Author(s): Andy Oakley

NZ History and Society

The Maori Intertribal Wars 1801 – 1840 were New Zealand’s biggest tragedy of the 19th century. An estimated 43,600 natives were killed or wounded by enemy tribes. However, this cataclysmic near extinction of our early settlers is tossed aside as irrelevant when something like the special rights of a mountain are abused. Judge Joanna Maze bizarrely fined a helicopter pilot $3,750 for gravely offending Ngai Tahu by hovering over the peak of Mt Cook. How has our society got to the point where this kind of “justice” is accepted? Setting up the race-based Waitangi Tribunal may well have been the worst thing to happen to New Zealand in the 20th century. This failed experiment in biculturalism has, by its very existence, nearly halted the cultural development of 14% of New Zealanders and is increasingly trying the patience of the other 86%. What, if anything, is the real difference between these two groups? What impact does the Waitangi Tribunal have on our society and how did it react to a Treaty Claim that showed its racist agenda by failing to acknowledge Te Pakeha, a tribe that the Treaty of Waitangi gave equal rights to. This book asks why we believe things that we know could not possibly be true, and why does our society seem to be operating with rules that don’t offer solutions to our modern problems. It explains how pre–1840 New Zealand was not inhabited by the “Maori race” but a number of nations/tribes who were constantly at war with each other, thus exposing the fraud on which the Waitangi Tribunal is based. “Cannons Creek to Waitangi” examines how New Zealanders began to arrive here 700 years ago in one of the last human migrations and why we behave the way we do today. The fact that the author grew up in Cannons Creek, Porirua East, not only offers him a different perspective on who really suffers in our dysfunctional societies but also what may fix them. This landmark publication explores the social problems that biculturalism and the political meddling with the Treaty of Waitangi have inflicted on the very people it was supposed to protect “…all the people of New Zealand”.