Ahead of Waitangi Day, UK schools and education companies tried to engage with Māori culture. But a string of examples, ranging from ignorant cultural appropriation to harmful and inaccurate depictions of history, show colonial attitudes remain entrenched. After 200 years, Aotearoa is finally incorporating what’s hoped to be a more accurate and nuanced teaching of … Read more
Less than a decade ago, Māni Dunlop was censured by RNZ for using Auckland’s Māori name on air. Today, she’s leading the public broadcaster’s coverage of Waitangi Day as its Māori news director. She talks to Michelle Langstone about how she got there. Māni Dunlop sweeps round the corner of the recording studios in Radio … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Aroha: Māori Wisdom for a Contented Life Lived in Harmony with our Planet by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30) “He hono … Read more
Ahead of Waitangi Day, Jacinta Ruru and Jacobi Kohu-Morris imagine an alternative to New Zealand’s constitutional framework that gives Te Tiriti o Waitangi the mana it deserves and Māori a meaningful seat at the table. In the early 1980s, fresh from law school, Sir Justice Joe Williams (Ngāti Pūkenga, Te Arawa) wrote ‘Maranga Ake Ai’ … Read more
Lawyer and commentator Kingi Snelgar has some programming recommendations for a stellar Waitangi Day line-up. Dear Magic FM E ngā kaiwhakarite o Magic Talk, tēnā koutou, I heard in horror the recording earlier this week on your station as your temporary host John Banks allowed and contributed to racist comments by a talkback caller called … Read more
There was a lot of kōrero at Waitangi this year about women’s speaking rights, both at Waitangi and around the motu. Dr Rawiri Taonui looks at the history. The call for Māori women to speak on marae was reignited this year when Mere Mangu, the chair of Te Rūnanga ā Iwi o Ngāpuhi, welcomed Prime … Read more
Waitangi Day brings together all groups of people, of which politicians are just one, writes Leonie Hayden. I travelled up to Waitangi with a Ngāti Kahungunu friend, her first time there on Waitangi Day, and my fourth. Arriving at Te Tii marae on Wednesday morning, having missed the leaders’ welcome the day before, we took … Read more
On this day two years ago, Jacinda Ardern delivered a powerful, acclaimed speech at Waitangi. She implored her audience then, as she has again in recent days, to hold her to account on delivering for Te Ao Māori. We’ve taken that speech and held it up against the Labour-led government’s achievements to date. In February … Read more
The political pilgrimage north is under way ahead of the commemoration of the signing of te tiriti. RNZ’s Jo Moir surveys the calm before the storm. Thousands of people from around the country will begin the annual pilgrimage to Waitangi on Sunday, and the sleepy snippet of the Bay of Islands will transform once again. … Read more
As both negotiate the complexities of being part memorial, part protest and part celebration, an empathetic allegiance between Waitangi Day and the Auckland Pride Festival has the potential of collective empowerment, writes Richard Orjis. Waitangi Day falls in the middle of this year’s Auckland Pride Festival. Rather than being strange bedfellows in the summer cultural … Read more
Every year there is an expectation of disruption on our national day, with armchair Treaty experts sharing their analysis of the history and value of the day without ever having actually travelled to Waitangi on February 6th. Here are two accounts of a day spent at Waitangi on Waitangi Day 2019 – one from tangata whenua … Read more
It’s Waitangi Day! Time to learn, respect, honour the treaty and eat some yum AF food. The ol’ midweek public holiday can sneak up on you – suddenly you don’t have to go to work but alas, you have no plans. Never fear: there are many cool Waitangi Day events happening around the country, all … Read more
Every year, thousands of New Zealand immigrants in London celebrate Waitangi Day by dressing up, publicly getting drunk, and doing the haka, and it makes Madeleine Chapman shudder. New Zealanders acknowledge Waitangi Day in different ways. Some do nothing and are just glad to have a day off work. Some celebrate it, believing that the … Read more
Hinerangi Rhind-Wiri, Haylee Koroi and Lizzie Strickett spoke to friends and whānau about what a living Treaty of Waitangi partnership looks like. Some would have us believe that Te Tiriti o Waitangi is of the past. We wanted to share the voices of those trying to live by Te Tiriti today who suggest otherwise. We … Read more
A new petition is calling for changes to address New Zealand students’ ‘shameful’ ignorance of their country’s history, writes RNZ’s John Gerritsen. In the lead-up to Waitangi Day, history teachers are calling for compulsory teaching of New Zealand’s Māori and colonial history in schools, but government representatives are rejecting the idea. The chairperson of the … Read more
