Postcolonial Traumatic Stress Disorder, Māori poverty and violent offending
As more high-profile cases of Māori not coping in New Zealand society have been brought to the nation’s attention, Māori leaders started to make a much more concerted effort to steer debate toward consideration of not only the underlying causes but also the acceptance of Māori-defined remedies and solutions. Several Māori parents and caregivers have been convicted in the past year for the severe abuse and murder of young children. Three more children and then an adult lost their lives in house fires in the Far North in April and June 2001. These fires, like those that claimed the lives of three children in a fire in the same region in 1997, were a direct result of continuing poverty and deprivation. Young Māori offenders are increasingly being convicted for brutal rapes, murders and home invasions. And the rate of Māori youth suicide is one of the highest in the world and increasing at an alarming rate.1
In a hard-hitting speech to the New Zealand Psychological Society Conference in August, Tariana Turia, the Associate Minister of Corrections, Health, Housing, Māori Affairs, Social Services and Employment, confronted these issues directly.2 Predictably, the speech brought the wrath of mainstream New Zealand media down on her. In asking New Zealand psychologists to consider, analyze, and find remedies for the effects of postcolonial traumatic stress disorder on Māori, she pointed out that she saw the connections between home invasions and the invasion of the home lands of indigenous people by a people from another land. ‘What I have difficulty in reconciling,’ she said, ‘is how “home invasions” [elicit] such outpourings of concern for the victims and an intense despising of the invaders while the invasion of the “home lands” of Māori does not engender the same level of emotion and concern for the Māori victims.’3
… And the Prime Minister bans the H-word – Holocaust …
However, the section of Turia’s speech that riveted the media for weeks afterward was the Minister’s reference to the holocaust that indigenous people, including Māori, had suffered as a result of colonial contact and behavior. ‘I understand that much of the research done in this area focused on the trauma suffered by Jewish survivors of the holocaust of World War II,’ she said. ‘I understand that the same has been done with Vietnam veterans. … The Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal … made a reference [to the holocaust suffered by Māori] in its Taranaki Report of 1996’.4
Overnight the media declared that the word ‘holocaust’ was the sole preserve of Jewish people, misquoted Turia,5 and launched an attack on her6 that in its viciousness surpassed even the attacks on Tuku Morgan in 1997. Dr Danny Keenan of Massey University and of Taranaki descent described the response as ‘little short of incredible’.7 In his article published in the New Zealand Herald he explained that many indigenous peoples who have suffered centuries of dispossession, genocide and horrific histories of loss at the hands of colonisers have used the word holocaust to describe their experiences. So have other non-Jewish peoples. The use of the word in Britain and the United States has provoked ‘prolonged and quite bitter academic argument’ although many academics have argued that the word does not belong exclusively to the Jewish people.8
The Prime Minister nevertheless attempted to censor Turia by issuing an edict banning the use of the word ‘holocaust’.9 The edict had to be toned down to advice in the face of a massive backlash from Māori, including other Māori members of Parliament, in support of Turia. In turn, Turia apologised to the Jewish community if her comments had caused them offence. She drew unexpected support from some non-Māori quarters including a retiring member of the conservative National Party, Simon Upton, who commented ‘New Zealanders who react with horror that she should have described it as a holocaust are being a bit precious – or indulging in collective amnesia’.10
… So other Māori MPs duck for cover – except for Dover and Sandra …
Following the sustained attack on Tariana Turia, other Māori members of Parliament kept a low profile. The two exceptions were Dover Samuels, who was still in the media spotlight in his fight against the Prime Minister for forcing his resignation in June 2000, and Sandra Lee, who lost leadership of her own party, Mana Motuhake, in June 2001.11
… But the government still abandons the ‘Closing the Gaps’ policy
Tariana Turia had long championed the strengthening and provision of resources for the basic social groupings within Māori society – the whānau, the hapū and the iwi. The previous, conservative National government had developed a policy that aimed to close the gaps between Māori and non-Maori following the release of the very damaging report Progress Towards Closing the Social and Economic Gaps between Māori and non-Māori: a Report to the Minister of Māori Affairs in 1998.12 The present government carried on the policy, allocating funding in its 2000 budget for social services and employment initiatives specifically targeted at Māori and Pacific Island communities. The government undertook to scrutinise mainstream departmental budgets to ensure that funding meant for Māori actually delivered for Māori. The Prime Minister indicated that ‘the evidence is that it has not been’.13
The government immediately came under fire from right-wing politicians demanding that the government stop providing special funding targeted specifically for Māori.14 Bowing to that pressure, the Prime Minister abandoned the policy in December 2000, noting the advice of her Māori caucus members that Māori do not wish to close the gaps between themselves and Pākehā if it means becoming the same as Pākehā.
