Ka tangi te tītī, ka tangi te kākā, ka tangi hoki ahau, tī hei mauri ora. The seabird calls, the parrot calls, and so I call out to you. Behold, it is the sneeze of life.
Kia ora tātou. My name's John O'Neill, and I'm going to talk to you about some of the history of Aotearoa and New Zealand, which has contributed to the position we're now in, where we're passing laws and engaging in serious conversation. on giving mountains and rivers their own legal standing, personality and rights.
In his presentation, my colleague Dr David Clark will delve into recent developments. But how did we get here? It's got a lot to do with timing, communication and the determination and resilience of Māori.
So the first colonizers, the forebears of Māori, were experts in ocean navigation. The Pacific was their universe, brimming with life and meaning. Experts in marine science, navigation and sea craft technology, their knowledge and skills enabled the first adventurers to journey south to the remote, unpopulated land Aotearoa New Zealand, around about a thousand.
years or so ago. They were rewarded with abundance and the ensuing migration gave rise to a new people over centuries developing their knowledge and culture as tangata whenua, people of the land, in relationship with their new world of Aotearoa to Aumāoli. So like many indigenous cultures, the defining principle of Māori culture is kinship, whanaungatanga, an expression of relationship with the elements of the physical world, the spiritual world, and with one another. I belong, therefore I am. They recognized mountains, rivers, trees, and other living creatures as kin.
as ancestors through whakapapa, the weave of ancestral connection. This relationship emphasizes human responsibility to nurture and care for it, known in Māori as kaitiakitanga. Towards the end of the 18th century, Europeans arrived with a culture-driven of course by manifest destiny, the duty to bring God and civilization to the unenlightened, and the entitlement to reap the rich personal rewards of their mission. This drive was to some extent tempered by the same moral enlightenment as expressed by the abolitionist movement in the UK and the US.
This is where timing is fortunate. European arrival 100 years earlier would have almost certainly have given us a much less agreeable outcome today. So when they got here the British crafted a treaty, the Treaty of Waitangi, to assert sovereignty and to enable colonization. The treaty was signed throughout the country in the 1840s by Māori leaders and representatives of the Queen of England, the Crown as we call it.
And this is where the story gets an interesting twist. The Treaty was bringing the two worlds together, ownership versus belonging, dominance of nature versus relationship with nature. It was written in two languages, English and Māori, so it was the Treaty and it was also Te Tiriti. Now Article 1 in the English version gave the Crown sovereignty over New Zealand, but in the Māori version it only ceded a limited form of governance to the Crown.
On the other hand, Article 2 where the English version protected Māori property ownership. The Māori version protected tino rangatiratanga, which translates as the right to absolute self-determination, which is really sovereignty. So it created a paradox, and for us today we are very grateful for this.
In the ensuing century, however, British colonisation engulfed and displaced Māori. Māori lost most of their land and the ability to practice their own way of life. The settlers proceeded to make a Britain of the South, replicating the economy, institutions, and place names of home in this new place.
Māori, however, despite their immense loss, Te Tiriti and regarded it as a spiritual covenant between equals. Generations of Māori worked to have their voices heard to regain their world. It was and is a struggle without end.
Kāwhāwhai tonu mātou. So as a result of this perseverance eventually In 1975, a breakthrough occurred with the passing of the Treaty of Waitangi Act. It opened a way for Māori to seek redress from the Crown for their cultural and land loss.
This was the beginning of what we call the Treaty Settlement Era, and it was a form of Aotearoa's truth and reconciliation process. So finally, Māori have endured the last 30 years of the difficult and painful Treaty settlement process. Settlements have been meagre and the public non-Māori reaction often grudging. As a nation, however, we are developing a set of principles, Treaty principles.
that help define what it means to be equal treaty partners. These principles need to be taken into account whenever new legislation, regulation or policy is drafted. It means we're learning to embrace this paradox of sovereignty and tino rangatiratanga. We're all learning to understand more of the kinship values of whanaungatanga, whakapapa. kaitiakitanga and many others and how to make them live through a slowly transforming Aotearoa culture and practice for the health of our people, our place and our children's future.
Our intertwined histories have led us to the point where we can use our collective wisdom to re-establish a fuller human relationship. with nature. Māori ora.