Hīkoi mō te Tiriti! Protect the treaty!
At least 42,000 people flooded Pōneke (Wellington), Aotearoa (New Zealand), on 19 November, as the final act of the hīkoi mō te Tiriti (protest march for the Treaty).
The hīkoi began in Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of the North Island, and travelled more than 1000 kilometres over nine days, ending at the New Zealand parliament. Tens of thousands joined the march as it moved through the North Island, and Iwi (Māori tribes) from across the country participated. Many Tangata Titiriti (non-Māori New Zealanders) joined and supported the action.
The hīkoi marks the latest in a long and proud history of Māori resistance, bringing the population together in opposition to the racist right-wing government currently in power and the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers (ACT) party’s Treaty Principles Bill.
A notable moment was when the hīkoi crossed the Auckland Harbour Bridge and visited Ihumātao. Ihumātao is Māori land that has been an ongoing site of occupation and protest as the state (under both Labour and Nationals) attempts to sell it to private developers in flagrant breach of Te Tiriti O Waitangi (The Treaty of Waitangi).
The hīkoi finished its march at parliament, where crowds filled the grounds to capacity to hear from hīkoi leaders and Te Pāti Māori MPs. A petition to stop the Treaty Principles Bill with more than 281,150 signatures (a larger number than the total vote for the ACT party in the last election) was also delivered to parliament.
Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke (a Te Pāti Māori MP, and at 22 years old the youngest MP in parliament) gave an emotional recounting of the Haka she had performed in parliament the day before, describing how she received a 24-hour suspension as punishment but “the next day, showed up outside the steps with 100,000 of my people”. David Seymour, author of the Treaty Principles Bill and ACT leader, attempted to speak to the crowd, but was drowned out by chants of “Kill the bill” and retreated to sook on his social media.
The day finished with a celebration of the largest hīkoi in Aotearoa’s history at Waitangi Park. Those present described the mood as defiant and joyful, as Māori and non-Māori celebrated together. “What’s good for Māori is good for everyone, we come here in peace, we love everyone no matter who you are, where you come from” one protester told Radio New Zealand.
There were solidarity protests in London, New York, the Cook Islands and across Australia, with the hīkoi solidarity action in Melbourne drawing hundreds of people.
The bill
Tiriti O Waitangi enshrines Tino Rangatiratanga (self-determination or sovereignty) for Māori. However, there are two versions, one in English and one in Māori, and only the Māori one recognises Māori sovereignty. The Treaty Principles were established to resolve this contradiction as part of the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act. The principles are partnership, participation and the guarantee of rangatiratanga for Māori.
ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill, which would replace the current principles with “All New Zealanders are equal under the law, with the same rights and duties, The New Zealand Government has the right to govern New Zealand, The New Zealand Government will protect all New Zealanders’ authority over their land and other property”, is a racist attack on Māori sovereignty. Seymour argues the current principles give Māori “special privileges”, a recurring racist argument from the right.
NZ First and the Nationals, the other two parties in the governing coalition, agreed to support the bill’s first reading in order to get ACT to join their coalition so they could cobble together a government. They have said they will not support the bill beyond its first reading, but their support up to now has emboldened the racist far right and provided it with significant air time. And the Nationals and NZ First have spent the last year attacking Māori rights in other ways, including destroying the Māori health authority and restricting the use of Te Reo Māori (Māori language) in government.
At the bill’s first parliamentary reading, instead of announcing Te Pāti Māori’s vote, Maipi-Clarke tore up the bill and began a haka. She was joined by the rest of Te Pāti Māori MPs, Māori Green MPs and members of the public in the gallery. Maipi-Clarke has become something of a hero for many on the left during her first year in parliament. She used her maiden speech to do a haka, and has repeatedly taken on right-wing politicians like Winston Peters (vice prime minister and leader of the NZ First Party).
Peters is a bastion of the conservative and reactionary right wing, and he regularly demeans and attacks Maipi-Clarke, although he is Māori himself. After he told her to “listen to her elders, hush up and learn some manners” and “stop showing off” in the parliamentary budget debate, Maipi-Clarke’s speech in response ended with her saying “moumou tō toto Māori” to Peters three times, which translates as “a waste of Māori blood”. The video of her response went viral and sparked a Tiktok trend involving young Māori women lip-syncing to the speech.
1960s radicalisation leads to new organised resistance
To understand what’s happening today, history is important. Māori were pushed into the capitalist workforce in the major cities to support the war effort in World War Two, while their land was increasingly stolen by the state. By 1975, Māori controlled only 2 million hectares of their land.
By 1966, 70 percent of Māori men worked in production, transport-equipment operation and labouring, centred in industrial zones. Māori were subject to racist discriminatory laws, forced into impoverished, over-policed city suburbs, denied opportunities and education, restricted to difficult and low-waged work, had their children removed and abused by the state, and were punished for practising their culture or speaking their language. In 1961, Māori life expectancy was 15 years less than Pākehā (white New Zealanders), and Māori were three times more likely to be unemployed. In 1960, only 25 percent of Māori could speak Te Reo (the Māori language), and by 1975, only 5 percent of children could. Resentment towards the system, especially among urban youth, was rising.
