Fifty years on, New Zealand’s tribunal upholding Māori rights faces a turning point
The Waitangi Tribunal has had a significant impact on Indigenous rights and policy but as it marks its 50th anniversary its role is being questioned
In the 1980s, New Zealand’s department of Māori affairs set aside money for language groups to spend on projects as they saw fit. When Wellington teacher Huirangi Waikerepuru received his group’s share, he used it to challenge the government.
He took his complaint to a relatively new body called the Waitangi Tribunal. Formed in 1975 amid a wave of protest, it was designed to address Māori grievances by determining whether the meaning of the country’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi, was being adhered to.