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Tangata Tiriti

38m 35s

Tangata Tiriti

The podcast episode centers on the Treaty of Waitangi and its implications for non-Māori New Zealanders, framed through the concept of Tangata Tiriti—people who belong to New Zealand by virtue of the Treaty but are not Māori. Hosts interview two guests: Julie Zoo, a filmmaker and co-founder of Asians for Tino Rangatiratanga, and Lillian Hanley, a producer whose first language is te reo Māori despite being Pākehā. Julie describes her path to activism through learning te reo Māori, which opened her eyes to systemic racism and colonization. She emphasizes that being a good Tangata Tiriti is an ongoing process of learning, humility, and avoiding defensiveness. Her group focuses on supporting Māori sovereignty and recognizing non-Māori complicity in ongoing struggles. Lillian shares her upbringing in a mixed family with two mothers, one Māori and one Pākehā, and her unique position as a Pākehā fluent in te reo. She argues that the term Tangata Tiriti represents a necessary evolution from "Pākehā" because it explicitly includes all non-Māori groups in a partnership of obligation with Māori, moving beyond passive identity to active responsibility. Both guests underscore that Tangata Tiriti is not a static label but a call to action—requiring self-reflection, support for Māori-led initiatives, and careful navigation of space in cultural and linguistic revitalization efforts.