The radicalisation of the 1960s brought movements against the Vietnam War, for women’s rights, against Māori exclusion from the 1960 All Blacks rugby tour of South Africa and an increase in strikes. Many young Māori participated in these movements and emerged as political leaders, and an array of radical organisations sprung up in the cities.
The Māori Organisation on Human Rights (MOOHR) was founded in Wellington in 1967 by Tama Poata. Poata was a member of the New Zealand Communist Party and the Wellington Drivers Union and was labelled the country’s “leading Māori Communist” by ex-Prime Minister Robert Muldoon.
MOOHR was established when Poata organised mostly Māori and Pasifika drivers in his union to resist the Maori Affairs Amendment Act, a law designed to break up what was left of Māori communal land ownership. MOOHR campaigned for a cross-racial resistance to capitalism, which it saw as the cause of all oppression and inequality, and published a regular newsletter.
In 1970, Ngā Tamatoa (Young Warriors) was established at a young Māori leaders conference at Auckland university under the guidance of Ranginui Walker, a Māori academic. These Māori student leaders were inspired by the Black power movements in the US, and wanted an organised fight for Māori sovereignty, not a polite appeal. After the group was established, it was joined by Māori highschoolers and young workers in urban centres, like Tama Poata. Ngā Tamatoa was not explicitly anti-capitalist, and members had different political approaches, which would diverge more drastically as time went on. Although labelled “violent revolutionaries” by the mainstream press, only some members believed in armed uprising, and Ngā Tamatoa organised only peaceful resistance and community aid.
Ngā Tamatoa’s first action was to protest Waitangi Day celebrations, which it argued should be a day of mourning and reflection on the ongoing oppression of Māori people. In 1973, members of Ngā Tamatoa like Hana Te Hemara were arrested as they tried to burn the union jack and storm the stage on which Labour Prime Minister Norman Kirk was speaking. Kirk had recently changed the name to New Zealand Day in an attempt to obscure Aotearoa’s colonial history. Hana Te Hemara is Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke’s great aunty and her namesake. In 1972, Ngā Tamatoa, the New Zealand Māori Students’ Association and the Māori Language Society delivered a petition to parliament with 30,000 signatures to teach Te Reo Māori in schools, presented by Hana Te Hemara. It was signed by a significant number of Pākehā, and reflected a shift in mainstream Pākehā consciousness against Māori oppression. Another Ngā Tamatoa member, Tame Iti, set up the Māori tent embassy that same year, inspired by the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra.
The Polynesian Panthers were formed in Auckland in 1971 by Will ’Ilolahia and five other Pasifika youth, with an average age of 20. They were a revolutionary socialist organisation formed to fight racism, inspired by the Black Panther Party in the US.
Many Pasifika people were brought to Aotearoa in the 1950s to do the hardest, lowest paid work, and they faced systemic racism. In the 1970s they were blamed for the economic crisis by the media and ruling class, who depicted them as job-stealing criminals. They were subjected to violent “dawn raids” brought in by Norman Kirk in 1973, in which police would break into homes while people slept and forcibly take them to the police station without any belongings to be deported, for apparently overstaying their visas. The Polynesian Panthers provided community support, set up a pig patrol and organised activism and occupations of homes whose families were being evicted. They also carried out dawn raid of minister’s houses, drawing widespread publicity to the depravity of the dawn raids.
Miriama Rauhihi Ness joined the Polynesian Panthers in 1971. After moving to Auckland when she was 18, she worked in a sewing factory with many Pasifika women. She became a union representative and within six months had organised a strike over unfair conditions for Pasifika workers. After joining the Panthers, she became a key organiser and held the culture portfolio, organising workshops educating members on sexism and chauvinism.
1975 land rights hikoi: not one more acre of Māori land!
In 1975, Ngā Tamatoa, the Polynesian Panthers, Whina Cooper and other left-wing groups took on the loss of Māori land together. Whina Cooper was a revered activist who fought both women’s and Māori oppression through her activism for Māori land rights, beginning in 1915 when she was only 19 years old. As a single mother in 1949, she moved to Auckland and worked with the Māori women’s welfare league. Her involvement in both the fight for Māori land rights in rural areas and against urban Māori impoverishment, demonstrated to her the connection between the two issues.
In 1975, at age 79, she organised Te Ropu o te Matakite (the people with foresight), an organising group for a hīkoi for Māori land rights. The group was made up of Ngā Tamatoa members, Polynesian Panthers and other left-wing activists. Deciding on the slogan “Not one more acre of Māori land”, they encouraged diversity in politics and tactics, and united the activism of the old and new generations. They also sought to consolidate support for Māori land rights amongst other oppressed demographics, writing; “We see no difference between the aspirations of Māori people and the desire of workers in their struggles. We seek the support of workers and organisations, as the only viable bodies which have sympathy and understanding of the Māori people and their desires. The people who are oppressing the workers are the same who are exploiting the Māori today”.
To journey down the entire North Island on foot was a decision made by organisers to draw attention to their struggle, and to connect with different Iwi. As they travelled, they stayed at different Marae (meeting houses), and Whina Cooper would spend the nights agitating for more people to join the hīkoi and sign their petition to end the sale of Māori land and for Māori control over Māori land. She was often successful.
