When the Waitangi process is long dead and buried (perhaps the Crown along with it?) then Tuhoe can reach out for justice.

Without justice for Tuhoe, can there ever be justice for anyone, except from the (unfortunate/foolish) barrel of a gun?

Finally someone who has actually been to Te Urewera Country and has seen tuhoe hospitality for themselves. Half of the people making posts on this board obviously have never entered “Nga tamariki o te kohu” land and there opinions are political views. Let me tell you this, Tuhoe people have suffered injustices over the years through many ways, murder, theft, rape and land confiscation to name just a few. Is it so wrong that they want these issues dealt with. If someone in your family was hurt in the ways tuhoe have been. Would you not ask the judge to e.g. sentence the person to life for what they done to your child / mother / father etc???
Just because these issues are old doesn’t make them go away. There are still people living today that remember the bad times of yesteryear. And maybe if both pakeha and maori could come together in their thoughts , this wouldn’t be happening. Yet we live in a new era and maori and pakeha still do not get on!!! Sure tuhoe have there share of people that have or do bad things however no ethnicity is immuned to that. Maybe if you actually visited tuhoe , you would meet the people that would so genuinely give you the coat off there backs and stop judging them based on one man, tame iti!

Although my website is called “the republican” I do not propose any detailed model of republic for others to follow. The name of the website was chosen to indicate my opposition to the crown, and as a sign of respect for the late Bruce Jesson, who for many years edited (and largely wrote) a politically independent magazine of the same name which challenged the orthodoxy of the left and the right.

A republic is the obvious, and by some definitions the only, alternative to the monarchy, but I acknowledge that republics come in many forms, the worst of which can be as bad as any monarchy. As is consistent with my reasons for opposing the monarchy, I favour a moral republic (that is a republic in which every individual is held morally accountable for their own actions). Such a regime could only come into being by an organic process which will necessarily be slow, but it can come to pass and the existing schisms can be overcome. Tuhoe can play a part in that process. And I believe they will want to, because although they have always guarded their independence, at the same time they have always constructively engaged with other tribes, as they do today. I myself have cause to be grateful for the hospitality that Tuhoe have extended to me in the Urewera over the past forty years, and I believe that Tuhoe show the same generosity of spirit to any who approach them with good will.

This country has problems, and problems which may get worse in the short term, but there is a way forward.

Geoff Fischer Says: The absence of any satisfactory and universally accepted concept of political legitimacy in New Zealand underlies the increasing level of envy, resentment and strife between social and ethnic groups. Ultimately the Crown will not be able to manage or overcome these divisions, because the Crown is the root cause of the problem.

I think you are right to identify the Tuhoe situation as provoking a major (unsolvable?) challenge to successive governments.

I checked out the “republican” link from your previous post, and read your article about the Ruatoki raid. I think you made a vary valid series of points about the irony of trying to use the Treaty as a founding document.

Some very good points about building nationalism too (remember Mallards bribe of a waterfront rugby stadium?)

But it raises some conflicts: If as you say, Tuhoe are a separate nation with a distinct future outside of our accepted “regime” as you call it, then the police were probably correct to label them ‘terrorists’. But it is to some extent understandable for them to be so.

So where to from here? The existing schisms will probably ensure the political legitimacy you mention will never develop.

I don’t know if a republican structure would benefit us. Why would Tuhoe accept it when they may be much better off outside of it?

Why would those who believe in the legitimacy of our current regime ever consider a republic?

1) There is no good basis for calling Tuhoe “insurgents”. It should be obvious that there was no “insurgency” under way in the Urewera at the time of the Crown’s Ruatoki raids.

2) There is a natural human tendency to be in sympathy with those who we see as protecting our personal, communal, or national interests. But there are dangers in submitting to this tendency, particularly when it detracts from one’s ability to make fair and objective judgements. So one needs to think carefully before deciding that “police interference on my behalf” is necessarily a good thing, or that (in the hypothetical case) the “armed training of insurgents” is necessarily bad. These situations must be judged on their merits and according to circumstances.

3) The question of good and bad, right and wrong is separate from the question of consequences. Children in the early stages of moral development act in ways that are informed by their perception of the consequences for themselves. Later they learn to consider consequences for others, and finally, as mature adults, they act in what they take to be the correct way without direct regard to consequences. If that sounds irrational or irresponsible, then think again.

4) Even though valid moral judgements will be based on fundamental moral principles, rather than on a weighing of material consequences, the consequences of any action still need to be considered. But if we do not agree on fundamental moral principles, any debate over the possible consequences of a particular action risks becoming confrontational and unproductive.

5) The New Zealand Crown is an amoral institution, as even its staunchest defenders will acknowledge. There are serious implications for New Zealand.

6) Parliament is not God. Neither are the people God. Both Parliament and the people have the capacity to act in morally unacceptable ways.

7) The institutional ways in which Crown, Parliament and people relate to each other are both complex and important. Popular phrases such as “our parliamentary representatives” are myth-based and do not conform to either the legal basis or the practical realities of the political system.

The idea of legitimacy is at the core of any political regime. New Zealand society is struggling with its own concept of political legitimacy, as evidenced by the arguments between those who see legitimacy as deriving from the Treaty of Waitangi, those who see it deriving from the authority of the Crown itself, and those who see legitimacy as dependent upon conformity with certain supposedly “self-evident” individual rights. The absence of any satisfactory and universally accepted concept of political legitimacy in New Zealand underlies the increasing level of envy, resentment and strife between social and ethnic groups. Ultimately the Crown will not be able to manage or overcome these divisions, because the Crown is the root cause of the problem.

Samiuela- Indeed

Ari, until very recently children of illegal immigrants did have a right to live here as citizens. I’m sure the likes of turnip28 will be up in arms at the injustice of children born in New Zealand not being entitled to the same rights as other New Zealanders …

Does your right to reside in New Zealand purely come from being born here? What about the children of illegal immigrants? Do they have a right to live here? Anyway, I’m not arguing that we’d all have to be deported if one iwi didn’t sign the treaty.

What I’m implying is more than the treaty made settlement legal. It justified and gave authority the current government. Any part of the North Island that didn’t sign it never ceded authority to the current government, and could technically be said to have invaded without legal authority or declaration of war. It might not have been an issue then, but the problems that resulted from that sort of crime should be an issue now.