Citizen Tuheitia...

Should Kingi Tuheitia stand down? It’s a valid question, surely. In an attempt to apply further pressure on Tom Roa and the remaining members of Te Arataura, Tuheitia has released a second open letter claiming that “Waikato -Tainui is once more at the edge of an abyss.” Well, yes, but is Tuheitia the right person to pull the tribe back?

It’s worth remembering that the Kingitanga is not an expression of power or sovereignty. The movement is an expression of and tool for unity. Tuheitia, however, appears to treat his office as if it's a cheap imitation of the worst aspects European Royal Protocol. In 2011 the Herald reported that:

Guests are encouraged to lead conversation, although it should be kept to only two subjects, and people should ask only polite questions, keeping the whole encounter to one or two minutes maximum.

Guests are also encouraged to refer to Tuheitia as “your majesty”. Odd. I find it strange that royal protocols exist at all – Te Atairangikaahu did not keep a protocol guide. Hell, when she travelled the country she would stay at the homes of her friends and whanau. No hotels and chauffeurs, thank you very much. After all, the Kingitanga isn't about reverance and mana does not extend to those people with less having to act towards you with veneration.

Add to that a verbal incident that the Waikato Times reported in 2010. Apparently, in a meeting about Tania Martin and Te Kauhanganui, Tuheitia let rip against a kaumatua and Tame Iti’s sister. The King is reported to have asked the kaumatua whether he can “fucking read” and, when called on it, he told Iti if she doesn’t like it she can “fuck off”. Not the qualities you would expect of any leader, let alone the Maori King.

Waikato-Tainui members are also asking whether this is part of a continuing campaign for more power and money. In January this year Tuheitia first voiced his desire to “take control of the tribe’s parliament” and Chris Webster reports that the Office of the King has received millions in tribal funding from 2009. Earlier this year Tuheitia penned a plea in the tribal magazine for further funding. You have to ask whether the King's latest reach for power, read the first and the most recent open letters, are part of a pattern.

Another cause for worry is the King’s cartel of advisors. The King maintains a large office, in comparison to his mother at least, including Rangi Wallace who admitted to beating his step-daughter and her mother, Helen Kotua. Further to that, Wallace also owed $250,000 to IRD in 2011 and Kotua owed Baycorp over $3000. Kotua is the author of the protocols above. 

Tuheitia has also come under fire for appointing Greg Miller, a “Pakeha”, as his representative on Te Arataura. In a similar vein Tuheitia nominated Susan Cullen to the Board of Te Wananga o Aotearoa. Cullen, whose father was the CEO at the time, is reported to have earnt more than $74m in 5 years from contracts with the Wananga and shamelessly touts her worth at over $30m. The Auditor-General later released a damning report into the Wananga criticising them for extensive conflicts of interest, poor quality courses and more.

Tuku Morgan was instrumental in the nomination and when the Wananga refused to accept her, and rightly so, he threatened legal action. This brings us neatly to Tuku Morgan – the source of and/or contributor to so, so much hurt in the tribe. Arguably there is a direct correlation between Tuku Morgan and tribal infighting. Many thought tribal battles had reached their climax while Tuku was the head of Te Arataura. Remember Tuku met Tania Martin, the former tribal leader, in Court on numerous occasions and appeared on television to launch a public attack while he was heading the executive. Negotiation and compromise is not a concept Tuku understands, apparently.  

It’s sad and I’m not going to pretend I have the answers. Structural change, like I discussed in a previous post, is a start but no cure. The personalities are toxic too. If the King succeeds in cleaning out Te Arataura and much of Te Kauhanganui (I support that idea in principle)... should he follow suit? Discuss.

Post-script: It's worth noting that I'm not speaking from personal experience here - I'm drawing from what is in the public domain. Rumours are relayed to me, but I'm hesitant to publish them. Also, I don't necessarily think Tuheitia needs to go. He should have the chance to improve tribal politics, but if he fails or makes matters considerably worse... Well, then we need to ask whether he displays the qualities we expect of an Arikinui.  

The price of the King's support

So, Tuku Morgan has revealed the price of the Kingitanga’s support*:

A former head of the Waikato-Tainui executive who plans to stand for the role of the tribe's parliament chair says he wants to change the way the tribe is governed so the Maori King has the final say over tribal decisions…

Mr Morgan says if he's elected he'll work towards making changes to the tribe's constitution.

He says members must never be able to go to court with tribal issues, and Kingi Tuheitia should be given the right to veto or dissolve a tribal parliament.

