Special Maori Provisions

Te Ao Hou, 1973, Page 28

Special Maori Provisions Let me turn now to consider what are the special provisions in our law for Maoris, as apart from non-Maoris. In the famous Hunn Report of 1960 an attempt was made to deal with the subject of legal differentiation between Maoris and non-Maoris, and there were lists and lists of differential provisions which were described under various headings, some conferring privileges, some creating disabilities, some being just protective, and some prescribing different procedures to be adopted in various cases. It is not at all useful to attempt to add up the number of these various provisions and to see whether it has increased or decreased because the subject is not one that you can sum up in this way. Under a particular Act of Parliament, for example, one person could see 60 instances of different treatment, whereas another person would see the subject as a whole and regard it just as one matter. It is, however, true to say that a very large number of the instances set out in the Hunn Report do not now exist. The principal field where there is differentiation between Maori and non-Maori in law is, of course, in relation to Maori land. This is a complex subject, full of emotion, full of history, and full of misconceptions of history. It is a field which is too large and too complex for me to attempt to deal with this afternoon. I do, however, feel, as do many Pakeha, including the Governor-General himself, that land questions are productive of emotional dissatisfaction amongst many Maoris. If this is so, it would be my sincere and fervent hope that the whole subject can be brought further and further out into the open, and can be freely and frankly discussed. To my mind it is no answer to say this, because there have been Royal Commissions, Committees of the House, petitions and so on, for generation after generation and very much consideration has been given to the question. Yet I think that every generation has to learn about its own problems all over again, and it may well be that the Pakeha has forgotten all this, whereas the Maori remembers it better. It may well be that the time has come when a wholesale and high national analysis of this land problem, and all that it means, needs to be done, and done before too long. In any case, so far as concerns the present and particular laws relating to Maori land, there is a strong tendency to remove all differences due to race or to the nature of the land, and to provide merely special provisions to deal with the problems of multiple ownership, whether it be Maori land or European land. Apart from the land question, and a few quite odd and somewhat silly provisions to which I shall not refer, the main respects in which the Maori has a special legal position are:— Parliamentary Representation, which is known to us all: Housing Finance: Maori Education: and those matters covered by the Maori Welfare Act 1962. including the representative Maori organisations and the special position and status of Maori wardens. These special provisions were enacted and are still justified in the thought that they operate for the benefit and advancement of the Maori people. If they do not, then there would be no justification for retaining them.