Spare a thought for what our national day was meant to be, compared with what it has become. Before 1973 a small ceremony took place at Waitangi each 6 February to commemorate the signing of the Treaty. Only Northland had a holiday. Then Norman Kirk promised during the 1972 election campaign to establish a national holiday. The New Zealand Day Act passed through Parliament the following year. Kirk was adamant that henceforth the day should be called New Zealand Day. It was for all New Zealanders to celebrate our different identities and a sense of nationhood that brought us together. It was to be a day for everyone, irrespective of race or cultural background.
With this goal in mind, Kirk took a close interest in planning a pageant on the lawn in front of the Treaty House. On 6 February 1974 in the presence of the Queen who was attending the Commonwealth Games, we celebrated the first New Zealand Day. Choreographed by Dick Johnstone, performers from all cultural groups in the country, with Maori in pride of place, turned on a wonderful spectacle. Maori, British, Croatian, Dutch, Indians and Pacific Islanders took part. As yet, there were few Chinese immigrants. Norman Kirk reinterpreted Governor Hobson’s comment of 1840 that we are “one people” into a more realistic assessment of what we had become. He described New Zealand as “one nation, many people”.
But Kirk’s government, inadvertently, began undermining his inclusive approach before he died in August 1974. The Maori Affairs Amendment Act 1974 re-defined who was a Maori. People with more than 50% European blood and only a dash of Maori now had the option of calling themselves Maori. When the Waitangi Tribunal came into existence in 1975 many newly enabled Maori perceived opportunities for themselves in separateness rather than acknowledging their multi-cultural origins. Thinking he might win votes from these people, the Prime Minister after 1975, Robert Muldoon, pushed separateness a stage further. He persuaded Parliament to rename New Zealand Day as “Waitangi Day”. This ruined Kirk’s notion of 6 February being our national day. From then on, 6 February degenerated into a day of Maori grievance. The sins of Pakeha – many of them real, others imagined – were paraded more and more at Waitangi. Dignitaries such as Sir David Beattie, the Governor General, were abused, and politicians who went north were treated regularly to ugly behaviour from Maori. The pageantry of 1974 became the political purgatory of the 1980s. For several years in the mid 1980s the Prime Minister and his colleagues shunned Waitangi on 6 February, preferring to recognise the day’s importance in Wellington or in other parts of the country.
At the same time as this was happening, successive governments pushed along with Treaty settlements. The Waitangi Tribunal produced reports on Maori grievances and there was a steady stream of settlements involving money and land returned. But there was little lasting Maori acknowledgement of the progress being made. When the Queen returned in 1990 members of one of Northland’s most disreputable families threw a wet tee shirt at her as she departed the Treaty grounds. Don Brash, then National’s leader, got similar treatment in 2005. Little has improved since then. The Maori fringe expects the Prime Minister and others in authority regularly to subject themselves to abuse at Waitangi while our other cultures, that had such high hopes in 1974, stay away. They have devised other dates and events to celebrate their national pride in being New Zealanders.
All our other Kiwi cultures seem prepared to make the most of the opportunities open to them in New Zealand. So, too, do a great many people of Maori ancestry. But there is a noisy 40 to 50% of them, all with more European ancestry than Maori, who think the rest of the country should grant them special privileges such as local government seats, and dedicated health and educational services while they make little or no effort to avail themselves of the huge array of entitlements already available to them as well as to other Kiwis. Too many parents conspicuously fail to ensure their children get to school and don’t care enough to get them vaccinated against common medical threats like measles and whooping cough.
It is asking an awful lot of Kiwis to expect them to respect and endorse demands by a slovenly 10% of the population that refuses to use opportunities available to everyone. No government should run a cargo cult for any particular segment of society. The Prime Minister is right to shun Waitangi on 6 February this year. If I were the leader of any of the other Coalition parties in Government, I’d do the same. Once the commanding heights of Maoridom display a willingness to acknowledge Norman Kirk’s vision of one country, one law, many cultures, and privileges for none, I’d return to Waitangi on 6 February and celebrate the rich diversity of cultures in our midst. In the meantime, let the raucous rowdies beat their gums at one another.
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