Gifting the King the power to dissolve tribal parliaments will not solve the political and structural problems in Tainui. At most, inserting the Kingitanga as the ultimate decision maker will only change the way tribal politics is played. So, rather than engage in legal plays**, ambitious tribal politicians will jostle for standing in the Kingitanga. Lobbying, not law, will be du jour.

As for the structural issues, elevating the Kingitanga will further complicate what is already an unnecessarily complex iwi structure. At the moment the King sits at the top of the line as the ceremonial head, Te Kauhanganui (TK) stands below as the decision making body, Te Arataura (TA) is lower still as the day to day manager and groups like Tainui Group Holdings (TGH) make up the base. It’s a loose Westminster model where the Kingitanga is analogous to the monarchy, TK to Parliament, TA to the Cabinet and TGH and others are analogous to arms of the executive. Under Tuku’s proposal the structure would not change, other than to take ultimate power away from TK and transfer it to the Kingitanga.

Well, under either model, the structure doesn't fit with the “fundamental principles (that) have emerged over the years as being relevant for most iwi in their structures”. These principles are:

• the need to establish a structure where the individual iwi members have ultimate control; 
• the legal capacity and powers of the structure are certain; and 
• ownership and management functions are kept separate, as are commercial and non-commercial objectives. 

Here are the problems: 1) Under Tuku’s model, the King could dissolve TK and override the will of the individual iwi members. Even then, it’s arguable that individual iwi members do not even have ultimate control over TK and Tainui decision making as it is. TK is not elected on an at large basis. Each Marae puts forward three members to sit on TK, yet those members are not elected on an at large basis either. Arguably, this is not a purely democratic model where “individual iwi members have ultimate control” 2) the legal powers of each body are not certain. A number of tribal politicians, including Tuku Morgan, have taken to the Courts to test the limits of their power and the power of their opponents. Given the hazy rules, a culture of litigation has developed in the tribe. From the beginning of the 2010 financial year through to 2012 Chapman Tripp collected over $1m in legal fees, Bell Gully collected almost $300,000 (including the 2009 financial year). Over four other firms cashed in as well 3) ownership (TK) and management (TA) are kept separate under both models. At least that’s one run out of three.

The troubles in Tainui are not tidy and while I don’t pretend to have all of the answers, I’m sure the answer is not to reduce democracy in favour of feudalism. Structural reform is the key, but that reform must be on democratic terms. Regardless of what you think of Tuku Morgan, Tania Martin or Kingi Tuheitia, I think everyone can agree on that.

*In a extraordinary letter to Tainui tribal members the King called on leaders in TK and TA to reaffirm their "mandate" and endorsed Tuku Morgan in his bid for the chairmanship of TK. 

**The Court has the final say over the interpretation and application of the rules that govern Tainui. As a result much of the political games that go on in Tainui are, essentially, legal games. Opposing parties merely attempt to strengthen their legal positions rather than cooperate, compromise and so on. 

More trouble in Tainui

Trouble in Tainui continues with the King signalling his intentions to take over Te Kauhanganui (Tainui Parliament) and Te Arataura (Tainui Executive). From the Waikato Times:

Discussions to replace the Maori King have ramped up after he announced he wanted to take over Tainui's tribal parliament.

King Tuheitia, also the paramount chief of Waikato-Tainui, told a meeting at Horahora marae, near Rangiriri, on New Year's Day he wanted to take control of the tribe's parliament, Te Kauhanganui (TK), and its executive, Te Arataura (TA). He warned Tainui marae not to attend the next meeting of the tribal parliament, scheduled for February 26.

King Tuheitia also said he wanted to see the back of the Tainui executive's controversial leader Tukoroirangi Morgan, and demanded a new TA.

The Kingitanga sits above TK, but in a ceremonial sense rather than a legal sense. TK is, I believe, an incorporated society with its own rules that prevent the King from removing trustees and, for lack of a better term, commandeering the society. Case in point, when the King removed Tania Martin as Chair of TK the Court found that the King had no legal power to do so. Consequently, Martin was reinstated. TK’s rules state that the Chair can only be removed or instated via a tribal vote. The same rules apply to TA. Therefore, the King cannot remove Tuku Morgan.

I think it’s funny that the King wants to use his ceremonial power to remove Tuku. Last year when the King removed, or tried to remove, Tania Martin, he did so at the request of Tuku Morgan. Tuku obviously believed the King had the legal power, or more probably the mana, to remove her. Now, the shoe is on the other foot and the King is looking to use his authority as Arikinui of Tainui to remove Tuku. I wonder if Tuku will cry foul, even though he tried to have the same thing done almost a year ago.

