OPINION: Strip away the race tantrums — and ask the question no one dares voice: where would Māori be today without British colonisation?
Still squatting in the bush? Still burning vast tracts of native forest? Still enslaving those defeated in intertribal warfare, or perhaps worse, still eating them?
Pre-colonial Aotearoa wasn’t some indigenous Eden — it was violent, environmentally destructive, and technologically stunted. Within two centuries of arrival, Māori hunted the moa to extinction — along with the Haast’s eagle, adzebill, native swan, and dozens of other species. Massive, ritualised burn-offs turned entire ecosystems into ash. Meanwhile, intertribal warfare, slavery, and cannibalism were part of daily life. Women were often traded like property. The strong devoured the weak — literally.
Then came Britain. And with it: literacy, medicine, food security, printing presses, the concept of universal human rights. Not the utu of the spear, but the rule of law.
Today we hear from some of the most delusional amongst us, the fantasy that Māori could have independently built a Singapore-style state. There was no written language. No agriculture. No metallurgy. No shipping fleet. No crops beyond kūmara. What would we have traded — flax and preserved heads?
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Instead, Māori hitched their future to the empire on which the sun never set, at the exact moment it was undergoing the Industrial Revolution. And that changed everything. By the 1860s, Māori literacy exceeded that of working-class Brits. Iwi began building flour mills, trading globally, and participating in parliamentary politics.
Yes, land was lost. Yes, wars were fought. But the real story — the one no one wants to tell — is that Māori embraced modernity. And the benefits were overwhelming: life expectancy doubled. Cannibalism stopped. Slavery ended. Roads were built. Hospitals opened. A people who had previously existed in fragmented tribal isolation were now part of a modern, global nation.
We’re told today to see colonisation as original sin. But it was, in truth, the gateway to everything that has elevated Māori life.
So what for today’s reimagining of the Treaty of Waitangi — let’s be clear: there was no dispute between the English and te reo Māori versions at the time. That is a modern fabrication. Māori chiefs, tohunga, and signatories repeatedly and explicitly acknowledged that sovereignty was ceded. Fifty chiefs signed the English version, and English wasn’t foreign — it had been spoken and traded in for decades! There are no accounts referencing “partnership.” No mention of shared governance. No co-sovereignty. These ideas were invented decades later by fake academics and activists masquerading as historians. The same people that now advocate for stripping the english texts from museum walls, and school and tertiary text books, to bury their tracks once and for all. People that argue children should only see ‘expressions in english, of the text in Te Reo Māori’.
What we are seeing now is a lie — plain and simple. A calculated distortion by revisionists trying to rewrite the Treaty into a racial power-sharing contract that never existed. And it’s no coincidence that the people pushing this narrative are the same ones who profit from it.
The Waitangi Tribunal has done good work in acknowledging historical wrongs. And redress has been made — billions of dollars’ worth. But what we’re seeing now is not justice. It’s a grift. A race-based scam fuelled by Te Pāti Māori and their enablers — a permanent shake-down operation powered by grievance, entitlement, and historical revisionism.
They don’t want equality. They want special rights. Special funding. Special status. And they want to achieve it not through merit — but through the weaponisation of identity.
But New Zealand’s strength was always in its unity. The success of this country came from everyone being equal under the law — not divided into tribes with separate rulebooks.
Colonisation made that possible. It dragged a Stone Age people into the modern world — not by force, but by invitation. And Māori took that invitation with courage and vision.
-JL
Below are the English and te reo Māori versions of the Treaty of Waitangi.
THE TREATY OF WAITANGI
Her Majesty Victoria Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland regarding with Her Royal Favor the Native Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and anxious to protect their just Rights and Property and to secure to them the enjoyment of Peace and Good Order has deemed it necessary in consequence of the great number of Her Majesty’s Subjects who have already settled in New Zealand and the rapid extension of Emigration both from Europe and Australia which is still in progress to constitute and appoint a functionary properly authorized to treat with the Aborigines of New Zealand for the recognition of Her Majesty’s sovereign authority over the whole or any part of those islands – Her Majesty therefore being desirous to establish a settled form of Civil Government with a view to avert the evil consequences which must result from the absence of the necessary Laws and Institutions alike to the native population and to Her subjects has been graciously pleased to empower and to authorize me William Hobson a Captain in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy Consul and Lieutenant Governor of such parts of New Zealand as may be or hereafter shall be ceded to Her Majesty to invite the confederated and independent Chiefs of New Zealand to concur in the following Articles and Conditions.
Article the first
The Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand and the separate and independent Chiefs who have not become members of the Confederation cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty which the said Confederation or Individual Chiefs respectively exercise or possess, or may be supposed to exercise or to possess over their respective Territories as the sole sovereigns thereof.
Article the second
Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession; but the Chiefs of the United Tribes and the individual Chiefs, yield to Her Majesty the exclusive right of Preemption over such lands as the proprietors thereof may be disposed to alienate at such prices as may be agreed upon between the respective Proprietors and persons appointed by Her Majesty to treat with them in that behalf.
Article the third
In consideration thereof Her Majesty the Queen of England extends to the Natives of New Zealand Her royal protection and imparts to them all the Rights and Privileges of British Subjects.
