Maori Party flagging

New Maori flag?

The Maori Party is tipped to announce a national series of hui next week, aimed at selecting a Maori flag.

The Otago Daily Times understands the Maori Party will announce details of 21 nationwide hui, to begin in Kaitaia later this month.

Discussions are likely to centre on which flag should represent Maori and whether it should be officially recognised.

I've seen various Maori flags, but the Tino Rangatiratanga flag (designed by Hiraina Marsden, Jan Smith and Linda Munn, that Hone Harawira helped select in a competition in 1990) is the best I've seen so far. It is simple, recognisable and unique.

As an excuse to discuss national issues and entrench the Maori Party as the lead political player in Maoridom it is a timely idea. The Maori Party makes use of the Tino flag motif so the party does have some investment in the matter. But the main impetus was probably from John Key: when he decided to delegate the decision on "which" Maori flag to fly on the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day to the Maori Party (Pita Sharples in particular seems to have been the spokesperson on this one).

My preference - historically based - was for the Union flag and the United Tribes flag (the one at the top of that b&w photo below) to fly alongside one another on 6 February. However the Maori Party would have quite a rallying point if they could form a consensus around a new flag that encapsulates the aspirations and heritage of Maori and Maori autonomy.
To the NZ government the red ensign (and I've seen at least one white ensign on the Hikoi in May being used with an Iwi name) is to display loyalty to the Crown - rather than to display the independence of Iwi. That is probably the main reason it is used infrequently today and the Tino flag flies on most Marae. If they signed the Treaty - or accept it - they have a right to fly that flag as their British flag - in the same sort of way that the current NZ flag is our (national) British flag. The status of Iwi as having a direct relationship with London was unilaterally revoked by Her Majesty's Imperial government at the behest of the settler regime at a very early stage in the constitutional development of the colony. In other places like Lesotho a Treaty was signed and a direct relationship was re-established with the UK after a period of control by the local British Governor - after a war of resistance to the imposition of the proto-Apartheid order of the Cape Colony.

And so in NZ law (see Wiki image above) the status of the officially recognised tribal flags doesn't mean anything. Maori could fly their British flag on their land but that did not, has not, and will not stop the NZ government from invading it and taking it. As such it is no guarantee, affords no protection and is effectively meaningless - in the same way that the Hawaiian flag's Union Jack could not stop an American annexation and continued occupation. The fact the NZ statute says it is only to be flown on land - and not at sea - is a deliberate limitation to curtail any international recognition as much as it is to avoid maritime confusion. Of course whether it can be raised on the foreshore, between the high and low tides, is another issue!

My solution would be for local Iwi to retire their British flags from normal use and form into natural confederations and hang those British flags in those Runanga so that the government would be left with little option but to recognise that council as embodying the sovereign status (Treaty status) of the Iwi and deal with them as such. This is occurring already without the formalities of flag ceremonies and the symbolism. The government has preferred larger groups to deal with in settling Treaty claims so this process is not necessarily antagonistic to Wellington.