I don’t think the King is going to be removed, nor do I think the King will do any removing. The tribe is too dysfunctional. TA is delaying the election of a new board and there are accusations of financial cover ups and crony appointments. Last year Tainui stumbled from controversy to controversy. Trouble in Tainui erupted when Tania Martin released a damning report criticising TA. In response, Tuku Morgan lobbied Kingi Tuheitia to remove Tania Martin as Chair of TK. The King subsequently sacked Ms Martin only for the Court to reinstate her. Martin then publicly released an affidavit which was a damning indictment against TA. TA responded in kind with Tuku publicly slagging Tania Martin on Native Affairs. The tit for tat battle continued with the main events been the repeated attempts by TA to block meetings of TK, a police complaint against Tania Martin and, finally, a failed vote to remove Tuku Morgan.

I’m not sure how to the tribe will fix their problems, hell, a clean out of TK and TA might be the right approach. However, this will never happen with the cunning fox Tuku Morgan on one side and the blundering bear Kingi Tuheitia on the other.

Having said that, if anyone has the mana to redirect Tainui it’s Kingi Tuheitia. However, the likes of Morgan and the rest of TA think that they’re above everyone, even the King and TK. TA won’t go down without a fight, and if they do go down they’ll bring the whole house crashing down too. I’m not seeing a clean solution to this. Last year I simplified Tainui's problems down to: 

Rotten personalities and toxic tribal politics. Tainui has experienced more than its share of internal political dramas, then again most Iwi have, but Tainui’s problems seem to play out on the national stage. For me this saga speaks to the unnecessary complexity of Iwi post-settlement entities and the self-interest many of the Iwi elite operate with. The Tainui Brown Table is a putrid one, one that needs to be destroyed and remade. Remade with the interests of the people at its core. The problem Te Arataura has is that they operate like a business. They treat their operations like they are a massive corporation and the people like they are expendable and marginal shareholders. In my opinion, the sooner Tuku and his mates are removed the sooner Te Arataura can go back to serving the people.

I think that still stands. 

Tuku Morgan's last dance?

Could this be Tuku Morgan’s final act? From the NZ Herald:

A Tainui board has backed Tuku Morgan's leadership after a wider tribal parliamentary vote at the weekend threatened to end it.

On Saturday Mr Morgan faced a vote to remove him from chairing Te Arataura, the tribe's executive board, based on misconduct allegations.

To be successful it required 50 per cent of 65 marae attending the tribe's half-yearly Te Kauhanganui or parliamentary meeting on Saturday to vote to remove him.

Although the vote failed, the message is clear. Shape up or ship out, Tuku. 30 Marae affirmed the resolution to disqualify Tuku Morgan while 27 voted against, two abstained and six votes were deemed invalid. This may be the watershed moment in what has been a prolonged and filthy battle between Tuku Morgan and Te Arataura and Tania Martin and her supporters in Te Kauhanganui.

Having said that, some confusion remains. Initial reports suggested a plurality was enough to remove Tuku, however later claims from Te Arataura suggested that a majority was needed for a removal resolution to be successful. Consequently, Te Arataura has taken the issue to Court claiming that their interpretation of the Constitution holds that a majority is needed to remove Tuku. I cannot say who is in the right without reading the Constitution; suffice to say some interesting legal issues are raised. As an aside it is interesting to note that over the years Te Arataura have gradually altered the Constitution, even to the point of inserting some provisions of the Companies Act 1993, no doubt in an attempt to shift power from Te Kauhanganui to the Executive Board.

Trouble between Tania Martin and Tuku Morgan, and by extension Te Kauhanganui and Te Arataura, emerged late last year when Tania Martin released a report criticising Te Arataura, but in particular Tuku Morgan. Tuku then cried foul and lobbied Kingi Tuheitia to remove her. The King obliged and used his mana as Arikinui of Tainui to remove Tania Martin as Chairwoman of te Kauhanganui. Consequently, Tania Martin invoked the mana of the law and took the issue to Court seeking reinstatement. Justice Hansen obliged and held that Tania Martin’s removal was unlawful. A tit for tat public battle ensured with both sides smearing the other. Recently Tuku Morgan filed a complaint with the Police alleging financial mismanagement on Tania Martin’s part, however the Police refused to investigate the complaint claiming that there was insufficient evidence to justify an investigation.