Prime Minister under fire from Māori
For many years Māori had called for control of their own destinies, along with the necessary resources to do so. The Prime Minister came under fire from the traditionally supportive Rātana church when she made her annual visit late in January 2001. They put her on notice that unless her government performed and delivered to Māori it would lose Māori support at the next election in 2002. She was also severely criticised for refusing to attend Waitangi Day celebrations at Waitangi and for ordering the Governor General not to attend.15 Tariana Turia and Minister of Māori Affairs, Parekura Horomia, defied her and attended.
In an attempt to dampen Māori criticism, the ‘closing-the-gaps’ policy was replaced by the ‘capacity-building’ policy,16 which allowed for funding to be given to local Māori groups and organisations to develop their own programmes. However, given the scarcity of administrative expertise in many of these groups, unless the Ministry of Māori Development provided a lot of personnel on the ground to assist and train people on the job, and to help contract the appropriate expertise, this policy would also fail.
Lack of governance and administrative expertise causing concern but no media scrutiny …
It was becoming increasingly obvious that the lack of administrative experience and expertise in Māori communities, particularly in commercial matters, was a matter of serious concern.17 In many cases progress in development is severely hampered where communities are not able to accept outside advice. The beneficiaries of many Māori trusts (including the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, which receives millions of dollars every year on behalf of Māori) have repeatedly accused their boards of corruption and mismanagement. Most of those organisations have received less media scrutiny than is perhaps warranted, given the extent of Māori anger about them, but the same cannot be said of Tainui, which has been subjected to intense media scrutiny and criticism over the past year.
As a result of some unwise investments, Tainui had sustained losses totaling approximately $35 million of their Treaty of Waitangi settlement of $170 million, which they received in 1995. By mid-2001, the country’s largest daily newspaper had been conducting a campaign against Tainui for over a year, attacking them for the handling of their settlement, naming individual members of the governing body, and openly fueling animosity and disputes between members. The New Zealand Herald website18 lists more than eighty articles attacking Tainui, prominently published in the news sections in 2000–01, despite the fact that the compensation money is not public money but private money belonging to the iwi. Even the death of the chief negotiator, Sir Robert Mahuta, who had battled first the government and then his own people over Tainui’s losses, did not stop the newspaper’s onslaught.