Transcription

6271 Words, 33203 Characters

English
The spin-off podcast network. Nair is public interest journalism funded through New Zealand on air. No, mate, hi, ni, mate, facatou, mate, ra, he, ko, ni, pūrangi, tēne, Ipanaki, teau, Māori, meteau, huri, huri. I'm really only hating this as a podcast about being Māori in the modern world. And the lead up to White Sungie Day, we're talking about the other side of the Treaty partnership. You know, the non Māori one. Welcome to Nair. Welcome to my own law. Welcome back to our first show in the Dōrua Manor with the Kōmarua on today's episode. We have for the first time and it's probably the last non Māori manuhiti. They were in Manuhiti and that is because we're talking about the other side of the Treaty partnership. Not the Māori side, but the Crown side. Yep, there's two teams in this sports game, in this hearty game of sports. I don't know enough about sports to do a sports metaphor. But we know that did to the tea was versigned on February 6th and 1840 by Rangatira from some, but not all, Iwi Māori and representatives of the Crown, including William Hobbson, Big Willie H was the Cleanse Council, he co-wrote Tertility, and it was this covenant between Māori and Queen Victoria that allowed British immigration to NZ. We now know that the conditions of that document went upheld. Instead of co-haptation, the Crown decided to conquer NZ. Iwi and Hapu have spent decades and decades trying to get this document to stand up our claims to our Fenwai and our citizenship, even though that birthright pre-lates the Crown by many centuries. And to use this document to write some wrongs. But largely those conversations are between Māori and the government, public servants, lawyers, so many lawyers. But what does Tertility actually mean for our non-Māori citizens? What are their obligations? What are their rights under Tertility? Tonga Tertility is a term that has been in use for a while that describes everyone who lives in NZ or that isn't Māori or Tonga Tafinwa. I personally like this term a lot. To me it describes someone who is part of this place, someone that has obligations to it and to their fellow citizens, but it respects that there are different ways of belonging to these lands. And so today we're chatting with Tū Tauuiwi Tonga Tertility who embody those values, who self-identify as Tonga Tertility. And I'll add here that both of our guests were very reluctant to be guests because they're both wary of taking up space on a Māori platform. They know that it's not their place to lead a conversation in our spaces. And that's what makes them great friends and allies. However as Māori women and I'm sure my co-hosts agree, I'm actually really curious about how they see the world and about their message to other Paka and Tauuiwi. Kind of like a David Edinburgh kind of vibe as well. Like the Tauuiwi L.A. in their environment. So we invited them here, we could jolt them here, we hear by release them from their Fakumbā, be bold, say what you need to, it might be your only chance. So sit around after the break, Te Kuru will be talking to writer, filmmaker, fellow podcaster and excellent person, Julie Zoo, about her work with the group Asians for Tino Ranga Tira tanga. Then Te Kuru, Mereana and I will be joined by producer Lillian Hanley to talk about her unique fan know and what it's like growing up in both worlds as Paka. How you're going to see you after the break. Te Kuru are the Maranga Deews, this is Amjoined by Julie Zoo. Tira, producer, creative, filmmaker, this is what you're going to see later. What are you going to see? I'm going to talk about what you're going to see. I found out that I was in the town of Si'an and I was in Auckland last night, so I was in the town of Takupaki. You were in Auckland last night? Yes, I was in Auckland last night. Now jumping straight into it, you are someone who is pro-copa-pump Maori. How you pet I? What was it about your upbringing or the experiences that you had that have led you to where you are today? I think it was first learning Tiraal that led me more into wanting to understand more about Tia Maori and after that issues of Copa-pumari and wider issues that affect Nai Maori. I think I had always been interested in Tiraal. Even at primary school, the wider that you learned and just the little Copa-pum, I always remembered that. And to media, I had this teacher who would make us do a cut-a-kia at the start and end of every day, even though she wasn't Maori, she was someone, but she just normalised that for us. And then I tried to learn when I was at high school, but just didn't get very far. And then at uni, I tried again to learn and end up doing a diploma of language. So at first it was just the Hiraal. Like I just thought it was an interesting language to learn and didn't really understand any of the history and the wider impacts and stuff. But I think through learning Tiraal, you understand more of the perspective of the people and even concepts of land ownership. Like what that means from a Māori context versus a Parkea context, all these differences. And I think around the time of uni, I was also learning more about systemic issues, issues of race and dignity. And yeah, I started learning more about colonisation and the impacts of that that is still ongoing today. And after that, started moving a little bit towards activism through meeting up with other people who were similar to me, like grew up Asian and had a particular experience focusing on that part of our identity. And then starting to understand why that was because of how systemic issues work here in Northearoa. So meeting other people led to the start of the formation of our Rūapu Asian supporting Tiraal. And yeah, from there, it's just an ongoing journey. Like I don't think I'm finished in my learning at all. Hmm, I think that's the way it is. Tell us a little bit about the Rūapu Asians for Tino Ranga Sira Tanga. What's the co-papa behind it? I think the co-papa is all in the name, so we're just a bunch of people. There's no formal organisational, like there's no finding or anything behind it. It's just a collective of people who feel that we have an obligation as though we were a standard entity to understand the history of this Fenoa because we live here, because we benefit from living here, and because we are still complicit in the ongoing struggles that Māori face here. So it's not just saying we are pro co-papa Māori, but we are really interested in wider issues of how can software and Tī be returned to Māori? How can land be returned to Māori? How can the damages that colonisation had be remediated? Hmm, eh Tī Māori Māori. Yeah, it's interesting. Do you think, I mean, what are your thoughts on racism? Obviously, you're not blind to it with having an Asian background here in