MAOR165: Dawn Raids & The 'Justice' System 2

Lecture Context and Objectives

• Builds directly on Chris’s earlier session that began to interrogate discomfort around colonial history and criminal justice.

• Current lecture will

  • Deepen discussion, intentionally making the class “more uncomfortable / annoyed.”

  • Cover historical foundations of Aotearoa NZ’s justice system up to present‐day Māori over-representation.

  • Pause at the analytical “thinking part,” which will resume next week (before the cultural appropriation unit).

• Frequent in-class kōrero (small-group discussions) are used to evoke whanaungatanga—relationship-building within the collective.

Common Colonial Myths and Their Implications

• Recurrent statements (often framed as jokes or social-media comments):

  • “Māori should be grateful we brought wheels / tools / clothes.”

  • “Without colonisation you would still be cannibals running around naked.”

• These arguments

  • Intentionally silence Māori perspectives.

  • Create a false binary: “European = civilised/good” vs “Indigenous = savage/bad.”

  • Erase complexity of pre-colonial Māori society (education, agriculture, performance, governance) and feed directly into modern over-policing and incarceration.

• Lecturer’s rebuttal to the “cannibal” trope:

  • Cannibalism existed historically across Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and wider Oceania—Māori were not unique.

Pre-Colonial Māori Governance

• Operated through tikanga (customs, protocols) rather than prisons or codified statutes.

• Core organising concepts

  • Mana – power, authority, prestige, respect.

  • Tapu – (commonly translated as sacred), denotes states requiring respect/protection.

  • Utu – often mislabelled “revenge”; actually reciprocity that restores balance & harmony.

  • Muru – ritual compensation / restorative action triggered by transgression; details (severity, type) depend on mana of parties, intention, degree of offence.

  • Whanaungatanga – formation and maintenance of relationships; collective responsibility.

• Wrongdoing affected both individuals and wider whānau/hapū; justice aimed to repair relationships, sometimes escalating to warfare if balance could not be restored.

Early European Contact and the Push for British Governance

• Early arrivals (whalers, sailors, sealers, traders) behaved lawlessly; Māori hoped Crown intervention would discipline settlers.

• Te Tiriti o Waitangi (1840) became the framework through which governance expectations diverged.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi: Dual-Text Analysis

Preamble

• English: Crown will protect Māori interests, facilitate British settlement, and maintain peace/order.

• Māori: Emphasises guaranteeing tino rangatiratanga (full chiefly authority) & safeguarding land/taonga.

Article 1

• English: Māori cede sovereignty.

• Māori: Grant kawanatanga (governance)

  • “Sovereignty” had no direct Māori equivalent; kawanatanga was a transliteration understood via the Bible and the term Kāwana (governor).

Article 2

• English: Guarantees “undisturbed possession” of lands, forests, fisheries; Crown holds right of pre-emption.

• Māori: Guarantees rangatiratanga over lands & taonga—authority/status rather than fee-simple ownership; concept of individual land “ownership” was foreign.

Article 3

• Both promise Māori the rights & duties of British subjects— signalling equality/equity; later systematically ignored.

Establishment of Colonial Legal and Political Structures

• 1840: NZ declared a British colony; Governor William Hobson operates with an Executive Council answerable only to him.

• 1841 Supreme Court Ordinance → single judge; 2nd judge added 1844; other courts (Appeal, local) follow; all Crown-run, reflecting British precedent.

• Settlers sought a “home away from home”—implicitly desiring a society without Māori influence.

• Westminster-style Parliament created $\approx 12\text{–}14$ years post-Treaty; monarchy retained ceremonial role.

Exclusion of Māori from Early Colonial Governance

• No Māori MPs at Parliament’s inception; Māori representation took $16$ years.

• Franchise limited to males holding individual freehold land.

  • Māori tenure largely communal → effectively disenfranchised.

  • Early 1850s: only $\approx 100$ Māori voted even though Māori population exceeded European.

• Colonial period marked by tension over land, sovereignty and cultural practice.

Contrasting Justice Philosophies: Tikanga vs English Common Law

Māori (Tikanga)

• Restorative, collective, relationship-centred.

• Justice = re-establishing balance (utu/muru).

British/Common-Law

• Codified statutes, legal precedent, adversarial trials.

• Individual responsibility; deterrence & punishment.

Result: Systemic clashes and imposition of British law on Māori communities.