On 1 February 2001, Sir Robert Mahuta passed away. He was Waikato-Tainui’s chief negotiator for the $170 million package of money and land transferred to Tainui by the Crown in 1995 as settlement for the 1.2 million acres (486,502 hectares) of Waikato lands confiscated in 1863.19 It was a deal Sir Robert knew was both unjust and unfair. He was a member of the kāhui ariki, or paramount Tainui family, and was adopted at four weeks of age by Koroki, the fifth of the Tainui kings. He grew up at Waahi Pā near Huntly. He spent his younger adult years working in the Huntly coal mines, serving in the army and being posted to Malaysia, working as a wharfie, a freezing worker and a labourer on building sites before turning to education. He completed an MA in Anthropology at the University of Auckland, was appointed the director of the Centre for Māori Studies and Research at the University of Waikato and was working towards a PhD at Oxford University in England when problems at Waahi with the Huntly Power Station drew him back home. After he had negotiated the 1995 Waikato-Tainui settlement he withdrew from tribal business to concentrate on setting up an endowed college at Hopuhopu based on the Oxford University model. When high-risk investments of the Tainui settlement funds resulted in large financial losses he was brought back in 2000 to remedy the situation. In the face of strong criticism and failing health, he steered the Tainui settlement back to recovery. He was buried outside the main doors of his endowed college.20
Much more respectful coverage of Pākehā commercial disasters
By comparison with the Herald’s treatment of Tainui, attempts to locate critical comment on that same newspaper’s website about the $600 million losses of Air New Zealand,21 the $54 million debt of ENZA (which took over from the New Zealand Apple and Pear Marketing Board),22 Qantas New Zealand debts of $88 million,23 Brierley losses of $4.5 billion over the past ten years,24 and the collapses of many publicly listed companies with far higher losses and debts than Tainui typically produced only passing mentions in the business pages until the company actually failed.25 On rare occasions the chairman of the board was named, but the anonymity and personal privacy of the rest of the directors was carefully protected and respected.
Successful Māori settlements overlooked by the media
Tainui may have publicly faltered in the handling of its settlements, but other iwi that had received settlements had fared better. Many refused to discuss their progress with mainstream media, and although a couple had been prepared to talk about their achievements they received only fleeting mention.26 Ngāi Tahu, for example, had continued to invest its settlement conservatively and wisely. The $170 million settlement received in 1998 was by 2001 valued at over $366 million, and Ngāi Tahu was once again the largest landowner in its ancestral homeland, the South Island.27 In Rotorua, Ngāti Whakaue’s settlement of $5.2 million was then valued at $17 million.28 In Auckland, Ngāti Whātua of Ōrākei had received a total of $8 million plus some housing since 1987. Their assets were then valued at more than $60 million.29
Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission commercially successful but the fisheries allocation debacle continues …
In terms of profit margins and growing the asset, by far the most successful settlement was the $170 million Sealord fisheries settlement reached in 1992. The Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission: Te Ohu Kaimoana exercised control over more than 40 percent of the country’s fishing quota. It had assets valued at $457 million dollars (net assets).30 However, the assets and funds that made up the settlement were not given to Māori but to a Crown-appointed commission, the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission: Te Ohu Kaimoana, whose task was to allocate the assets and funding to recognised iwi. It had yet to make any allocation, having been dogged by litigation, which saw many millions of dollars of the Commission’s (and hence iwi) money spent on lawyers. Essentially the Crown still controlled the proceeds of the settlement. Iwi were in 2001 demanding that Parliament legislate the allocation as they watched the benefits from profits that should be theirs being spent on ridiculously high fees for commissioners and an ever-increasing cadre of lawyers. Regular press releases were issued by the Treaty Tribes Coalition, which represented more than thirty iwi in the allocation debate, detailing the extent of the losses calculated for each iwi’s region while the proceeds remained tied up in the Commission.31
Waitangi Tribunal celebrates its twenty-fifth birthday but still struggles with government indifference to its funding, findings and recommendations
Almost all settlements had come about as a result of claims presented to the Waitangi Tribunal. In October 2000 the Tribunal celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday. Despite ever-decreasing funding to keep it operating, it had registered 869 claims, and published thirty-seven major reports and a further thirty-one minor reports.32 Many of these reports deal with several claims at once, and 140 claims had been dealt with fully or in part. Yet fewer than twenty of these claims had been settled, and no claimant group had received all the land and compensation they were entitled to.33 While the tribunal had built an impressive record and rewritten the history of the country, its work would count for little unless there was the political will to implement its recommendations. Although Māori leaders had pointed out repeatedly that the settlement of these claims was fundamental to the treatment of the crippling postcolonial traumatic stress disorder being suffered in those communities, in far too many cases governments have refused to accept the tribunal’s recommendations. As a result, along with the length of time it takes to process a claim through the Tribunal (usually many years) and some questionable appointments to the Tribunal of members who are openly antagonistic to claimants,34 Māori were starting to lose faith in the Tribunal’s ability to deliver the justice they so desperately sought.