After the hīkoi concluded, 60 protesters occupied parliament’s lawn. The pressure from this resistance led to the Treaty of Waitangi Act, which established the Waitangi Tribunal, a court that would examine the theft of Māori land and breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, and bring the Treaty into law.
The act also established Treaty Principles, made necessary by the discrepancy between the English and Māori treaty documents, which enshrined Māori sovereignty in law. But the tribunal created to uphold the principles was not given power to enforce its decisions.
Members of Ngā Tamatoa and the Polynesian Panthers continued to organise resistance throughout the 1970s. Although they had dissolved by the 1980s, many continued to organise resistance and activism, becoming key organisers of the anti-apartheid action against the 1981 South African Springbok tour.
Ngā Tamatoa members also went on to be key figures in the Māori cultural renaissance. They worked in unions, the arts and community to revitalise Māori culture and pride. The renaissance brought Māori language back from near extinction, and led to the establishment of Kohanga reo and Kurakaupapa (Māori language schools) in the late 1970s, and later Māori radio, television and film.
A policy of “bi-culturalism” was adopted by the Labour Government in 1984, which included Māori personnel, Māori models of organisation and Māori social practices and cultural symbolism in institutions of the state. In 1987, the Māori Language Act was passed, making Te Reo Māori an official language of Aotearoa. Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke attended Kohanga reo, and is seen as representative of a Kohanga reo generation, who have been raised with pride in Māori culture.
Some Ngā Tamatoa members moved towards the right. Donna Awatere Huata, who wrote the influential book Māori Sovereignty, later started a consulting business that provided Māori cultural education for government departments like the treasury and the police. In 1996 she joined ACT, the right-wing libertarian party, and became an MP.
2004 foreshore and seabed hikoi
In 2004, the Labour government under Helen Clarke announced the seizure of the foreshore and seabed around Aotearoa by the state. The Foreshore and Seabed Act would annex millions of hectares of marine land from Māori, the largest grab since the 1800s. The act was in response to appeals made by Māori to have their customary right to the foreshore and seabed recognised.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the Māori Land Court should determine whether the foreshore and seabed could be customary land. The Court of Appeal ruling (which didn’t give anything to Māori) was jumped on by the right. National party MP Nick Smith started a petition to “save our beaches” from Māori who were trying to “steal them”. The Nationals spread racist rhetoric that Māori had special privileges, and at a protest Nick Smith attended, many Pākehā brought placards with racist slogans, such as “Whites have rights too”.
The National party elected Don Brash as leader, who had previously led ACT. He doubled down on the vicious racist attack against Māori, and jumped 17 percent in the polls. Instead of condemning the racism of the right wing and supporting Māori customary rights, Clark lurched to the right herself with the Foreshore and Seabed Act.
Māori decided to replicate the 1975 hīkoi to resist the Foreshore and Seabed Act and the rampant racism being pushed from the top of society. Some of the key organisers were Ngā Tamatoa veterans like Hone Harawira. As in 1975, the hīkoi travelled from the top of the North Island to parliament, stopping at Marae along the way to gather support, under the slogan “Māori Seabed, For Shore”! Young Māori played an active role in the hīikoi, and many had learnt about the 1975 land march in Kurakaupapa. As the growing hīkoi advanced on the capital, Clark hardened her attacks, infamously saying, “What it is is the same old faces—the Ken Mairs, the Harawira families, the Annette Sykes—the haters and wreckers”.
Around 15,000 people arrived at parliament as the hīkoi concluded, filling the grounds. The Labour Party held most of the seven Māori seats (seats that are reserved for Māori MPs, which only Māori can vote for) in parliament. These MPs were facing expulsion from the party if they did not vote for the act. Only one Labour Māori MP, Tariana Turia, voted against and despite the massive protest, the act passed.
Organisers of the hīkoi began to look to different avenues for change. Hone Harawira and Tariana Turia decided to create the Māori Party (today Te Pati Māori), as a way to combat the two major parties’ anti-Māori politics and fight for Māori rights in parliament. The party went on to help National form a government in 2008, and the Foreshore and Seabed Act was overturned and replaced by the Marine and Coastal Area Act. This decision to join a National Party government led to Hone Harawira resigning and a plummet in the party’s public support.
Prior to the 2017 election, Raiwiri Waititi and Debbie Ngawera-Packer were elected leaders (and still are today). Under their leadership the party has moved to the left. In the 2023 election they won six seats, claiming five from Labour, reflecting a political polarisation and collapse in support for the centre. They have used their platform in parliament to build campaigns and movements on the ground, like Hīkoi mō te Tiriti.
Hīkoi mō te Tiriti is the largest hīkoi ever. It is the latest chapter in this radical tradition, buoyed by the two preceding Hīkoi and Aotearo’s rich history of resistance. It is an escalation of a protest movement that is mobilising huge numbers of Māori and non-Māori in unity against the right, and is gathering momentum. There is much to learn and take inspiration from in the current movement, and the radical tradition on which it builds.
