The Labour Government and Ideas of Devolution

When the fourth Labour government was elected in July 1984, there was renewed hope among Maori of making further autonomist gains, especially at a national political level. Since its 1975 defeat, the Labour Party had professionalised and modernised itself. Under increasing pressure from its rank and file, including from radical Maori members and supporters, the old party of social democracy had gradually proclaimed itself a vehicle for ‘progressive’ policies on a number of moral, ethical and ethnic issues, most of which rested easily within the now attenuated, but still existing, socialist parameters ofpage 200 the Labour movement. During this time, Maori activists had made common cause with pakeha liberals on many issues, and this nexus operated inside the evolving Labour Party as well as outside of it. Securing support from Labour for policies affirming rangatiratanga was seen by many as a key next step. When Labour entered office, then, landmark policies on such ethics-based issues as anti-nuclearism and women’s rights sat alongside those which reflected Maori flaxroots aspirations.

In the frenetic early days of the administration, Minister of Maori Affairs Koro Wetere endorsed community empowerment and worked on new schemes to take the concept much further. There were developmental precedents within Maoridom to guide him. Leaders from Wetere’s own Tainui tribal grouping, for example, had been consulting with their people over appropriate plans for the future. The Tainui Report of 1983 had inventoried tribal resources and set out ambitious goals to ultimately replace all ‘government structures of organization’ which dealt with their people with collective, tribal ones. This and similar initiatives nationwide were often headed by leaders equally at home in the worlds of Maori tradition and ‘pakeha’ education and institutions. The Tainui strategy would make use of its trust board’s links with the state on the way to regaining tribal resources and placing them under collective control. Rejecting ‘top down’ procedures, at least in theory, the aim was to ‘revitalize the tribal organization and utilize it as a vehicle to implement development policies’.

Tribal revitalisation was occurring all over New Zealand, the extent of which (and even its existence) had come as a surprise to many pakeha, policy-makers included. The 1962 Maori Welfare Act’s move from the language of tribal identification to that of ‘Maori’ identity had reflected ‘progressive’ pakeha wisdom at the time. These ideas, as suffused throughout the Hunn report, envisaged and encouraged detribalisation. By the early-mid 1980s, however, increasing numbers of pakeha were beginning to realise that the outcome of urban migration was not necessarily, or even largely, detribalisation – at least not if that word implied loss of all interest in and knowledge of tribal heritage, as had been the assumption in the early 1960s. It was becoming clear that tribes, together with their institutions, tikanga and leadership continued to retain considerable significance in the lives of most of those who identified as Maori. This included great numbers who had settled into urban communities, with some observers noting a phenomenon of ‘retribalisation’ among individuals who had initially ‘disappeared’ into urban anonymity. Even Maori born in the cities returned to their tribal homelands for occasions such as weddings, tangi and birthdays, as well as to host and mix with visitors and migrants from their home marae.

Perceiving a Maori consensus on the ongoing significance of tribal and sub-tribal identification, Labour had seen that the National government’s propensitypage 201 to engage with Maori at the level of flaxroots community and cross-tribal Maori associations could be enhanced by strengthening links with established tribal authorities, including by encouraging those which had been languishing to revitalise. Devolution of authority and services would be more efficient at tribal level, and the tribes could then sub-devolve if they wished. By 1984 the party had begun to retrieve ground previously lost to Mana Motuhake, partly as a result of its increasing awareness of the significance of tribal identification throughout Maoridom. Moreover, in considering the potentialities of devolution to iwi entities, it was showing willingness to question the old doctrine of Crown indivisibility. By the time of the election, it was investigating reviving the idea of viewing the tribe as the major focus for Crown interaction with organised Maoridom – albeit in ways which accommodated the huge social, demographic, economic and other changes of the post-war decades.

Following its election victory, the fourth Labour government began to see devolution of powers and resources to tribes/iwi as a central way forward on Maori issues. This was not, of course, uncontested, especially by those Maori who operated outside organisational tribal parameters in the urban areas. Moreover, many ‘tribal Maori’, as in the past, were concerned that Crown dealings at iwi level would jeopardise the rights and authority of hapu, whanau and other groupings – although significant numbers of these accepted that any move towards fundamental devolution of governmental power would, at least at first, need to be to iwi as a matter of practicality. All in all, both state and Maori leaders perceived iwi, rather than the very large numbers of hapu (on whose behalf, generally, rangatira had signed the Treaty), as the Crown’s potential Treaty partners on grounds of manageability as well as continuity in internal Maori governance.

In February 1984, Labour had also indicated that it was listening to Maori voices on the vexed issue of addressing historical grievances, placing on the political agenda the extension of the Waitangi’s Tribunal’s mandate back to 1840. By so doing, it gained enormous kudos among both Maori and liberal pakeha. The pan-tribal hui at Turangawaewae in September 1984, however, took the issue beyond that of merely listening to historical grievances. It called for reparations to tribal groupings for past breaches of the Treaty, including the ‘return of large areas of land and other resources’, and for recognition of tribal rights to coastal and inland waters. Government assistance was required for rebuilding an economic base, following the ravages suffered under colonisation and urbanisation. But these and other demands were couched within the framework of the quest for autonomy. Crucial, too, was for the Crown to acknowledge and apologise for the wrongs of the past.

On the surface, chances of transferring significant state resources to Maori were not auspicious, with the Labour government inheriting a major fiscal crisispage 202 from the outgoing Muldoon administration. At an early ‘economic summit’ held by the new government, moreover, it became clear to astute observers that the fiscal crisis was to be used as a cloak for the new ministers’ intentions to renounce Labour’s traditional social democratic policies and ethos. They and officials were about to introduce a ‘revolutionary’ package of free-market, deregulatory policies which essentially abandoned the principles of the welfare state and replaced them with those of capitalist individualism.

In an as yet inchoate way, however, ministers and their advisers viewed the Maori desire to run their own affairs as compatible with massive deregulation of the economy and an accompanying major downsizing of the state. They could see that finding concrete means of effecting some significant degree of rangatiratanga might help, moreover, to dampen Maori opposition to the new policies. Maori leaders had quickly voiced well-founded fears that deregulation and laissez-faire would inevitably worsen the already poor socio-economic position of their people, given their concentrations in the types of employment which would suffer most from the new policies. Some of those present at the summit, however, saw the potential for trade-offs if the Labour ministers remained determined to forge ahead with policies which harmed their people disproportionately. They would need to organise in order to maximise their chances, and so formed their own caucus at the conference. This group sought a Maori ‘summit conference’, and in October 1984, the Minister of Maori Affairs responded by convening the Hui Taumata/Maori Economic Development Conference.¹³