Altea Roa from your perspective, I want to hear. Yeah, I mean, I think there's lots of different types of racism, so there's the more overt racism, like name calling and the stuff that's easy to recognise, and then there's the more covert racism, there's institutional racism or systemic racism, like we see in the justice system or education health, that inequities in Māori in particular face, and then I think there's also internalised racism that we face when we grow up not wanting to be our own identities because of how we've seen that perpetuated in the media or stereotyped. So yeah, I think, I don't know, I grew up with a lot of internalised racism, which I feel like I talk about all the time, and I think Altea Roa is getting better at recognising the overt stuff, the overt racism in these campaigns, like the Human Rights Commission campaigns, but nothing to racism, it's all tackling the overt stuff because it's easy to spot, but I think it's much harder for people here to recognise the institutional and systemic stuff. But I do think that there has been a change in the last few years, and people are more and more open to learning about that. Yeah. It gets it's hard, especially for Park Air, when that's what this country's built on, systemic racism. But yeah, you're right, I think there has been a big from my own Tiroanga, I've seen a big shift, hopefully we keep progressing down that pathway. But what are your thoughts on this concept or this term, Tangata Teriti? Yeah, I think the term is a good way of reminding people who aren't tangata Fenawa that we're here because of Tertiti, that this is the first immigration document of Altea Roa, and it gives us a right to be here. With them that we need to really understand what it means, not because I think people often talk about the principles of Tertiti, without understanding what the articles actually say, and it's been the point that Māori have sovereignty and that was never stated. But yeah, I think that's really hard to comprehend for a lot of people and what it means for us living in a country where the government is not, does not represent that. What are the milestones? How do you describe to someone who's new to the concept of tāna tīti, what they should be striving towards in order to embody that identity? Because that's always an ongoing conversation and I think it feels like the goalposts will be shifting as people become more aware and you know you can't get there on your first go sort of thing. So how do we explain or how do you describe to someone? What should they be striving to be? I think that word ongoing is the point of it. It's not a point that you get to but it's always ongoing and I think you'll metaphor if the goalpost will keep shifting. I think that's a good thing. I think we should be pushed to be better and better as the definition of what a good tāna tīti or whatever that means does change. I don't think it's an end point because I think I'm still learning and I think I'm still making mistakes in not doing what I could be doing better. So I think to be a good tāna tīti means being open to criticism, being open to being challenged, to be humble and just to absorb that and think about why people might react in the certain way and try to keep learning on your own and never get defensive about it because I think it's really easy to be defensive when you're like I'm trying really hard. Why can't people see that? But it's just taking a view of like individualism, like thinking about your own impacts as opposed to how is this reflecting an ongoing society-wide change that can lead to something really good later. Yeah, so I think it's just the on-goingness. You always crack up. A lot of it is on-lining because people haven't integrated or found points to engage with real community and real time in these always this urgency sometimes from newcomers who are like yep I'm here now let's solve this and it's like oh well this is over 200 years in the making so just have a seat and let's ride it out. What do you think about you've talked about teril as being one of your pathways to decolonization if you like or growing awareness and what does that mean to you teril? How can you not go nui like where teril why you passionate about it? You have an obvious love for teril and now many interactions I've seen that and that's one of the characteristics of you. I think that is so strong in terms of your tangata-triti identity and so how what does it mean for you teril? Yeah I think the way I look at teril now is quite different probably to how I looked for it a few years ago or when I first started but I really see my journey of learning teril as like a huge privilege now because I recognise how few Māori get to have that opportunity or you know we've talked about people we know who have to take a whole year of their life out and pay huge fees in order to reclaim what should just be natural and I really see how much yeah that's the privilege for me to have learned like earlier on when it was more accessible in a way for people because now there's been this new wave of everyone wanting to learn and I think one element like I often say that when we do our workshops our aster workshops and we do a final circle and we talk about what is the next steps that people want to do to take this journey further and so many people talk about wanting to enroll in teril courses and then we have a big conversation about is that the most appropriate thing and how is this benefiting you versus others and it's hard I feel like it's hypocritical for me to say but I feel like one thing I want people to be aware of tangata-triti or non-mādi to be aware of is just how much space we can take up in these arenas when it is there are still so many barriers and I know you and I probably actually talked about this and had our little disagreements or not disagreements chats about this um yeah which there are lots of viewpoints to this um and it's not saying that non-mādi shouldn't learn teril but I think the main point is always acknowledging what a huge privilege it is and making space be possible supporting the teril journeys of others never boasting about how much you have and that's something I'm always aware of I never want to make people feel bad for not having had access to something that I had access to and I know in the past I have like I've seen comments um or people have said things like yeah you make me feel fuck on my for not having learned like I've seen that sort of phrase be said and I hate that I've created a scenario where someone had to feel really bad about that and I can empathise from it the spectra of still not being able to speak Mandarin very well either so anyways that sort of how I view teril now which is not in a um not like in super negative sense but just more of a sense of juu-ci