Jonathan Milne, August 1996

One might be forgiven, these days, for thinking that sovereignty is the ball in our national game. The Government admits that it was offside when it took possession in 1840, but it has the ball now and isn't letting go. Maori are rather convinced that the ref deliberately turned a blind eye, but they are appealing for the penalty.

Now along come the republicans. They reckon that somebody -- somebody with a pommy accent and a bit of tinfoil on her head -- has stolen the ball and taken it out of the ground.

Little wonder the spectators get confused.

The National Maori Congress has given Maori studies senior lecturer Manuka Henare the task of clarifying what is going on in the ball-game, and perhaps offering some suggestions as to how a result could be achieved. He is convening a taskforce on tino rangatiratanga -- Maori sovereignty.

The blissful and peaceful seclusion of academia seemed somehow to be escaping Henare when I spoke to him. He answered a few of my questions, when he could find gaps between fielding phone-calls and knocks at the door from colleagues and students.

"Now, on the question of pledges of loyalty." He shuts the door on a student and turns back to his desk. "I have done staff training of public servants among others, and a number of Maori public servants find it a bit galling to have to swear allegiance to the Crown and not allegiance to the other partner to the Treaty, the Maori. Historically, that is not how it was meant to be.

"The Treaty of Waitangi was a treaty between a sovereign people and another sovereign people. From a Maori point of view, it was a relationship in which Maori were to be assisted by the power of the day -- the number one military power, economic power, moral power of the British monarchy -- in the establishment of civil order. That is quite different from being taken over, from being made subject to someone for evermore.

"The fact that Maori have, over the last 150 years, become very much a minority group, has I think shaped Maori opinion. What all the energy has gone into is contesting the Crown and its behaviour, in terms of law -- the practice of law and the administration of law. It can certainly give the impression that Maori have, therefore, agreed to being subject to the Crown."

Henare is concerned by this impression. Maori may insist on a relationship with the Crown in New Zealand, but he denies that this in any way makes them subject to that relationship.

That relationship can instead be seen in a metaphor from the 1840s: "I think that it still applies. The thinking went like this: 'New Zealand', said Maori leaders, 'is like a ship, and we have asked the British to help sail it'. That was recorded by the first Bishop of New Zealand, Jean-Baptiste Pompallier, a French Catholic bishop. He recorded that and sent it back in a report to Rome.

"I think that beautifully captured what Maori intended. How can that be ownership, when we only asked them to sail it?"

The phone rings again. "Kia ora, Manuka speaking … Jonathan, I'm sorry, can you excuse me -- I really have to take this call."

I take the luxury of glancing around Henare's office, his bookshelves, his photos ... Beyond the essays to be marked, beyond te reo, and tino rangatiratanga, were reports on social justice and communications from the Catholic Church of New Zealand.

'Concerned citizens' shrilled their outrage at the meeting last year between Vice-President Mbeki of South Africa and the 'Maori radicals' of Moutoa Gardens. These conservative New Zealanders might have been further alarmed at the framed photo of a younger Manuka Henare meeting with the Pope.

He returns: "Where were we? Oh yes. Now what I predict is that if some concessions are not made in Aotearoa New Zealand in Maori political rights then I can envisage, at some time in the future, Maori generating international interest in our case. Some international mechanism needs to be put in place whereby such complaints can be tested. I think that is very much an open agenda at the moment.

"I have a feeling that the limits of the Privy Council are now very apparent to Maori. The Privy Council, in the end, still reflects the mindset of the judiciary here.

"In another milieu, Maori might get a more sympathetic hearing about their political and economic worries, than they are getting from our courts here and from the Privy Council. I think that the international courts are an area of untested ground for Maori.

"However, a smooth transition is needed, rather than shutting down one shop and hoping that the other one gets opened. My understanding is that a lot of Maori want the Privy Council kept. I am sure that is based on the pragmatic consideration, 'don't give up what you have already got' on the basis of some very vague promises."

The same consideration applies to New Zealand becoming a republic. Maori are not going to accept the change without prior guarantees of the form of the republic, and their role within it. Henare dismisses the idea of shifting to a republic without first resolving issues of tino rangatiratanga.

"Maori have too many bitter experiences, where the Crown has done that before. That is the kind of argument: 'well, let's catch the fish, and then we'll discuss it'. We want to discuss the fish before we go fishing.

Already, there have been proposals as to what form that greater voice might take. In 1995 Mason Durie of the Maori Congress put together a discussion paper entitled Tino Rangatiratanga / Maori Self Determination. This paper forms, to an extent, the brief for the taskforce that Henare is now convening.

The ideas mentioned included an electorate-based Maori Policy Commission or Maori Assembly, an expansion of the New Zealand Maori Council to allow marae-based representation, and the late Matiu Rata's proposal for a system of Maori regional authorities.

One of the more ambitious proposals, however, comes from Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa, the Bishopric of the Anglican Church. Durie describes this model as "involving a reconfiguration of Parliament to include a tikanga Maori House and a tikanga Pakeha House, as well as a Treaty of Waitangi House which has senatorial responsibilities".

Such a reinvention of Parliament would be difficult to imagine with New Zealand still remaining a constitutional monarchy. "If the republican model offers anything, it is the possibility of two or more houses" says Henare. "In some respects, it is easier to get those under a republican model, I think, than it is under the one we have got here."

Some kind of resolution to the issue of tino rangatiratanga, anyway, must be agreed on before the move to a republic. "I think it would be part of the renegotiation. It will be imperative, otherwise you will just have Maori opposed to the republic. I have listened to the odd constitutional expert suggesting that in a proposed republic, the Treaty stays, and all that happens is that one of the partners is transformed into something else. That is not enough.

"As a sovereign people, we want to make decisions about our own political future, on our own terms."

On the basis of the 1835 Declaration of Independence and the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, Henare argues that Maori must be partners to the decision: republic, or no republic.

"It is not for the Crown to suddenly say, 'well, we're going to be a republic'. I think that Maori thinkers would say, 'no, that can't be right, there should be two referendums. One for tangata Tiriti [the people of the Treaty], meaning all you settlers who have come here since 1840, and one for tangata whenua to have their say. And then see how they match up.

"Personally, I feel the republican thing makes sense, as a serious step, but I say that as an individual point of view. And I think that there are a lot of Maori, younger Maori, who think like that too. I just pick up that there is an open-mindedness there.

"On the other hand, we have got this mess. It is a concoction of the last 150-odd years. That is not going to go away, with or without a republic."

In order for that mess, that national game chucking aroung sovereignty, to ascend to something tidier, more structured, and more rewarding for all, some smart refereeing will be necessary. So many will be looking to a New Zealand referee.

It seems unlikely that the road to a New Zealand republic will be a short and easy one. Australia has taken the Nike attitude: just do it. New Zealand may have to take more time and care over it, to make sure that there is a broad agreement about the change.

Any idealistic principles of republicanism - freedom, equality, democracy - must be tempered by a degree of pragmatic republicanism. That route may allow both tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti to make the most of the opportunity of republicanism.

"I think that there is an interest there among Maori. But it is an interest that is kind of circumspect. I think the general attitude would be that, well, the present system is not conducive in terms of our political rights. What are the guarantees that when you get this new house -- or whatever you call it -- that it will be any better or worse? Preferably it will be better, but that is where the circumspection comes in."