Despite this, the Tribunal had provided many positive and valuable outcomes for Māori. Most importantly, they had upheld the overwhelming majority of claims they had heard from Māori.35 This in itself provided a certain measure of relief given that most claims are many generations old and had always either been dismissed, ignored or grossly under-compensated by governments and bureaucrats in the past.36 Then, for the first time, there has been an official record of the history of claimant grievances, which includes the histories as recounted by the claimants and are not solely the Eurocentric view of Pākehā historians and bureaucrats intent on either obfuscating or avoiding reference to the damage done to Māori by British immigration. The Tribunal had also largely removed Māori protest from the streets and away from the view of the public,37 as the Labour government had intended in 1975,38 although flagging confidence in the Tribunal’s ability to effect any real change could alter this. And it had provided a forum in which Māori could openly air their grievances about the breaches of the Treaty and their human rights that were expressed by way of protest in the 1970s.39
But the Tribunal came under sustained attack from Pākehā for the support it had given Māori. Some Pākehā found it extremely painful to have to come to terms with their past in this country and strongly resisted having to do so. They went as far as making personal threats against the Tribunal.40 Successive governments continued to show distain and disrespect for the Tribunal’s reports and recommendations, despite the fact that it is a judicial body. They ensured that it has always been severely under-resourced and unable to carry out its inquiries in a timely manner.41 They also kept it under constant threat of losing one of the few powers it has: the power to make binding recommendations. Ministers in Charge of Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations in both National- and Labour-led governments are on record as threatening to remove these powers if the Tribunal ever used them.42
Settlements reported in 2000–01 included the high-profile Pākaitore, or Moutoa Gardens, area in Whanganui. Māori, and some non-Māori, from throughout the country had poured into Whanganui in 1995 in support of the iwi of the area who had taken back a small area of their traditional lands.43 After a long standoff, the iwi eventually withdrew in the hope of settling the matter some other way.44 Tariana Turia was a very prominent member of that protest. In February 2001 she also featured prominently as the Whanganui District Council finally gave up its ‘ownership’ of the gardens. Although the land was not returned to Whanganui Māori, a committee made up of themselves plus representatives of the Crown and the District Council now administers it.
Pouakani, Ngāti Ruanui, Te Uri o Hau
Other settlements were reported: Pouakani in the central North Island achieved the return of 250 acres (100 hectares) of conservation land, a 4749 acre (1922 hectare) farm, joint management of their sacred mountain, Tītīraupenga, and payment of $2.65 million to the descendants of the original owners of a 100,000 acre (49,514 hectare) block.45 Ngāti Ruanui in north Taranaki received $41 million, 25 acres of land and recognition of their fishing rights—a settlement that generated strong protests including High Court action.46 The settlement of the claims of Te Uri o Hau of Northland was particularly alarming: it covered fifteen claims, fourteen marae, and the loss of several hundred thousand hectares of land, but returned only $8.5 million, some commercial properties valued at $7.1 million, less than 74 acres of land and recognition of their fishing rights.47
Māori opposition to genetic engineering
In the battle being fought by Māori on many fronts to protect the country’s natural resources, the fight against the use of human genes in animals has been particularly bitter. An application by the New Zealand Pastoral Agricultural Research Institute to the Environmental Risk Management Authority for permission to carry out this genetic engineering was strongly opposed by Māori. The authority decided to override Māori concerns and gave permission for the work to be carried out on the ancestral lands of Ngāti Wairere in the Waikato district, rejecting the advice of their own Māori expert and their own Māori advisory body.48 When both of those joined Ngāti Wairere in taking a case against it to the High Court,49 the authority threatened to disestablish the advisory committee. The chairman of the committee subsequently resigned, and the committee withdrew from the case. The case to the High Court was lost, although ERMA did come in for some criticism in the decision.50
A breakthrough in local government – Māori representation on Bay of Plenty Regional Council
Although Māori have a strong legislative mandate through the Resource Management Act for the protection of their lands, culture and resources at a local level, enforcing those provisions has proved extremely difficult when there are few or no Māori elected to local government. In the Bay of Plenty, Māori lobbied successfully to have their own representation in local government. A bill put before Parliament provided for the creation of a Māori constituency in that region and allowed Māori to vote for their own representative on the Bay of Plenty Regional Council.51 The bill did in fact become law (the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (Maori Constituency Empowering) Act 2001) and set an important precedent for the rest of the country.52
1 Philippa Howden-Chapman, Simon Hales, Ralph Chapman and Ilmo Keskimaki, 2005, The Impact of Economic Recession on Youth Suicide: Report 4: Social Explanations for Suicide in New Zealand, Wellington, Ministry of Health.
