Editorial: A nation emerging slowly but surely

OPINION: The return of the diplomatic corps to Waitangi today for the first time in 15 years is a measure of how much relations between Maori and the Crown have progressed.

In 1995, when the diplomatic corps last attended Waitangi en masse, the governor-general, Catherine Tizard, was spat at, the flag was trampled upon, the German dean of the diplomatic corps was insulted with anti-German slogans and Maori and the Government were feuding over the $1 billion size of the fiscal envelope set aside for Treaty settlements.

Tomorrow the tino rangatiratanga flag, the emblem of the Maori protest movement, will fly alongside the New Zealand flag on government buildings. Almost $1.5 billion has been distributed or promised to iwi in compensation for Treaty breaches, the National-led Government is being supported by a Maori party and, perhaps most importantly for the next two days, several prominent Maori protest leaders are now inside the tent, rather than outside it shouting insults. Foremost among them is Hone Harawira, although it is a role with which the Maori Party MP is still coming to terms, if his periodic outbursts against the Government, things white and his own colleagues are any guide.

Where Mr Harawira and his incendiary family are concerned, it is dangerous to make assumptions, but the political landscape has changed over the past 15 years and mostly for the better. Maori play a more active role in government than ever before, thanks to the MMP electoral system, and have a bigger stake in the economy thanks to the Treaty settlements process.

Still, today's official welcome on to the Treaty Grounds and tomorrow's celebrations will be undertaken with a degree of trepidation. The Government has committed to repealing Labour's contentious foreshore and seabed legislation, but it is not clear what it will be replaced with, and with progress on other fronts has come a raising of expectations and, in some quarters, an inflated sense of importance. As recently as last year, two hotheaded members of the Harawira clan grabbed Prime Minister John Key's arm at Waitangi for reasons that have never been made clear.

For the progress that has been made over the past 15 years, credit is due to both National and Labour leaders who have had the courage to advance ahead of public opinion, and most particularly to iwi leaders who have had the generosity to accept Treaty settlements that represent just a fraction of what was stolen from their forebears and the wisdom to see that clinging to past wrongs is not the way to build a better future for their young.

Given the effect Waitangi has on an excitable few, it would be a miracle if today's and tomorrow's events passed without incident, but progress is indisputably being made. We are not one people, or even two peoples, but a polyglot collection of individuals from every land. But we are slowly building a common, and unique, identity that reflects our Maori, European and Pacific heritage and is continually being added to by more recent migrants. Kia kaha.

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