"It must surely be a matter of very considerable concern that national news media do not exercise some informed discrimination and decline to publish such infantile nonsense as the tales of Associate Professor Claire Charters of the University of Auckland Law School".

AN OPEN LETTER TO TWO ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS AT WAIKATO UNIVERSITY

Dear Associate Professor Leonie Pihama and Associate Professor Tom Roa,

You have both seized the opportunity you perceive in the recent appalling tragedy in Christchurch to present what one of you calls “colonial terror and violence since 1642”[1] with the other saying “Maori had been victims to acts of terrorism in Aotearoa in the past”.[2] And Police Deputy Commissioner of Maori and Ethnic Services Wally Haumaha chimes in, about “historical killings of Maori at different times and across the country during early colonisation”.[3]

In a letter on Treaty Settlements Office Ministerial letterhead dated 9 September 2019, Treaty Negotiations Minister Andrew Little, in regards to a pamphlet arguing that everyone ought to be treated equally before the law, stated: “The pamphlet….. curiously ignores the fact that Maori were not treated equally before the law between 1840 and about 1922 when Maori women were finally granted the franchise”.

The fact is that Maori women, who received full rights of British subjects under Article 3 of the Treaty, received the vote in 1893 alongside their European women equals. Such misinformation is insidious in that it creates a grievance mentality in the minds of supposed victims and can be used to justify legal privileges awarded to those with Maori ancestors. And in this case the misinformation promoted by the Office of Treaty Negotiations could clearly have the ability to affect the judgment of Minister Little in the execution of his duties as Minister for Treaty Negotiations (four yearly budget of $1.4 billion) as well as his conduct of Marine and Coastal Area Act negotiations.