2 MLR, August 2000, p. 9.
3 MLR, August 2000, p. 9.
4 MLR, August 2000, p. 10.
5 New Zealand Press Council, 2001, Case Number 815: John Gamby Against the New Zealand Herald, http://www.presscouncil.org.nz/display_ruling.php?casenumber=815
6 Danny Keenan, 2000, ‘Dialogue: Whose Holocaust? That is Still a Good Question’, New Zealand Herald, 7 September 2000, p. A13; Ranginui Walker, 2002, ‘Māori News is Bad News’, in Judy McGregor and Margie Comrie (eds), What’s News: Reclaiming Journalism in New Zealand, Palmerston North, Dunmore Press, pp. 229–30.
7 Keenan, ‘Whose Holocaust?’.
8 Keenan, ‘Whose Holocaust?’.
9 Keenan, ‘Whose Holocaust?’; Wikipedia contributors, ‘Taranaki’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranaki accessed 2009; Audrey Young, 2000(b), ‘Turia Accepts Edict on Holocaust Term’, New Zealand Herald, 7 September 2000, p. A5.
10 MLR, December 2000/January 2001, p. 11.
11 Archive of Executive Government, ‘Hon Sandra Lee’, http://www.executive.govt.nz/minister/lee/
12 Te Puni Kōkiri, Progress Towards Closing the Social and Economic Gaps.
13 Jobs Research Trust, ‘The Jobs Budget 2000’.
14 Jobs Research Trust, ‘The Jobs Budget 2000’.
15 Ministry for Culture and Heritage, 2009, ‘Waitangi Day in the 21st Century’, http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/treaty/waitangi-day/21st-century-waitangi-day
16 Dover Samuels, 2000, ‘Capacity Building Boost for Māori Affairs’, press release, 15 June 2000, http://www.executive.govt.nz/budget2000/gaps-samuels.htm
17 Wena Harawira, 1997, ‘You Can Blow it All’, Mana no. 15, Autumn 1997, pp. 72–4.
18 See http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
19 Graham, Trick or Treaty, pp. 76–7; MLR, December 1994–January 1995, pp. 12–13; MLR, May 1995, p. 9; Diamond, A Fire in Your Belly, p. 138; chapter 2.
20 Diamond, A Fire in Your Belly, pp.113–46; 2001, ‘He Maimai Aroha: Bob Mahuta’, Mana no. 38, February–March 2001, pp. 6–7; James Ritchie, 2001, ‘Robert Te Kotahi a Koroki Mahuta’, Mana no. 39, April–May 2001, pp. 70–1.
21 The Herald finally made critical comment about the company when Air New Zealand announced a loss of $1.425 billion and an $885 million government bailout on 13 September 2001.