of passing that on and making it easier and yeah I think of non-mādi want to be learning teril that they should be championing more resources for real education so that they aren't taking those spaces away. No awesome corridor it is about access now isn't it about access and being inclusive of Māori to have access to their own real and I think that's uh there's a lot more corridor around these days because of this um huge growing awareness and and keenness for non-mādi to learn teril I think it's more of an issue now than it ever has been so I think we're just going through those motions and we'll figure out some sort of a lot of the key um I've certainly got some ideas around how we could do it and we'll and we'll see that change hopefully you know sooner rather than later but if you're not going to be able to do it uh talk about teril, mental to hey hey Māori uh for those who are not going to be able to do it so yeah if you're going to be able to do it, you know we're going to be able to do it just thank you for your time and everything that you do with your group and in your own mahi as well having these conversations uh sometimes awkward conversations but these things that ulterua really needs to just uh face up to and figure out so thank thank you again for your time and your and your maratauranga. Hockey my annoa I'm back with the co-hosts with the most tukaroo and media na tina korua welcome back for 2022 you too Kia ora is it too late in jane to say um ahi o te toho? nah go on nah um ahi o te hara re te nātā tū uh he's nice and relaxed after a bit of a break so good so relaxed had three weeks of like lounging around in the sun back at home and to toh ihu whoo eating lots of kāmwana that just sounds that's unreal what's sundan toh ihu? three weeks got by quick too much time. oh i know yeah it was the longest holiday ever had so good me kwehua i'm just grateful grateful to be back at my heath to have my heath this year uh what's everything going on or the feeling for the artists and museos at this time but just grateful to be here and excited for good courted up today. oh true oh my gosh all the festivals that have been cancelled um we are delighted to introduce uh to the chat this week lilyan henlie kia orae hua henna kweh henna korua no mai hua loads a political producer for tv and zed she's wet the media a while student radio the hui but we asked lo to be on the show today because of her unique far no and her position within that far no lilyan is parkour but her first language is dadeon maori we're going to let lo introduce herself in her own words hua kwehua no tena kweh liani uh tena tafe katoa and one day nāmi hua te toh ihu parkour make you nāmi hua tena wow henna no matu kia kata katoa yes indeed my name is lilyan and i am parkour and my first language was tereo maori that is usually the way i actually introduce myself as a way i suppose of uh drawing a bit of a line in the sand um but also i guess showing that there's a bit of a foot in both worlds in a way my far no yeah is is an interesting one and you don't really come across that sort of makeup um all the time definitely more so these days i would say but i i haven't met many people my age in the same situation so i had two months and a dad my two months were together and my dad uh was a was a donor i suppose if you want to use that word although he was my dad from day dot and he's still my dad today in terms of having a relationship but um my sort of nuclear family and i'm en kotaishu mākara, as it's what those who can't see, is my two mums and my five other siblings, I suppose, and I have a pākea mākara and a Māori mākara, and I was given birth to. I was the birth child of my pākea mākara, where as my Māori mākara was the birth mother of my older brothers, so they are Māori, I am pākea. And this is a really, really long-winded introduction, I have to say, but it kind of goes to show that there is a pākea mākara difference, perhaps, between me and my siblings, who yes are all Māori. I've had mutual acquaintances of ours that you've worked with, describe your father, who is like the perfect New Zealand family. Because, I mean, it's really common for, and I know that Mediāna first ran this, we are Māori, and we walk in both worlds, we've been very much lived in the pākea, while seven-fuck-upapa Māori. But you don't often see it go the other way, there aren't that many pākea that live in the Māori. No. Why do your thoughts on the term tanga te te te te to start with? Oh, okay, we're diving in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a focada I've been mulling over the past year, and I think that the term pākea or the identity pākea was actually really, really important at a point, and I think my mum of that generation, that was really necessary to actually identify that, and also raise a level of obligation or a responsibility attached to the term pākea. But I think more so now, and perhaps this is where my generation and others kind of come into pushing that obligation further, I think that it's actually really important now to recognise that, yeah, we pākea are part of actually a wider group of people, and that's where I think the term tanga te te te te is really important, and I'm quite invested in the term actually, and I think it's perhaps in its beginning stages of it, and it's something that actually we're yet to fully define, or we're yet to fully be able to show or embody what it could actually mean for our terroir? I think it's like the next step, so I kind of want to, I'm talking to it in terms of my relationship to how I kind of came to that term, and I see it as a bit of a, you could talk about a pākea, perhaps in that history of terminology, but also action, right, because actually what these names and what these identities mean, at least for me, is an action, you kind of can't just go around passively saying 'yā and pākea or yā and tanga te te te te', it's got to be active. Tiahi pointed out earlier that has done to your protection of tanga te te te te te te te te te te te te te te te, which I really appreciated, was placing pākea alongside as you say, other cultures that have come to this country and putting them in partnership with Māori so that it's no longer like a supremacy, I suppose, you know, it's a perfect partnership. I'm 100% of everyone in us. Tiahi. Yeah, love that. Because this is what I, like I've sort of been saying that there's this building idea that pākea are special because we're whatever were the first ones that signed, or whatever it might be, whatever a reason, but it totally links into whiteness, and all of these other things that are going on at the same time, which continues to put us up on a higher pedestal, and actually, no, it's not how it should be. Now, I think we always need to remember, or remind ourselves