This latest battle may be the defining moment of the war. It is clear that despite Tuku Morgan’s behind the scenes lobbying and public attacks that Tania Martin enjoys the support of Te Kauhanganui. Te Kauhanganui is the ultimate authority in Tainui and maintains the mana to speak on behalf of all of Tainui. Unless Tuku Morgan can pull Te Kauhanganui in his direction he will not win. Tuku’s favourite play is to erect procedural barriers. He engages his solicitors, Chapman Tripp for the record, and he assaults his victims with legalese and threats. For example, the meeting in question has been delayed by Tuku for months as he knew, full well may I add, that he would lose the vote.

Te Kauhanganui also voted on resolution seven: disqualification of the Executive Board. That vote failed meaning Tuku’s minions remain and appear, at least for now, safe. It appears that they have avoided been implicated in Tuku’s dodgy plays.

At its most basic this dirty episode comes down to rotten personalities and toxic tribal politics. Tainui has experienced more than its share of internal political dramas, then again most Iwi have, but Tainui’s problems seem to play out on the national stage. For me this saga speaks to the unnecessary complexity of Iwi post-settlement entities and the self-interest many of the Iwi elite operate with. The Tainui Brown Table is a putrid one, one that needs to be destroyed and remade. Remade with the interests of the people at its core. The problem Te Arataura has is that they operate like a business. They treat their operations like they are a massive corporation and the people like they are expendable and marginal shareholders. In my opinion, the sooner Tuku and his mates are removed the sooner Te Arataura can go back to serving the people. Finally, isn’t it funny how Tuku always seems to be at the centre of these dramas within Tainui. Take what you will from that.    

UPDATE: Waikato Labour MP Nanaia Mahuta has called for the issue to be resolved outside of the Court room. Mahuta is careful not to pick sides, but I tend to think she is leaning towards supporting the decisions of Te Kauhanganui. Good on her.

The Kingitanga, Wai262 and Mana Policy

The Kingitanga is, supposedly, apolitical; however critics are accusing Kingi Tuheitia of injecting politics into the movement. From Radio New Zealand:

A former head of the Tainui-Waikato Parliament has dismissed suggestions that a meeting between King Tuheitia and the dissident Fiji colonel, Tevita Mara, could politicise the Kingitanga.

The criticism has been raised by people formerly close to the Kingitanga.

But a past chairperson of Te Kauhanganui, Tom Roa, says King Tuheitia met with Ratu Mara out of respect, because the colonel has royal connections.

I agree with Tom Roa. Given Mara’s connections to Fijian royalty – as an aside I didn’t know Fiji maintained a monarchy – Kingi Tuheitia is under an obligation to meet him (Mara). It is customary for the Maori Monarch to meet visiting Royals from the Pacific. The relationship between the Kingitanga and Pacific Royalty is an expression of the relationship between Maori and Pasifika people. Maori are connected to the Pacific through whakapapa and the Kingitanga respects this by maintaining connections with “the royal houses” of the Pacific. Having said that, I do not think Mara, who is under suspicion of torture, deserves an audience with the King. Mara is, to be polite, a sinner who deserves an audience with the Police rather than the Maori King.

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The Greens are, once again, calling it like it is. From Radio New Zealand:

The Green Party says it's not holding its breath for any genuine Government engagement in response to Wai 262 - the recent Waitangi Tribunal report on Māori culture and identity.

The report says current laws and government policies marginalise Māori and allow others to control key aspects of Māori culture.

Greens co-leader Metiria Turei says she sees little point in her party trying to make the Government do anything, because its response is likely to be fairly weak.

National will not touch Wai262 in an election year. Although the report proved pedestrian, any action taken will open National’s right flank and render the party vulnerable to attacks from the redneck right. It appears New Zealanders are comfortable with National’s approach to Maori and Maori issues, but Maori issues are always explosive and best left untouched in uncertain times. National enjoys a solid grip on the centre and the far right, but as we move closer to the election their grip of those constituencies will loosen. If the Nat’s are perceived to be pandering to Maori they will lose control of the right vote and potentially compromise their stranglehold on the centre. With the deteriorating economy and a resurgent left the Nat’s will play it safe – it would be unwise to inflame the Maori issue. However, the Nat’s may move on Wai262 in an attempt to placate the Maori Party and capture their support post-election. This is a long shot though – John Key already has the Maori Party wrapped around his finger.

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The Mana Party have followed through with another policy drop, this time in health, employment, education, cost of living and tax. From what I have read, I’m impressed. Most of the policy is progressive and realistic. I haven’t read all of it nor thoroughly considered all of what I have read, but my first impressions are positive. This is what you would expect though with brilliant minds like Jane Kelsey contributing.