22 Philippa Stevenson, 2001, ‘Apple Growers Biting Back at ENZA Dispute’, New Zealand Herald, 2 July 2001, p. D4.
23 Simon Hendery, 2001, ‘Qantas NZ Takeover an Option to Boost Aussie’s Share’, New Zealand Herald, 6 April 2001, p. C1. This article does not mention the size of the debt, only that it is ‘sizeable’.
24 Dita de Boni, 2001, ‘BIL Chief Looks on Brighter Side’, New Zealand Herald, 19 March 2001, p. D1.
25 Eugene Bingham, 2001, ‘The Grounding of Qantas NZ: a Blow That Came in the Dark’, New Zealand Herald, 28 April 2001, pp. B6–7.
26 Angela Gregory, 2001, ‘Treaty Settlement Success Stories: How They Did It’, New Zealand Herald, 10 January 2001, p. A13.
27 Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu Annual Report 2000.
28 Gregory, ‘Treaty Settlement Success Stories’.
29 Secretary, Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei Trust Board, personal communication.
30 Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission, 2002, Statement of Financial Position of the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission Group, Annual Report to Parliament for the year end 30 September 2002, p. 36, http://teohu.maori.nz/te_ohu/archive/reports/Treaty%20of%20Waitangi%20Annual%20Report%202003.pdf
31 See, for example, Vanessa Bidois, 2000(b), ‘Troubled Waters Loom for Maori Fisheries’, New Zealand Herald, 4 July 2000, p. A11.
32 Director of the Waitangi Tribunal, personal communication.
33 Mutu, ‘Recovering Fagin’s Ill-gotten Gains’.
34 The most notable example is former Labour cabinet minister Michael Bassett, a member of the Tribunal from 1994 to 2004. He faced several challenges during his time on the Tribunal because of alleged bias.
35 Claims that have not been upheld include claims by Pākehā (for example, the Tozer claim and the Guard Family claim) which have been held to be frivolous and vexatious. The Tribunal can only consider claims from Māori (MLR, October 2000, p. 2).
36 For example, in the Muriwhenua Land Report the Tribunal noted that Muriwhenua Māori had suffered ‘loss of status during the long years of petition and protest’ (p. 404).
37 Hamer, ‘A Quarter-century of the Waitangi Tribunal’, p. 6.
38 W H Oliver, 1991, Claims to the Waitangi Tribunal, Wellington, Department of Justice, pp. 9–10.
39 Hamer, ‘A Quarter-century of the Waitangi Tribunal’, p. 12. Harris, Hīkoi.
40 Hamer, ‘A Quarter-century of the Waitangi Tribunal’, p. 7.
41 Hamer, ‘A Quarter-century of the Waitangi Tribunal’, p. 10; MLR, November 2000, p. 10.
42 Hamer, ‘A Quarter-century of the Waitangi Tribunal’, footnote 22.
43 Snedden, Pakeha and the Treaty, p. 105.
44 1995, ‘He Pitopito Korero: Not Over Yet’, Mana no. 9, Winter 1995, p. 9.
45 MLR, September 2000, p. 7.
46 MLR, May 2001, pp. 6–8.
47 MLR, December 2000/January 2001, pp. 9–10.
48 MLR, August 2000, p. 5; Maui Solomon, 2000, ‘Te Marae Atea: An affront from ERMA’, Mana no. 35, August–September 2000, pp. 52–3.
49 MLR, August 2000, p. 9.
50 MLR, April 2001, pp. 2–6.
51 2001, ‘Maori Seats on BOP Council Could be a Reality by October’, nzherald.co.nz, 10 May 2001.
52 Ann Sullivan, 2003, ‘Māori Representation in Local Government’, in Janine Haywood (ed.), Local Government and the Treaty of Waitangi, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, pp. 150–3; Maureen Waaka, 2006, ‘Local Government’, in Malcolm Mulholland (ed.), State of the Māori Nation: Twenty-first Century Issues in Aotearoa, Auckland, Reed, pp. 219–25.