I tried to hold off on responding to Tze Ming, but I just couldn't. I was thinking of distracting myself by watching Close Up, but it was only offered at 25% Off for about a week, and I missed the opportunity.
As a believer in the worth of the Treaty to the country, I'm inclined towards being both pleased and concerned about the perspectives she offers. I had a similar conversation with Keith a week or so back over a beer, and I think it's a very good thing that people are talking rationally about the place of the Treaty.
Sure as hell better than yelling half-truths at one another.
I'd say that the first hurdle in this type of conversation is the issue of the relevance of the Treaty to people often considered outside the 'Crown-Māori' bond. Tze Ming, being born in Mt. Roskill, is a New Zealander. But if someone is more recently introduced, a metic shall we say, then their consideration of the Treaty is bound to be very different. Presumably.
A slightly skewed example might be a recent English immigrant. Because they might not have the experience of growing up in the mixed culture environment of many smaller New Zealand townsfolk, you can assume they aren't used to getting to grips with how biculturalism works in practice. They might be cool with multiculturalism, but that's a very different kete of fish.
This means that Tze Ming has to be considered part of 'the Crown' side of the equation. Plenty of people will then argue till dawn about what 'the Crown' means, but that's another subject altogether. It's long been my perspective that immigrants are kind of obliged to buy into the Crown's side of the equation. Naturally, and immigrant forming their own relationship with Māori society is both normal and to be encouraged. Who the hell wants to be bunched in with the former colonialists, right?
And as it happens, many former colonialists don't want to be bunched in with other former colonialists. If this Treaty politics situation is anything, it's convoluted and tricky.
Anyhow. The discussion with Keith and a mate 'Tory' was useful, because it highlighted to me the way in which the value and the application of the Treaty are very different.
If you get down to nuts and bolts, i.e. how do you make the Treaty meaningful to contemporary life, you're going to run into hurdles unless you have the value of the Treaty properly sorted out in your head first.
If you think the Treaty has no value, then you'll see no worth in trying to apply it. Or will apply it in a tokenistic or 'half-arse' way. The way some public agencies seem to do, allegedly.
The Treaty does have a place in New Zealand though, because a not-insignificant number of citizens see it as having not only value, but meaning. It's become somewhat fashionable to try and downplay this value and thereby minimise fallout from accusations of things like 'the PC'.
And that's the downside.
Up until the 1980s, the arguments for minority rights in New Zealand and Australia, or even in the Civil Rights demands of the USA, were all remarkably similar. Not identical, but they shared a broad consensus about the need to improve to the lot of minorities.
In Australia this consensus started to lapse just as things were picking up for Māori. And why? Two reasons, firstly, Australia was simply too diverse, and there was little impetous for Aboriginal political differentiation. Which is me being PC and not saying Australians were basically just stingy towards them. Secondly, Aboriginal people didn't have an 'anchor' in the way that Māori do.
That's the value of the Treaty, in my humble opinion. When you start to generate arguments about the application of the Treaty you need to understand the Treaty as a simple outline of absolute minimum rights. Māori have the right to both be Māori, and be citizens.
It's trickier for Aboriginal people though, because while they today have the full rights of citizens, their right to be Aboriginal is limited to their personal lives. Political lives in Australia are always more successful when you appear Anglo.
And that kind of assimilation is the last thing we need in New Zealand. The Treaty anchors us well away from that particular rocky shoreline.