Partial & Failed Attempts to Integrate Māori Customary Law

• 1844 Native Exemption Ordinance: Māori convicted of theft could pay compensation (resembled muru).

• 1856 Resident Magistrates Courts Ordinance: Māori-only disputes heard by magistrate + two chiefs (chiefs decided verdict).

• Section 71, NZ Constitution Act 1852: designated districts where Māori custom would prevail—never implemented.

Legislated Dispossession and Assimilation (Key Acts 1862 – 1907)

• Native Land Act 1862 / 1865

• Converted customary land to individual title; limited to $10$ named owners → facilitated Pākehā purchase.
  • New Zealand Settlements Act 1863

• Land of “rebel” Māori confiscated without compensation; $1{,}300{,}000$ ha seized.
  • Public Works Act 1864

• Crown could take land for roads/projects; Māori paid lower compensation; unused land rarely returned.
  • Native Lands Rating Act 1882

• Imposed council rates up to $300\%$ higher than for European-owned land; non-payment → land foreclosure.
  • Māori Lands Administration Act 1900

• Began with Māori-majority regional boards (Pākehā chair); reconstituted to 1 Māori + 2 Pākehā; disestablished 1952 after $90\%$ of Māori land alienated.
  • Native Schools Act 1867

• Funding conditional on English-only instruction: “No grant unless instruction carried on in the English language.” Assimilation objective; punished use of te reo.
  • Tohunga Suppression Act 1907

• Criminalised traditional healers, steering Māori toward Western medicine.

Collective effect: Law systematically engineered loss of land, culture, language and political power, embedding inequality into the justice system from the mid-$1800\text{s}$ onward.

Cumulative Effects: Structural Inequalities Entrenched

• Criminal law became a tool for both legitimising force and imposing cultural values (Keenan & Tauri).

• Foundations of “one people” rhetoric belied by materially unequal legal structures.

• Dawn Raids (referenced in Chris’s lecture) exemplify continuing racialised enforcement.

Contemporary Snapshot: Māori Over-Representation in the Criminal Justice System

Population Share vs Prison Share (March 2025)

• Māori proportion of total population: $17.8\% \text{–} 19\% \; (\approx 0.19)$ of $5\text{ million}$ people.

• Māori proportion of prison population: $52.6\% \; (\approx 0.526).$

• Disparity signals systemic bias; cannot be explained by simple “prone to crime” narratives.

Classroom Activities & Reflections

• Students asked to articulate current opinions about NZ criminal justice (e.g.
  “Do the crime, do the time”) and revisit after historical context.

• Think-pair-share on what was “missing” in early colonial governance → unanimous answer: Māori participation & representation.

Key Terms and Concepts

• Tikanga – Māori customs/protocols.

• Mana / Tapu / Utu / Muru / Whanaungatanga – interconnected ethical framework.

• Kawanatanga – governance (loanword from “governor”).

• Rangatiratanga / Tino Rangatiratanga – chiefly authority, self-determination.

• Assimilation – policy goal to absorb Māori into European norms.

• Historical myth-making – framing colonisation as beneficent; used to silence Indigenous critique.

Statistical & Numerical References

• $1{,}300{,}000$ ha confiscated under NZ Settlements Act 1863.

• $10$-owner limit under Native Land Act 1865.

• Up to $300\%$ higher rates on Māori land (Native Lands Rating Act 1882).

• $90\%$ Māori land alienated by 1952.

• Population‐to-prison disproportionality: $0.19 \text{ vs } 0.526.$

Interconnections With Other Lectures / Real-World Relevance

• Builds on Chris’s discussion of racialised policing (Dawn Raids) → demonstrates continuity from colonial statutes to modern enforcement.

• Sets the groundwork for next lecture: mechanisms that sustain Māori over-representation today (bias, policing, sentencing, prisons).

• Prepares for upcoming module on cultural appropriation by exposing underlying power imbalances.

• Provides historical context vital for fields such as sociology, human services, and legal studies.

Ethical, Philosophical & Practical Implications

• Equality (Article 3 promise) vs Equity (material reality): law designed to produce unequal outcomes.

• Necessity of confronting “historical amnesia” to reform current institutions.

• Restorative justice principles (utu/muru) offer alternative models to punitive incarceration.

Suggested Further Exploration

• NZ Department of Corrections statistics portal (link in original slides).

• Tribunal & Waitangi reports on each legislative act.

• Writings by Keenan & Tauri on colonial criminology.