It's a Māori world and you're lucky to be living in it. (uh-huh)

By Josh Robinson (He/Him) Ngāti Ranganui

Last week, I visited Parliament to watch the Treaty Principles bill fail in its second reading. I witnessed David Seymour ramble on, in a conspiratorial way, about how the influence of left-leaning governments had infiltrated universities in order to expand the doctrine of treaty partnership.

Then, just the other day pop sensation Katy Perry blasted off into space onboard a rocket owned by the second richest man in the world at an estimated cost of $28,000,000, a figure roughly just below the entire GDP for Wellington City in 2024.

Both of these events beckoned the same question in my mind; how the fuck did we get here?

It turns out that both are symptoms of a system that puts profit, privilege, and property over justice and accountability.

We live in a privileged time in Aotearoa where if you weren't taught about Te Tiriti in highschool, you are at least somewhat likely to come across it at university in some capacity.

Aotearoa has made great strides in furthering the education around Te Tiriti. However, this mahi will have been all for naught if the same systems that perpetuated its dismissal in the past, remain in our future.

Indeed, in order to talk about the future of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, we must first understand the systems that got us here in the first place. In particular, the capitalist machine that led to both its creation, dishonouring, and the rise of the adversarial three-headed taniwha.

The year is 1825 in London, England. Welcome to the stage ex-convict Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who (you're not gonna believe this) is a white upper-class man. Receding hairline sold separately.

Wakefield, who was famous for his theories in systematic colonisation, lobbied the government to travel to Aotearoa and set up a colony. His tactics included but were not limited to; fraudulent advertisement campaigns, bribery, and being rich asf.

Sounds like a dick right? Not to worry though, he eventually got several roads, suburbs, and even a town named after him.

Wakefield helped to draft a Bill that would grant him a royal charter to colonise Aotearoa. However, his bill was defeated at the first reading and was called by one member “the most monstrous proposal I ever knew made to the House”. Sounds like a Bill I know of...

Whilst most humanitarian groups at the time opposed the settlement of Aotearoa, the incorporation of Wakefield’s ‘New Zealand Colonisation Association’ (New Zealand Company) in 1838 gave an impetus from the new shareholders to move forward with the successful ravaging of the resources and tangata whenua. Should they not succeed, their investment would be at stake, so rather the exploitation of a country was preferred.

That is to say, whilst the New Zealand Company was rejected at almost every turn, it was the economic structure and institutions that helped proliferate their motives, including their financial success, no matter the cost to tangata whenua.

This economic machine was so successful that Māori land ownership went from 66 million acres, to being ‘sold’ down to 1.4 million acres. However, as history would show, the legitimate land purchases were just the friends we made along the way. That is to say, it was all bullshit.

It was because of this exploitation, and many others, that Te Tiriti was signed. The later imposed New Zealand Government would sell this stolen land to private owners, who would use and abuse it as they saw fit.

Flash forward to 2025, and New Zealand society has become a landed gentry. The Baby Boomer generation is one which captured 1.5 trillion dollars of wealth just by owning property. Aotearoa now has one of the most expensive property markets in the world, and an extremely large, and growing socioeconomic gap between the rich and poor. That is, the property owners, and everyone else who is at their peril.

We see it in the shitty flats of Aro Valley. We see it in the egregious rent prices which make students have to choose between eating food or paying rent. We see it in the extremely low homeownership rates of Māori, Pasifika, tauiwi, and young people.

In order to fully see through the objectives of Te Tiriti, we must first dismantle the system that led to its dishonouring. Whilst the ever-obvious capitalist machine is more generally the law of the ‘House of Representatives’, it is not the law of the land.

In the 2023 election, wealthy landlords and corporate lobbyists donated over 16 million dollars to the three-headed taniwha, and whatever they wanted in return, they are getting. If it's our future they’re trading away, then it’s our fight to win it back.