NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE, No. 99 — 27 SEPTEMBER 2017

[25] It then discussed the difficulties in translating Māori concepts into Western terms:

a. There are obvious distortions when Māori concepts are translated in Western terms. It must be understood that the division of properties was less important to Māori than the rules that governed their user. These criteria underlie Māori thinking—

i. A reverence for the total creation as one whole;

ii. A sense of kinship with fellow beings;

iii. A sacred regard for the whole of nature and it’s resources as being gifts from the gods;

iv. A sense of responsibility for these gifts as the appointed stewards, guardians and rangatira;

v. A distinctive economic ethic of reciprocity; and

vi. A sense of commitment to safeguard all of nature’s resources (taonga) for the future generations.

To meet their responsibilities for these taonga, an effective form of control operated. It ensured that both supply and demand were kept in proper balance, and conserved resources for future needs.6

[26] It identified three main elements in the guarantee of rangatiratanga, and related rangatiratanga to concepts of “mana”:

c. “Te tino rangatiratanga o o ratou taonga” tells of the exclusive control of tribal taonga for the benefit of the tribe including those living and those yet to be born. There are three main elements embodied in the guarantee of rangatiratanga. The first is that authority or control is crucial because without it the tribal base is threatened socially, culturally, economically and spiritually. The second is that the exercise of authority must recognise the spiritual source of taonga (and indeed of the authority itself) and the reason for stewardship as being the maintenance of the tribal base for succeeding generations. Thirdly, the exercise of authority was not only over property, but of persons within the kinship group and their access to tribal resources.

In the Māori text authority is represented in rangatira, or chiefs who led by virtue of their mana, or personal and spiritual prowess. It was usual for Māori to personalise authority in that way, so that the one word ‘mana’ applies to both temporal authority and personal attributes.

...

‘Mana’ is the more usual Māori word for ‘authority’. It is likely that Rev Henry Williams avoided using the word in the Treaty because of its particular connotations (see Manukau Report at 8.3). The missionaries were rarely keen on the word, for mana is said to have been inherited from heathen Māori gods. Nonetheless in debating the Treaty in 1879, it was ‘mana’ that Māori consistently used to describe that which they thought the Treaty had reserved, as the quotations at 5.5 show.7

[27] And further:

Neither ‘rangatiratanga’ nor ‘mana’ excludes ownership in our view. Stewardship was an aspect of the Māori way, but not one that meant tribal resources were automatically shared with all comers. Counsel for the New Zealand Māori Council was correct in contending that exclusivity is the essence of rangatiratanga, for the rangatira who welcomed people to their places, would nonetheless not tolerate an intrusion at will (doc H 17 p 12).

...

In more simplistic terms it can be said that, ‘mana moana’ (authority over the seas) applied in the same idiomatic form to land – mana whenua – and yet it has never been suggested that Māori land rights amounted to less than ownership when expressed in English terms.8

[28] Accordingly, the Tribunal found that Article II of the Treaty guaranteed to Māori their full, exclusive and undisturbed rights to maintain and develop their fisheries. This included rights akin to ownership of the fisheries. However, for present purposes, a critical distinction must be drawn between the full extent of rangatiratanga that the Treaty provided for, and the rangatiratanga that the taiapure regime seeks to promote. The taiapure regime does not purport to make "better provision" for the full extent of rangatiratanga in terms of ownership of fisheries or exclusive rights to harvest. Rather, the ultimate object of the regime is to make better provision for rangatiratanga as it relates to the "conservation and management" of local fisheries – being the practical effect of a taiapure as per s 185. That is a much narrower sense of rangatiratanga.