and remind pākea, and especially as we move into this conversation further in the future, and there is more awareness around pākehā being part of the non-māori-rūpū, but that pākehā, in my view, anyway, is still what they have in common is the privilege, as the, I feel, as the most privileged group who benefit from colonisation, and over time, we might see that change is, you know, more probably not with ballers closed, but as people move and shift around, but at the moment, I still feel like pākehā definitely are a complicit in furthering that superior hierarchy that has been there since the arrival, but here what you're saying, Liliandad, we have to, it's a tricky conversation to navigate, and me, I can't, I'm still, can't get past the term kiwi, we're talking about tangata tītī, and I'm wondering whether or not to talk about it in this corridor, because to me, that's the identity that non-māori certainly are striving for, and it's a term that's very much removed from tītī, and I feel like it'll take some time before, this term tangata tītī is adopted with that same aspiration or value that kiwi has sort of. If tangata tītī is the sort of politicised term, then kiwi is the commercialised bāzi bāzi, it's all the really superficial stuff that makes up non-māori, or pākehā identity. It's very less strict of any responsibility in the obligation. That's where I put the passive and active right, you can easily tap into this identity of kiwi without doing much, whereas if you're going to engage with tangata tītī and I really appreciate what you say there to kuru, like it's, it's going to require some shifting of power, but also, just shifting of ways that we engage in that we think, and that we acknowledge, and if we're going to be part of that wider grouping of people's who are in relationship with Māori, yeah, we're at the moment with, it's not an equal grouping, and so yeah, a lot of work to be done. Tēnāgata wrote a really good piece about tangata tītī, and in that past year, we don't need, so we, to be Māori, to be tangata tītī, and obviously we'd love you to understand our deal, because that's an insight into who we are, but we don't need you to be Māori, we need you to be good tangata tītī, but I'm really curious about what that's like to navigate low as a kid, because you're a smart woman, and you can articulate these things now, but as a kid, speaking to him and walking into Māori, that would have been like a lot harder for you to articulate, like how did you express to others who were curious about who you were? I do think that for a long period of time, it was normal, speaking to him or being in that context, it was very, very normal to me, and I don't think that there was sort of, I don't remember any kind of key moments where that was questioned, or where I was, in terms of being treated differently, of course, there was lines drawn and that sort of thing, but in the wider context, it wasn't something that I necessarily had to navigate. I think that my parents were very, very clear about who we were and what we were doing and why we were doing it. They were of a generation, my Māori mum didn't know Tereo Māori growing up, she looked at school and then carried that on through and then made the decision obviously to teach her children Tereo Māori, and also my brother's being Māori went right through Kura, and now we've got Mokopanana Fano, whose first language is Māori again. There was a journey in that, I suppose, and I don't really want to speak too much to Mum's story because that's her story, but yeah, there was a conscious decision and that was that when we were younger, and also my paakia mum I will say was really, really clear with me that I was paakia and also telling me that that was not necessarily a bad thing, right? There's obviously conversations out there stories about how that's been a bad thing, but she was really clear about who we were and where we came from, and how that linked to our Tereo, how we came to be here. I do think there was probably a bit of a turning point in high school. This is just probably one of my early memories where I can really clearly state that there was that difference, and I think it's just a useful story to tell in this context, you know, going through Kohanga Reo and then primary and intermediate full immersion at high school, my parents made the decision that my brothers, they went to to Kutakopapa Māori or Hōni Waititi, but given that that was a kura, I wasn't going to go there, I ended up going to Auckland Girls' Grammar School, and then there was a Māori unit in Auckland Girls' Grammar School, but there was only a limited number of places, and so again, my parents decided that I would go into mainstream as a paakia person because it wouldn't be right to take up a space that a Māori young whaihena could have taken in that unit. So that was my first experience of mainstream again in quotation marks, schooling, fully in paakia, of which, I could speak and engage in sort of being able to do both by that point, but it was a shock, Maama, tu o'n seba, te sain, ydau aadai. She would tell me that I used to come home really sad, like I was really quite shocked by it. They'd say things like, "Mom, they don't take their shoes off "in class and we don't even take a kid "to care Kai before going out for lunch or whatever." And I could have to call everyone "miss." Like, what is "miss?" So it was these little things, but they were really, really different to what I was used to. And actually, those couple of years at the beginning of high school, it was really quite a bit of a reckoning for me. I remember, I basically attached myself to the Pacifica girls at school, 'cause I was like, "Wow, okay, here's people that I know "and I can engage with and have some illifficard or," and then I kind of beat myself up and I was like, "Oh, Lillian, you're a parkier, "you've got to go find out what the parkier people "are doing here and so I engaged with some of the parkier girls "that's cool." - They're fighting out about your people. - And I was like, "This is also weird." (laughing) Not really where I'm fitting. And so it wasn't actually till fifth film that I really found some solid mates, who I'm still mates with now, who are both parkier and Māori, and at this point, actually, to add to the confusion, 'cause I took Te-Dō Māori as a language, as a way of staying in touch and engaging with that. The Māori teacher was like, "You should be in the Māori unit, you know? "You'll find out your deal, all of that stuff. "You should be in the Māori unit. "Come on, come into the Māori unit." And I had to be like, "No, Matwa, you know, "this is a line that should be drawn, "and I am going to stick to it." Possibly not as strong as I am now. Like I will acknowledge it didn't, yeah, it didn't probably make