Three years on from making the word ‘dildo’ ubiquitous in respectable New Zealand homes, Josie Butler says ‘f*** you’ to a notice trespassing her from her own ancestral lands. Activist and nurse Josie Butler was served a trespass notice on behalf of the Waitangi National Trust on Friday, trespassing her from the Treaty Grounds, the … Read more
A Melbourne bar that used an image of a 19th-century St Kilda mayor with tā moko drawn on to promote a New Zealand beer showcase has been accused of mocking Māori culture. This story was originally published on RNZ A Melbourne bar has been criticised for using an image of a former St Kilda mayor … Read more
Rangatira ki te rangatira: Ardern’s approach to Waitangi commemorations offered the chance to break from the bad old days under PMs of both parties, wrote Annabelle Lee This post was first published January 24 2018 Every Waitangi it’s the same. The lack of gratitude shown by Māori at being among the poorest, sickest, most unemployed and … Read more
One of the best reasons for lighting the Auckland Harbour Bridge is that it makes diversity impossible to ignore, writes Vector’s Beth Johnson. These days, the words ‘kia ora’ are everywhere: it’s part of our everyday chat throughout New Zealand. It’s how we say hello. In the not-too-distant past greeting customers with a “kia ora” … Read more
Every year indigenous peoples in Australia and New Zealand go under the spotlight on Invasion Day and Waitangi Day – and every year the media finds problematic ways to report them. This won’t change while our media is still controlled by the coloniser, writes Miriama Aoake. January is a dry marathon. Days fold into themselves and time … Read more
By using our national day to engage with iwi from all over the country, we send a message that we’re serious about the spirit of the Treaty instead of being where there will be the most cameras, writes Nuk Korako, National’s spokesperson for Māori Development Waitangi Day is a day for discussion; a day for remembering; and … Read more
A lot has been made of a ‘less disruptive’ and ‘protest-free’ Waitangi Day this year. It’s misguided praise, writes Miriama Kamo. I find praise of a peaceful Waitangi Day jarring. The absence of protest is not the indicator of a successful Waitangi Day. Whether protest occurs or does not occur is not the measure of … Read more
For many Waitangi Day is an opportunity to talk about tino rangatiratanga – Māori sovereignty and self-determination. But does sovereignty mean the same thing to all of us? Waitangi Day means many different things to many different people. To some it is a time of reflection on where we are as a country; for others … Read more
Rangatira ki te rangatira: Ardern’s approach to Waitangi commemorations offers the chance to break from the bad old days under PMs of both parties, writes Annabelle Lee Every Waitangi it’s the same. The lack of gratitude shown by Māori at being among the poorest, sickest, most unemployed and incarcerated people in Aotearoa is an ongoing source … Read more
The prime minister spent his first Waitangi Day in office not at the treaty grounds, but at Bastion Point, where Simon Wilson watched him give two of the most surprising Waitangi speeches in living memory. Did you know Bill English used Waitangi Day to praise the great protest struggle of Bastion Point? He made two … Read more
The Gone By Lunchtime trio talk out a whiplash start to 2017 in politics. With a hiss and a roar and an ear-splitting primal scream, the political year is under way. Annabelle Lee and Ben Thomas join Toby Manhire to chew over the prime minister’s Waitangi decision, the $10k Te Tii charge to media and … Read more
Today the prime minister should be at Te Tii Marae, leading our nation on the difficult path, and not back to Disney Treatyland, writes historian Hirini Kaa. “A lot of New Zealanders cringe a bit on Waitangi Day,” said the prime minister recently. This was wrapped around a bunch of language including terms such as … Read more
Radio host and political commentator Duncan Garner calls protestors at the Waitangi Marae “self-appointed meatheads” who “hijack the holiday for feeble grandstanding and cheap shots”. It’s just the latest attempt by Pākehā to ridicule and invalidate the Māori tradition of protest, says Madeleine de Young. Prime Minister Bill English’s decision not to attend the Waitangi … Read more
We requested police records on the destruction of the Waitangi Dildo under the Official Information Act. What we got back left us with more questions than answers. At first glance, it’s just another Government form. The police property sheet noting the final destination of the Waitangi Dildo is nothing flashy. Nothing new. A jumble of … Read more