The Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand has been hailed in Australia and other countries as a model for supposedly safeguarding the interests of indigenous people. The reality is very different.
Politicians in NZ routinely glorify the 1840 treaty as a founding national document that established the basis for peaceful and harmonious relations between Māori and European settlers. In reality, it was used by the British to deceive and divide the Māori tribes and to prepare for decades of war to take the land by force.
This pamphlet, by Socialist Equality Group leader Tom Peters, explains how successive governments have elevated the treaty in order to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars to Māori tribal corporations. This created a layer of entrepreneurs, lawyers and academics who are integrated into the capitalist establishment. None of this has benefited ordinary Māori, who remain one of the most impoverished sections of the New Zealand working class.
The pamphlet also contains an article addressing the 2024 protests against the racist anti-Māori agitation of the ACT Party’s Treaty Principles Bill; and an article on the right-wing politics of Te Pāti Māori (the Māori Party).
28 pp