As befitting my self-appointed role of 'public intellectual' in the style of John Ralston Saul, or even Simon Upton, let's get to talking about the role of biculturalism in New Zealand politics.
One of the things that I harped on about during my studies was the interesting way in which New Zealand and Australia each adopted an entirely different to the problem of population diversity. As the last few posts have noted, Australia was a world pioneer in the use of a particular kind of liberal approach to diversity that actively sought to include any migrant under a broad program of nation-building. Thing is, New Zealand was having to adjust the old styles of nation-building at exactly the same time, the much-vaulted social liberalisation of the mid-Twentieth Century, but chose a different tack that has had a hugely different social outcome.
In turn, during the study I made oblique references to Canada, which also adopted multiculturalism, but of yet another approach centred on federalism and the rights of the Quebecois. I'll admit that my understanding of Canadian politics borders on woeful, but my understanding will grow if I ever get that elusive post-Doctoral Fellowship. We shall see.
Anyhow, New Zealand and Australia. What characterises Australian multiculturalism is that it enforces a tolerance of social difference between migrants and dinkum Aussies, and uses a live and let live approach with assimilatory undertones. It's the old, 'Con is a Greek but his kids will be Aussies' approach. And the statistics support the method, the third generation children of migrants are essentially monolingual Anglophonic Ockers.
In regard to migrants, New Zealand uses exactly the same method the Aussies pioneered back in the 1970s. But, during this same period a new approach was being road-tested here that IMHO really reached its zenith in the debate over iwi service delivery in the late 1980s, and was the main drive behind the deliberation that gave us the still operating Treaty Settlement policies.
Ignoring the personal judgements about whether or not you like the idea of Treaty settlements, or the use of iwi to delivery services, when you look at the justifications for this type of bicultural policy it appears both similar to, and different from, migrant multiculturalism. First of all, it doesn't require the minority to change. Migrant multiculturalism is all about transforming resident aliens into culturally authentic nationals, biculturalism does not. Second, it does require the majority to adopt or at very least 'reflect' an absolute minimum of minority culture and language. This suggests that the transformation occurs within the majority, something beyond the pale in Australia. Really, all the two approaches have in common the requirement that the majority tolerate a culturally diverse population.
The most succinct description of the bicultural system I've read was outlined by Andrew Sharp in a chapter of a book called Antipodean Practices. In a nutshell, be argues that there's three ways for the average cracker to handle biculturalism. You can either take it on wholesale, learn Te Reo, wear a big pounamu, act all 'right on' and talk about 'how you have friends who are polynesian, so you really relate to Bro'Town'. Or, you can swing to the other end of the spectrum, wear your black singlet and Stubbies, demand that any reference to the Treaty be struck from the record, and hark back in your mind to the days when 'the bloody Maoris' didn't get all 'uppity' (and neither did those bloody sheilas...). Alternatively, you walk the middle ground and not make a song and dance about things you're not a part of.
OK, so Sharp was a little more conservative in his description, but the meaning was there. The way I see it, if you're not part of Maori society, and are in fact a big old white (wo)man, you can either choose to get involved up to the level of your own comfort zone, or don't.
What you don't get to do is make value judgements about the worth of Maori society and whether it gets to stay a feature of the New Zealand landscape. And this isn't a question of being PC or precious about Maori society. It is a statement that if you aren't part of something you do not get to call any shots. I can make all the demands I want about the way Christians should behave in public, and the things they say, but they don't have to listen to me, if not only because I am an outsider.
What this establishes is a clear delineation between majority and minority that doesn't exist in Australian multiculturalism. Essentially, migrants are considered part of the majority who haven't grown into citizenship yet, a bit like kids who have to be guided into 'proper' social behaviour. New Zealand biculturalism differs from this approach because the majority-minority dynamic is entirely different, and far, far less paternalistic. Hopefully.
But the details of this interaction are another post altogether.