BY MIKE PETERS
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand -Nearly 200 people attended a
meeting here on January 29 that attempted to mobilize public
opinion against Maori land and language claims. The heated
debate at this public forum at Riccarton Town Hall
illustrated the importance of the fight for national
equality in the class struggle in this country. It also
illustrated the polarization of views on this question,
which is part of politics today.
The meeting was called by Denis Hampton, a self-styled researcher, to demand the abolition of the Waitangi Tribunal. The tribunal is named after a treaty signed at Waitangi in 1840 that claimed New Zealand as a British possession, but also spoke of Maori sovereignty over their resources. The treaty serves as the tribunal's broad terms of reference.
The tribunal was established in 1975, and since then has made a number of recommendations to settle grievances over land, language, and fishing rights. It was set up as a concession to the movement for Maori equality that developed in the 1970s. Protests throughout the 1970s and 1980s included a major land march, occupations of ancestral lands, and demands for recognition of the Maori language.
The mobilizations were fueled by the discrimination that Maori face, reflected in their second-class status in housing, education and employment, and in the injustices they suffer at the hands of the police and courts.
Maori are some 13 percent of the population and are a key part of the industrial and rural working class. Their struggles have gained widespread sympathy and support among other workers.
While antidiscrimination protests subsided during the 1980s and much of the 1990s, a new wave of land occupations and other actions broke out in 1995 and 1996.
Hearings of the Waitangi Tribunal, which has a considerable backlog of claims, serve as a source ongoing controversy. The meeting's organizers took particular exception to a number of large claims before the Tribunal by the South Island tribe Ngai Tahu. (Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island).
During the week of the Riccarton Town Hall meeting, a scandal over a pilot Maori language television channel, Aotearoa Television Network, was just breaking. The new government decided to provide $NZ4 million ($US2.8 million) to fund the channel, but put the decision on hold amid allegations of mismanagement. The meeting's organizers referred to this scandal a couple of times.
Many in the audience were of retirement age, but there were a fair number of younger people. It was a noisy affair, with many interjections. Hampton was the main speaker. He alleged that Ngai Tahu assets had been inflated largely through property deals involving land sold to them by the government. These deals, he said, were squandering public money.
The Crown - in effect the government-"which represents us all," said Hampton, had sold land too cheaply in response to Treaty claims. "We, the people who own these things, are missing out," he said. He accused the Waitangi Tribunal of bias in favor of Maori claimants. "In my opinion... the Waitangi Tribunal is not a level playing field and should be abolished," he concluded.
The second official speaker, Ted Austin, had a more demagogic style. He began by declaring he was against racism and apartheid. But then he outlined his opposition to the Waitangi Tribunal. "We are being priced apart on racist grounds, and the instrument that is being used to do that is the Treaty of Waitangi," he said. "Everybody deserves a good old kiwi fair go... Maori are carving up New Zealand."
A noisy debate followed these presentations. Melanie MacDonald, a lecturer from the local College of Education, began with a short greeting in Maori over a number of cries of "Speak English!" or "Translate!" She gave examples of discrimination that Maori faced early this century.
MacDonald questioned Hampton's claim that New Zealand had become "culturally unbalanced."
"New Zealand is not becoming culturally unbalanced-it has been so for a very, very long time," she said.
Patrick Brown, a member of the Engineers Union in Christchurch, spoke on behalf of the Communist League. He said that those attacking the Ngai Tahu land claims and funding for Aotearoa Television had in their sights a broader target-the fight for special measures to overcome the racist discrimination and obstacles that Maori people face. "This offensive undermines the unity of the working class," he said.
A vote at the end of the meeting supported the abolition of the Waitangi Tribunal by a ratio of two to one. But in the debate the most conscious right-wingers had not scored a resounding victory, and if anything had lost on some points.
"They or their kind will not go away, however," said Brown in an interview after the meeting. "They are encouraged by the shift to the right of capitalist politics. Behind this shift is a creeping and accelerating social crisis, whose roots lie in the period of the economic decline of capitalism. The resulting instability and disorder open up a debate where reactionary solutions, proposing that layers of the working class are to blame for the crisis, are more stridently posed.
"Workers and young people who oppose those views need to step confidently into this polarization. We need to discuss the facts about New Zealand history and especially about the racism permeating capitalist institutions today that condemns the Maori, along with immigrants from the Pacific Islands and Asia, to second-class status.
"Even more importantly, we need to discuss a working- class response to this challenge. Only by championing the demands of Maori for national rights can the labor movement forge a fighting unity. It's a concrete example of the approach workers need to take to the struggles of women, immigrant workers, working farmers and all those who suffer from, and rebel against, the divide and rule tactics of the capitalist class."