“My understanding is a guy came out as a prophet of his own religious movement in the 1870s. And politicians feel a strange obligation to be there every year. I’ve never felt that.” David Seymour is shallow as a birdbath.
With the Bible in one hand and the Treaty in the other TW Ratana preached unity through the avoidance of tribal dispute, and aimed to advance the economic standing of Maori people as a whole. David Seymour doesn’t feel it, doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand a thing about it.
When I was Labour Party Secretary, I wrote a paper on the Ratana/Labour Alliance. Before distributing it in the Party, I took it to the Church Committee for their approval, and the then Secretary was kind enough to tell me that it taught them things that they didn’t know. Much of the following is taken from that paper.
Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana was born in 1873, but his vision that led to the formation of the Ratana Church happened in 1919. He originally gained fame among Maori as a prophet and healer, with his teaching based on the Bible. Ratana followers were known as morehu, the Hebrew name in the Book of Exodus for the wandering Israelites before entry to the promised land. The independent Ratana Church was formally recognised in 1925.
Besides the spiritual ministry through the Ratana Church, TW Ratana’s work as a healer always extended beyond the spiritual to a concern for the material needs of the Maori people.
The land wars in the 19th century and subsequent confiscations, and the influenza epidemic of 1918 had ravaged the Maori population. Maori were not treated as equal citizens with pakeha. After World War 1, Maori volunteers with the Pioneer battalion were not entitled to rehabilitation allowances on the same terms as Europeans. They did not have the same entitlement to unemployment benefits in the depression.
While there had been four seats reserved for Maori in Parliament since 1868, there was no Maori roll. Maori voted by turning up for a face-to-face meeting with the returning officer, declaring their name and tribal affiliation, and stating whom they wished to vote for.
Grievances regarding land purchase and confiscation, as well as the activities of the Maori Land court, were strongly felt and unaddressed.
Besides his spiritual mission, Te Ture Wairua, TW Ratana also sought improvement for Maori through law change, Te Ture Tangata. His approach to the latter was to seek recognition of Maori as equal to pakeha, and support for their advancement and self-development through recognition of the Treaty of Waitangi in law. The Bible provided the spiritual base, and legal recognition of the Treaty would gain redress for resources taken and respect for the status and culture of Maori.
The morehu were asked to sign a covenant with him, which pledge became the linchpin of the Ratana movement across tribal and regional boundaries.
At the celebration at the dedication of the church at Ratana in January 1928, TW Ratana announced his change from prophet to campaigner. From this time and in this role he was known as Piriwiritua. He asked the Morehu to select four candidates for the Maori seats for the 1928 elections, in order to win all the Maori seats and so unify Maori. The chosen candidates were Haami Tokouru Ratana, the prophet’s eldest son, for Western Maori; Pita Moko for Eastern; Paraire Paikea for Northern and Eruera Tirikatene for Southern Maori.
They were known as the “koata” or quarters, and “in a formal ceremony were asked to solemnise the decision to stand as the Mangai’s representatives by signing a kawenata or covenant (which) contained four pledges:
Between 1928 and 1931 the Ratana candidates and the movement invited many other parties and politicians to Ratana pa for political discussions. The Ratana candidates were again unsuccessful in the 1931 election, but when the Southern Maori MP Tuiti Te Makitanara died in 1932 Tirikatene won the subsequent by-election. He was the first Ratana Independent MP. His maiden speech started by saying: ”My policy is to stand for the rights and privileges of the whole Maori race, as embodied in the Treaty of Waitangi. However I do not intend to elaborate on that at this time, but will do so in the fullness of time. There are certain other matters with which I want to deal.”1
He then went on to raise the fact that Maori were treated differently from pakeha in relation to unemployment benefits. He also attacked the reduction of pensions proposed by the Reform government, the lack of attention to petitions, the way in which Maori land was being alienated by the non-payment of rates, the separate treatment of Maori voters under the Electoral Act, and the removal of discrimination in Maori education.
He took a petition to Parliament in 1932 asking that “the Treaty of Waitangi be embodied in the Statue Book of the Dominion of New Zealand,…in order that all may know that the Treaty of Waitangi is operative, also to preserve the ties of brotherhood between Pakeha and Maori for all time.”
TW Ratana’s vision was the unity of all peoples in New Zealand to achieve greater benefit for all, and is reflected on the canoes on the Manuao building at Ratana paa, that include the Heemskerk and the Endeavour alongside Takitimu, Tokomaru, Tainui and the others of the great migration.
The intent of my paper was to provide information for twentieth-century Labour Party members on the richness of the links between Ratana and Labour, as well as the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi in that relationship. While it was unashamedly an apologia, it also noted Labour was slow to acknowledge the importance and the significance of the Treaty in its later relationship with Ratana, laid out in Sir Ngatata Love’s excellent PHD thesis and evidenced by the resignation of Matt Rata in 1979 to form the Mana Motuhake Party. Current Labour MP Adrian Rurawhe is a direct descendant of TW Ratana.
However it was good to hear Matua Shane Jones, whose entry into New Zealand politics was facilitated by the Labour Party, acknowledge the significance of Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s initiative in introducing the Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Act in 1985, which enabled Maori to seek redress for grievance back to 1840, and which unlocked the putea which enabled so much later Maori investment.
We have come a long way together towards real kotahitanga in Aotearoa/New Zealand in my lifetime, even if not without trial and error on the way. That is why it is so disappointing to see Seymour’s ignorance, as he tries to contribute to more tribulation.
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