[signed] W. Hobson Lieutenant Governor
Now therefore We the Chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes of New Zealand being assembled in Congress at Victoria in Waitangi and We the Separate and Independent Chiefs of New Zealand claiming authority over the Tribes and Territories which are specified after our respective names, having been made fully to understand the Provisions of the foregoing Treaty, accept and enter into the same in the full spirit and meaning thereof in witness of which we have attached our signatures or marks at the places and the dates respectively specified.
Done at Waitangi this Sixth day of February in the year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty.
The Chiefs of the Confederation
TE TIRITI O WAITANGI
Ko Wikitoria te Kuini o Ingarani i tana mahara atawai ki nga Rangatira me nga Hapu o Nu Tirani i tana hiahia hoki kia tohungia ki a ratou o ratou rangatiratanga me to ratou wenua, a kia mau tonu hoki te Rongo ki a ratou me te Atanoho hoki kua wakaaro ia he mea tika kia tukua mai tetahi Rangatira – hei kai wakarite ki nga Tangata maori o Nu Tirani – kia wakaaetia e nga Rangatira maori te Kawanatanga o te Kuini ki nga wahikatoa o te wenua nei me nga motu – na te mea hoki he tokomaha ke nga tangata o tona Iwi Kua noho ki tenei wenua, a e haere mai nei.
Na ko te Kuini e hiahia ana kia wakaritea te Kawanatanga kia kaua ai nga kino e puta mai ki te tangata maori ki te Pakeha e noho ture kore ana.
Na kua pai te Kuini kia tukua a hau a Wiremu Hopihona he Kapitana i te Roiara Nawi hei Kawana mo nga wahi katoa o Nu Tirani e tukua aianei amua atu ki te Kuini, e mea atu ana ia ki nga Rangatira o te wakaminenga o nga hapu o Nu Tirani me era Rangatira atu enei ture ka korerotia nei.
Ko te tuatahi
Ko nga Rangatira o te wakaminenga me nga Rangatira katoa hoki ki hai i uru ki taua wakaminenga ka tuku rawa atu ki te Kuini o Ingarani ake tonu atu – te Kawanatanga katoa o o ratou wenua.
Ko te tuarua
Ko te Kuini o Ingarani ka wakarite ka wakaae ki nga Rangatira ki nga hapu – ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani te tino rangatiratanga o o ratou wenua o ratou kainga me o ratou taonga katoa. Otiia ko nga Rangatira o te wakaminenga me nga Rangatira katoa atu ka tuku ki te Kuini te hokonga o era wahi wenua e pai ai te tangata nona te wenua – ki te ritenga o te utu e wakaritea ai e ratou ko te kai hoko e meatia nei e te Kuini hei kai hoko mona.
Ko te tuatoru
Hei wakaritenga mai hoki tenei mo te wakaaetanga ki te Kawanatanga o te Kuini – Ka tiakina e te Kuini o Ingarani nga tangata maori katoa o Nu Tirani ka tukua ki a ratou nga tikanga katoa rite tahi ki ana mea ki nga tangata o Ingarani.
[signed] W. Hobson Consul & Lieutenant Governor
Na ko matou ko nga Rangatira o te Wakaminenga o nga hapu o Nu Tirani ka huihui nei ki Waitangi ko matou hoki ko nga Rangatira o Nu Tirani ka kite nei i te ritenga o enei kupu. Ka tangohia ka wakaaetia katoatia e matou, koia ka tohungia ai o matou ingoa o matou tohu.
Ka meatia tenei ki Waitangi i te ono o nga ra o Pepueri i te tau kotahi mano e waru rau e wa te kau o to tatou Ariki.
Ko nga Rangatira o te Wakaminenga
Te Tiriti. What really happened?
The Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) was a short, plain-language agreement. It was intended to establish British sovereignty, protect property rights, and bring Māori under the rule of law. Fifty chiefs signed the English version — and by 1840, English was widely spoken, taught by missionaries, and used in trade and correspondence. Māori were not some naive, isolated tribe being duped; many were literate, informed, and understood the benefits of aligning with Britain. They wanted protection — from each other as much as from external threats.
Not once in the 19th century — or for most of the 20th — did anyone seriously claim that the Treaty created a “partnership.” The idea of “Treaty partnership” simply didn’t exist. It didn’t appear until the 1970s, when Māori social conditions (declining education outcomes, unemployment, urbanisation-related dysfunction) became politically impossible to ignore — and Pākehā intellectuals and state bureaucrats panicked.
Instead of confronting the hard socio-economic realities — like poor policy, welfare dependency, and cultural disconnection — the political left decided to reinterpret the country’s founding document. It wasn’t a legal analysis. It was a moral reshuffle. A kind of national self-flagellation dressed up as restorative justice. They repackaged the Treaty as a “living document,” invented the idea of a co-governing “partnership,” and handed enormous power to the Waitangi Tribunal to retroactively investigate “grievances.”
The result? Billions paid out, permanent grievance embedded in law, and a new industry of racial activism funded by the state. Te Pāti Māori, iwi corporations, and Treaty academics now act as if the Treaty promised joint rule. It didn’t. The Māori version uses the phrase “ka tuku” — to cede. And every serious historian before the activist era agreed: Māori ceded sovereignty.
This isn’t justice. It’s a political invention — driven by guilt, ideology, and the need to justify state funding for a Māori elite that no longer represents ordinary Māori.
That’s what happened.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of AoteaGBI.news
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