A gift exchange - a tapu alliance
Embedded content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXVck2Shcus
"Though it's really important I think for us New Zealanders to get a grasp on the significance of that original understanding of 1840."
Speakers
Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Prof Dame Anne Salmond and Dr Claudia Orange, DNZM.
Transcript
Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer: I think that the Treaty has to be regarded as Lord Cooke said, as New Zealand's founding document. It therefore has enormous constitutional significance because the moral authority of the government depends on it.
Prof Dame Anne Salmond: What did that agreement mean, you know what did the crown sign up to, what did the Rangatira sign up to and it was pretty late in the process when that question formally got asked.
Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer: And so when you look at it that way, it has to have a a big part to play in New Zealand's constitutional arrangements and it does.
Dr Claudia Orange, DNZM: Though it's really important I think for us New Zealanders to get a grasp on the significance of that original understanding of 1840.
Prof Dame Anne Salmond: If you read the treaty in Māori it's a gift exchange, you know there's gifts that pass backwards and forwards, the term tuku which is the term you use when in in chiefly gift exchange that's there in just about every clause of the treaty.
Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer: This is a public thing and its much more than a legal arrangement it is all about good faith, its all about a constitutional position, much of which is not found in the law.
Dr Claudia Orange, DNZM: It's probably true that Hobson really knew that he, he didn't have the power to control the whole of the country, he didn't have the resources. So I mean he was prepared from his instructions to give Māori that acknowledgement that they would continue to run their own affairs but that he would set up a government which they agreed to, to do something about controlling settlers coming in.
Prof Dame Anne Salmond: And so you know, the Rangatira basically tuku to the queen kawanatanga, the queen tukus to them, the rights you know 'ngā tikanga rite tahi' actually which is exactly the same or exactly equal tikanga as those of her people of England. So there's a gift exchange that happens and as a result of that, an alliance, a tapu alliance is formed.
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