that much sense to me then, but I was working through that understanding that actually there are places that didn't, I didn't need to occupy, basically. That's really what it comes down to is that I didn't need to be in that space. It was created for a purpose of which I did not need. I had plenty of other spaces that I could occupy and be comfortable in and keep learning and so on. And I think I guess that transfers, like I guess I carried that on to now where I still will not accept or go for a role within like a Māori news organisation or a specific Māori reporter role, for example. We released you to come on this podcast, obviously. So curious not to let you just unleash. I was wondering because, and I read that piece by Tena Nata as well and it was really, really good. And I loved that comment about don't try and be Māori because I'm sure we all have horror stories of Paaka who have, who to be allies are trying to be Māori, but you know, it's according to for another day. But one of the things I'm really keen to get you for Kādūan Liliyan is because I think one of the big ways these days that a lot of Paaka see is, you know, being a good ally is learning to do. And obviously that's a really tricky thing because there are very limited places and there's lots of anecdotal, corded, all coming out about Paaka taking up places and language schools. So do you think that, like is that one of those instances where you think Tungata Titi should actually step back and maybe just go by Scotty and Stacey's book book instead? Thank you. Thank you now. This is also something, like things change, right? Times change, context change, the way that people see things or engage and accept things even change, right? Like if we were considering, I talked about how my mum and that sort of identifying as Paaka, her back then was really, really important. And now I'm seeing a really, like an importance now to engage with Tungata Titi as a concept, as an identity, all those things where she might not be as familiar with, for example, I think the real thing is so key because even just five years ago, student radio, I was a big advocate for all journals to be engaging in some way with learning Titi or having some understanding, basic pronunciation, all of these things, I was a big advocate and I still am, especially for those who work in media because it's such a mess of broadcasting to our people, all of those sorts of things, there's many responsibilities that come with that and the least of which you can do is be able to say our name's right. Five years ago though, I'm a little different as to how we go about doing that, because like you say, classes are full and I will, and I will never change this opinion, probably that first and foremost, those classes should be filled by Māori. They, is their language, is their right to be able to access that and to also be in safe places while going through the process of learning because there's also a lot of challenging, emotional, there's a momma that is attached to all of this that Paakiya do not carry and therefore can go to these classes with very little emotional or otherwise things to be reckoning with. You're not just just learning a language, there's so much more to it than that. And so, first and foremost, I think that you need to be checking as to whether you are taking up somebody else's space and it just goes for so many things, but there is a great example. And I think the best thing you can do is yes, is to start by buying or accessing free resources that are not taking over somebody else's opportunity or otherwise. And then also just acknowledging, I just want to say a point on this because actually, Paakiya went really a big part of revitalising the deal. Māori have got this, you know? Another thing about not being Māori, but being good, till we be in good Paakiya, being good Tunga Tatsuri, Māori have got this, they don't need us. And what we need to do is of course support that and out here being like, "Yeah, we're sorting out and stuff and we're doing our own thing and we can carry that and do that without impeding them." Then that is obviously the best thing because also I hate the fact that Paakiya gets so much praise for having, you know, some deal on the TV or whatever it might be. There's so much praise that goes to Paakiya when I think there should be some acknowledgement for Māori who are also going through that process anyway, that was, yeah, I'm done. Kia ora, for. Yeah, toh toh kotana. Ka te mahi no kia kui, who I think you, Lillian, for coming on there. I found that really interesting. I feel like we could keep going for a while. I know. I say that every week. To our Tāuiui listeners, our Tunga Tāti-tī listeners, I hope that was interesting and informative for you all. There were some lessons to take away from that that you continued to talk to each other about these things and as Lillian says, Māori have got this. We do our do's in our spaces. And now we're really keen for you guys to make your spaces, to discuss these things in your spaces, and to get stuck into the mahi of being good Tunga Tāti-tī, nation building people. That's us for this week. Find us on wherever you listen to your podcast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. Find us at Instagram, @NedTheAlmāori podcast. Huge thanks, huge mahi to the Ahebātla, our producer. This week and every week. And we are going to see you guys again in a fortnight. We'll see you soon. Hēa kua ne? Hē kua ne? Nē is public interest journalism funded through New Zealand on here and brought to you by the spin-off podcast network. It was hosted and researched by Leonie Hayden with Te Kuruju's and Mediana Johnson. Nē was produced by Te Ahebātla with senior production from Jane Yee and project management from Mark Keller. The spin-off podcast network.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The podcast discusses the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti) from the perspective of non-Māori citizens, exploring their obligations and rights under the partnership.
  2. The term "Tangata Tiriti" is introduced to describe non-Māori New Zealanders who have responsibilities to the land and its people, acknowledging different ways of belonging.
  3. Guest Julie Zoo shares her journey learning te reo Māori and co-founding "Asians for Tino Rangatiratanga," emphasizing ongoing learning and humility as key to embodying Tangata Tiriti.
  4. Guest Lillian Hanley discusses her unique background as a Pākehā raised with te reo Māori as her first language, highlighting the rarity of Pākehā living fully within Māori worlds.
  5. Both guests stress that being Tangata Tiriti requires active commitment, openness to criticism, and supporting Māori access to resources like te reo education without dominating those spaces.

