, they congratulated themselves for having broken away from the social rigidity and economic evils of Europe, and there was consternation at anything resembling Old World practices appearing in the New.

New Zealanders wanted to make a new start in how they organised society, and even in the nineteenth century the idea of New Zealand as a social laboratory which led the world was appealing. The new settlers were willing to experiment with social and political change.

Within this climate, the concept of women having the vote, although bitterly fought against for ideological, pragmatic and economic reasons by some powerful interest groups, was not considered beyond the pale. Ultimately, it became a popular cause, supported by men as well as women. It was fear of punishment at the polling booths in 1893 at the hands of men that led some wavering politicians to support the passage of the Electoral Bill.

Even at the time, there was tacit acknowledgement that conferring the vote was more than just a civil right, but a benchmark in the social progress of women. Said the Canterbury Times: "The acquisition of the vote is nothing compared to the effect its possession will have upon women's minds . . . All the great principles that should rule a people will be studied by them; all the diseases that attack and fester in the body politic will become known to them. Wider and wider will expand their education until they are capable of grasping that ideal that now faintly glimmers on the horizon, the federation of all nations and 'peace on earth' . . . women, thus becoming educated by the possession of a real power, though that power is itself but small, will in time prove themselves a great motor force in the onward march of the nation."

In hindsight, this triumphant eulogy seems something of an overstatement. Women's political progress in the past hundred years has been steady, but slow, and women's political emancipation has not transformed the nation. But the suffrage campaign of the 1880s and 1890s set in motion changes which see women one hundred years later leading lives which are unrecognisable compared to those of their Victorian counterparts.

It was the effect on women's minds, as the Canterbury Times so sagely prophesied, which probably made the greatest difference.

Magazine

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How was it that a tiny colony far from the centres of political power and influence became the first self-governing country in the world to grant its women the vote? Opponents of women's suffrage in late-1880s New Zealand called the movement "a leap in the dark" which would transform women from angels of the home to ill-tempered crones.

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Papers Past | Newspapers | Press | 13 September 1893 | WOMEN’S FRANCHISE.

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WOMEN’S FRANCHISE.
■»■ We have been handed for publication the following copy of a letter forwarded yesterday to his Excellency from the Franchise Department of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union of Canterbury:— ” To his Excellency the Earl of Glasgow, Governor of New Zealand. “May it please your Excellency, ” On behalf of the 31,000 women whose petition I had the honour of forwarding to Parliament, I am empowered by my Executive to addres3 your Excellency on the question of the protest urged by a minority of the Legislative Council against your Bkcellency’s immediate assent to the enfranchisement of the women of the colony. I, therefore, beg to point out that on the eve of the last general election a large majority in the House of Representatives affirmed the principle of womanhood suffrage, and that Sir John. Hall was induced to withdraw the Women’s Franchise Bill, which would have given effect to the principle, solely on the ground that Che question had not come before ithe constituencies, and should be relegated to the coantry. ” Womanhood suffrage was one of the most prominent questions raised at the last election, and every candidate, I believe without exception, declared himself as either favourable or antagonistic to the enfranchisement of women. The constituencies having elected a large majority who were avowedly supporters of womanhood suffrage, the assertion made in clause 3 of the protest forwarded to your Excellency is absolutely without foundation and contrary to fact. I sincerely trust that your Excellency will not allowthe action taken by both Houses of Parliament in acceding to the petition of 31,000 women of the colony to be frustrated. ” I have the honour to be ” Your Excellency’s obedient servant, ” Kate W. Sheppard, ” New Zealand Franchise Superintendent, W.C.T.U.”

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