Olivia O’Malley is a former press secretary to New Zealand’s Leader of the Opposition and long-time Conservative staffer. She currently works in public affairs.
The sixth of February marks Waitangi Day in New Zealand, a focal point in New Zealand’s history as a nation and one of the biggest events in the annual political calendar.
It is marked by ceremony and custom, engagement between Māori and leading politicians, and, often, moments of heated protest. But for New Zealand politicians, what is the point of heading north to the small town of Waitangi each year?
The story of Waitangi is one of contested history and ongoing debate – and its story is quite different from that of Australia Day, which activists have sought to rebrand “Invasion Day” in recent years.
Now effectively New Zealand’s national day, Waitangi Day is the anniversary of the first signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between Māori people and the Crown, on 6 February 1840.
The Treaty of Waitangi (or Te Tiriti of Waitangi) – is New Zealand’s founding document and remains a contentious and current issue in New Zealand politics.
In the first instance, the Māori and English versions of the Treaty were interpreted differently. Put simply, and for reasons of brevity, Māori chiefs and British colonists were signing up to very different things. This had significant ramifications for the way New Zealand was colonised and settled in the years afterwards, with frequent disagreements on the concepts of sovereignty and governance and the ownership of land, some of which remain ongoing.
Notably, the dominant tribe in Northland, where Waitangi is located, is Ngāpuhi, is the only major tribe to have not signed a Treaty of Waitangi settlement with the Crown.
Secondly, for many years after its signing, the Treaty itself was largely ignored, only coming into play in the latter half of the 20th century. In the years since, however, it has become integral to modern New Zealand politics and law, leading to the Waitangi tribunal and historic settlements being agreed with the majority of tribes.
Indeed, New Zealand political parties (chiefly National, New Zealand’s equivalent of the Conservatives, and Labour) occasionally spar over the number of Treaty settlements agreed during their respective periods in government.
But the question of whether, and to what extent, the Treaty’s three provisions should be integrated into current policy and lawmaking is one which politicians at a national level are regularly confronted with even today. Unpopular decisions around co-governance with Māori made by Jacinda Ardern were swiftly abandoned when she stood down and, at the most recent election in October, right-wing political party ACT proposed holding a referendum on how the principles of the Treaty should be interpreted.
Accompanied by this political debate is the ceremony and spectacle of Waitangi Day itself. For most people, the day signifies the establishment of New Zealand as we know it now, paving the way for significant emigration and settlement, largely from Britain to New Zealand, and the creation of New Zealand as a colony.
For politicians, Waitangi Day can be fraught. Traditionally, leading politicians – usually, though not always, the leaders of major parties – head north, to Waitangi itself, to a series of commemorations with local Māori which have often been heated and controversial.
In a particularly memorable incident in 2016 Steven Joyce, a minister standing in for then-prime minister John Key, was hit by a dildo thrown by a protester. The incident was lampooned in global media and Joyce was dubbed “Dildo Baggins” in reference to New Zealand’s other great export, the Lord of the Rings films.
This year’s Waitangi celebrations were slightly less dramatic. But for the most part, leaders were speaking only to their constituencies, which begs the question of why they go at all.
Christopher Luxon, the new prime minister from the National Party, was criticised for having lifted large parts of his speech from last year. Luxon’s defence is that the issues have not significantly changed from one year to the next, and that issues such as education remained directly relevant to Māori.
When he was prime minister, John Key did not attend Waitangi commemorations on several occasions as he was not given speaking rights by local Māori. Yet this did not hurt Key in the polls.
There is no sign that Waitangi is going to become any less prominent in the years to come, or that the commemorations will stop. The Treaty will continue to have currency: ACT is working on a Treaty Principles Bill, which National will support to its first reading.
But without political leaders trying to make appeals beyond their specific constituencies of voters or engage with the broader concerns of Māori, the significance and controversy of Waitangi beyond the spectacle is likely to wane.