Summary:

The podcast episode centers on the Treaty of Waitangi and its implications for non-Māori New Zealanders, framed through the concept of Tangata Tiriti—people who belong to New Zealand by virtue of the Treaty but are not Māori. Hosts interview two guests: Julie Zoo, a filmmaker and co-founder of Asians for Tino Rangatiratanga, and Lillian Hanley, a producer whose first language is te reo Māori despite being Pākehā. Julie describes her path to activism through learning te reo Māori, which opened her eyes to systemic racism and colonization.

She emphasizes that being a good Tangata Tiriti is an ongoing process of learning, humility, and avoiding defensiveness. Her group focuses on supporting Māori sovereignty and recognizing non-Māori complicity in ongoing struggles. Lillian shares her upbringing in a mixed family with two mothers, one Māori and one Pākehā, and her unique position as a Pākehā fluent in te reo.

She argues that the term Tangata Tiriti represents a necessary evolution from "Pākehā" because it explicitly includes all non-Māori groups in a partnership of obligation with Māori, moving beyond passive identity to active responsibility. Both guests underscore that Tangata Tiriti is not a static label but a call to action—requiring self-reflection, support for Māori-led initiatives, and careful navigation of space in cultural and linguistic revitalization efforts.

FAQs

It's a podcast about being Māori in the modern world, focusing on topics like the Treaty partnership and its implications for both Māori and non-Māori.

Tangata Tiriti describes everyone in New Zealand who isn't Māori or Tangata Whenua, emphasizing their obligations and rights under the Treaty of Waitangi.

She started learning te reo Māori, which led to understanding Māori perspectives and systemic issues, eventually co-founding the group Asians for Tino Rangatiratanga.

It's a collective of people who feel obligated to understand New Zealand's history and support Māori sovereignty, land return, and remediation of colonization damages.

It's an ongoing journey of being open to criticism, staying humble, and never getting defensive, while recognizing that progress is continuous.

She sees it as a huge privilege because many Māori lack access to it, and non-Māori should support Māori language journeys rather than boast about their own skills.

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