November 26, 2006

Pat Snedden

Aotearoa Sunday     Mark 4:26-34

Today's gospel reading provides us with two reassuring agricultural images of the seed. The mustard seed, tiny and insignificant but carefully planted grows into the greatest tree providing both strength and cover. By contrast, the scattering of the seed, almost reckless in its abandon prospers in spite of, not because the sewer's efforts.

These images of God are images for our life. Not far from here at Orakei are located Ngati Whatua o Orakei, the hapu who by virtue of their continuous occupation of central Auckland since 1840 have manawhenua (tribal authority) status in this area. Not two months ago this hapu buried Sir Hugh Kawharu, one of Auckland 's most distinguished academics and leaders. He also happened to be chairman of the Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board through the period of the cultural renaissance of this people.

Hugh was a mustard seed planter, a person with the vision to understand the paradoxical, that when you appeared most vulnerable so you could be at your point of greatest strength and what appeared to be concessions were in fact advantages. He also understood the value of time. For Hugh the reconstruction of the history of his people was the core to the recognition of their manawhenua. What had been lost over generations could not be recovered in a single lifetime but with the soil suitably tilled the new life was possible.

What's more he grasped the capacity in public life for the promotion of new growth through forgiveness and reconciliation without surrender. There was no stronger and more articulate advocate for the recognition of tribal rangitiratanga. But that was never the end of it for him.

He understood culturally that the mana of his people was intrinsically linked to their capacity to honour the obligations that came with this mana. This he described as manaakitanga, the capacity for consideration of the other.

In the most recent Treaty negotiations concluded just months before he died Hugh was adamant that there could be no honour for his own people unless and until honour was restored to the Crown.

The audacity of this insight is staggering given the gravity of the dispossession exacted on his people by successive governments since 1840. But it should not surprise us.

Hugh's central thesis (his planting of the mustard seed) was that if Maori were affirmed in their rangatiratanga (their capacity to exercise authority by way of collective trusteeship over all matters necessary for their cultural survival), the reciprocal benefits to the rest of us are enormous.

As we celebrate Aotearoa Sunday we might reflect on the Ngati Whatua history in this city. It is a story worth telling. The journey traverses three centuries.

• in 1840, just months after the first signing of the Treaty, Apihai Te Kawau, paramount chief of Ngati Whatua invited Governor Hobson to come to Tamaki Makaurau to set up his seat of government. He offered Hobson an inducement. Come, he said and I will give you land (over 3000 acres) to develop your settlement. Make this the capital and I will give you more. The area transferred in modern day terms was Parnell, the CBD, Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Herne Bay and some of Newmarket and Mount Eden.

• In 1841 a gathering of 1000 Ngati Whatua greeted Hobson on the shores of Okahu Bay. Te Kawau addressed him. “Governor, Governor, welcome as a father (matua) to me: there is land for you … go and pick the best part of the land and place your people, at least our people upon it.”

The block chosen is latter day Westmere, Pt Chevalier, Western Springs, Waterview, Avondale, Mount Albert, Titirangi, Sandringham , Mt Roskill, Three Kings, Balmoral, Kingsland, Mount Eden and Epsom.

This represented the transfer of a further 13000 acres.

Why would Apihai have made such a significant gesture? What was behind his thinking? The answer was an alliance. The transfer of land was in Maori terms a “tuku rangatira”, a chiefly gift with strings attached. Those strings were the advantages to be gained from commerce, education and health and the protection of all under the law. The Orakei report of the Waitangi Tribunal commented that the “settlers came not as conquerors, not as interlopers, but as Te Kawau's invitees to share the land with Ngati Whatua.”

• All this contains a certain poignant relevance for in 1869 at a hearing of the Native Land Court Apihai Te Kawau was asked “Who were the people who sold Auckland to the Europeans?” The answer was “I did not sell it, I gave it to them.” On the further question of “Did not the government give you and your people money for it afterwards?” Apihai answered: “No, I have been constantly looking for payment but have not got it.”

Why was Apihai in the Native Land Court? Because within 5 years of the invitation to Hobson to come to Auckland, Ngati Whatua who had previously uncontested standing as manawhenua across the Auckland isthmus had seen over 100,000 acres of its whenua disappear with little to show for it. By 1868 they were reduced to the 700 acre Orakei Block deemed by the court at that time to be forever inalienable, not to be sold. This was later reversed just before the First World War. In 1913 government changed the policy. While Ngati Whatua leaders were with New Zealand troops overseas the government passed a law allowing for the individualisation of title. The land was sold off and what remained then was a marae, a pa and an urupa based at Okahu Bay.

• In 1951 the marae and pa were deemed an eyesore on Tamaki Drive and unsafe for habitation. The Auckland City Council evicted all residents to new State housing on the Kitimoana St hill and razed the marae and attendant buildings to the ground. The quarter acre urupa was all that remained.

Thus is summary, Ngati Whatua o Orakei, the once proud people of the Tamaki isthmus, at 1840 holding sway over the whole of Auckland; the people who invited and induced Hobson to Auckland to form the seat of government; were reduced in precisely 112 years to a landless few living off the state. By 1951 they were without a marae on which to fulfil their customary obligations and were left with a quarter acre cemetery, being the last piece of land they could tribally claim as their own.

Joe Hawke took the claim in 1987 before the Waitangi Tribunal. The outcome was unequivocally in their favour and Bastion Point in 1991 was finally transferred back into Ngati Whatua's hand by Act of Parliament.

Let's for a moment pause to consider the first thing Ngati Whatua did when it took back the land.

What they did was agree to share the huge chunk of Bastion Point with Aucklanders. They opened it up to you and me for our unimpeded use. I am talking here about the most expensive land with the best views in all of Auckland. The land where Michael Joseph Savage rests. Ngati Whatua agreed to manage this jointly with the Auckland City Council for the benefit of all the people of Tamaki Makaurau.

What therefore is it that enables a people who sought for 150 years to get some form of justice that recognised their cultural destitution, to react in their moment of triumph with such generosity to those who had dispossessed them?

What underpins such an act of munificence? To put it simply, the recovery of the hapu rangatiratanga. The 1991 Orakei Act confirmed their manawhenua status in statute, providing the crucial Crown recognition of their mana that had been absent for over a 100 years. Their generosity (manaakitanga) followed from that recognition of mana.

The courage to mount the occupation and run the initial Treaty claim came from Joe Hawke and his family. The genius to arrive at the solution was Hugh's work.

This example provides the challenge for us as New Zealanders today. It is to recognise that the secret to justice and reconciliation in our Treaty relations does not lie in viewing the world through the lens of the dominant and powerful.

Rather the planting of our mustard seed for justice is to first do what is right and then be vulnerable to both the forgiveness and generosity of those once afflicted. The restoration of right relationships requires nothing less.

About the Preacher

Patrick Snedden, a Pakeha New Zealander, who for over 20 years has been an economic adviser to Ngati Whatua and is a member of their Treaty negotiation team. He also works as a business adviser to Health Care Aotearoa, a primary health network involving Maori, Pacific and community not-for profit health providers. Most recently he has been involved in public sector governance roles as deputy-Chairman with Housing NZ Corporation and as an elected board member of the Auckland District Health Board. He is also deputy-Chairman of the ASB Trusts and chairs their Investment Committee.