It's time for a recap. Glenn McConnell talks to those who have witnessed and studied some of the most pivotal moments of New Zealand history. Here's a short history of our race relations.
Remember these dates: 1881, 1978, 2019. Three years, three consecutive centuries, three very similar stories.
In each of those years, government force has torn down longstanding Māori papakāinga (or settlements), with those in power claiming their use of police or army resource was needed to maintain the rule of law.
In 1881, we saw the first raid of the peaceful Parihaka village in Taranaki.
In 1978, the Government finished its long-running campaign to confiscate the Takaparawhā land in Auckland. Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei had lived on the land at Bastion Point, which was their home and housed their marae and urupā. But the Government wanted to use it for housing, so it sent in the army and police to remove peaceful protesters who refused to leave.
Now, it's 2019. In July, police arrived at Ihumātao in Māngere at the request of developer Fletcher Building, which wants the land to be turned into housing. Māori with mana whenua connection to Ihumātao say it's one of Auckland's most sacred and significant sites. They have promised, like those before them, to stay until the end.
It's the same story, in a different century. It seems like history is repeating.
Manying Ip, an author and professor of Asian Studies in Auckland, is perhaps an unlikely expert when it comes to race relations in New Zealand. She arrived in New Zealand during the era of the Dawn Raids and Springbok Tour protests, as a graduate from Hong Kong. What a time to arrive. She says she was "very confused" at the time, because nobody could explain why this was happening.
During the Dawn Raids, police started randomly checking Pasifika people as part of a supposed crackdown on overstayers. Police raided homes, forcing Pasifika families to constantly carry immigration documentation through the 1970s and early 1980s.
Watching this happen, Ip says she "couldn't understand why the police would go and do this" – what's worse, she says nobody could explain to her why this was happening. "At that time, nobody knew New Zealand's history".
Ip is a well-respected social scientist whose focus is often on Māori, Asian and Pākehā relations. Her books cover topics such as Te Tiriti, immigration and assimilation.
In 2019, she says we still have a lot to learn.
Just look, for instance, at the common perception Asian people are recent immigrants here. Before he was in Government, Minister Phil Twyford said every "Asian-sounding name" on a property record equated to the level of foreign ownership.
To say anyone with an "Asian-sounding name" must be a foreigner isn't much different from what Norman Kirk and Robert Muldoon said in the 1970s, that every Pacific Islander must be an overstayer.
Ip says she's met Twyford on a number of occasions and he "means well, but genuinely did not know" what the issue was. She says there are plenty of people who don't know the history of Asian New Zealanders, or this country itself, which is why these issues arise.
"They often have not met many Asian people at all," she says.
"They can't tell one Chinese or Korean person from another and they tend to think they are all new. That's because they became aware of them only during the new wave of immigration, because [Asian New Zealanders] have been kept hidden so well."
In fact, Chinese people have lived in New Zealand since 1842 – just two years after the first signing of Te Tiriti. But "white nation" policies, which Ip says continued until about 1987, have meant the stories of coloured Kiwis have not been told.
"Before then, it was clearly stated that New Zealand preferred immigrants from 'traditional sources countries', meaning the United Kingdom."
Archaeologists say Aotearoa was settled more than 700 years ago. Kāinga dating back to the 1300s are dotted all around the country.
More than 400 years later, James Cook arrived from the UK in 1769.
Professor Margaret Mutu, of Ngāti Kahu, says Cook's modus operandi gave birth to many of the issues we see today.
We are at risk, she says, of continuing to repeat our past. To make a change, we'll need to start looking back to understand the present.
Her thoughts aren't new. A well-used Māori proverb (whakataukī) sums it up well. It's said that we walk backwards into the future; "Ka mua, ka muri".
According to Ip and activists, former politicians and everyday people who have found themselves at the centre of some of New Zealand's most divisive and important moments in history, we need to start living by the whakataukī. According to them, the people who have witnessed history and spoke to Stuff for this story, we need to pay attention so as not to make the same mistakes.
So, to clear things up, let's go back before 1842. When did we all get here?
The British explorers were sent out with the blessing of the Pope in Rome and the British King to convert and colonise.
"Basically, you had papal bulls issued to give authority to invade, enslave, exterminate and remove all of the resources of people who are not white and not Christian. Those were the instructions given to the likes of Christopher Columbus and all the others. Captain Cook came out here with a royal proclamation allowing him to do the same here," she says.
In 1842, the first Chinese people arrived in Aotearoa. But, as Ip said, it wouldn't be until 1987 that New Zealand's immigration law relaxed its focus on allowing only white people to settle here.
Between 1842 and 1987, Asian people faced discriminatory laws such as the "poll tax" which specifically taxed Asian people coming into the country. Early immigrants, who worked in the South Island as goldminers, were not allowed to bring their families to New Zealand but Ip says a handful of those early goldmining families did settle regardless.
By 1835, Pākehā were steadily moving to Aotearoa and things were getting out of hand.
The rangatira of the North got together that year to sign what Mutu says is this country's overlooked founding document. Five years before The Treaty of Waitangi, they signed He Whakaputanga (known as the Declaration of Independence).
"This is fundamentally important," she says. "If there is one constitutional document for this country it is He Whakaputanga."
The document, signed between 52 Northern rangatira and the British Crown's representative, James Busby, stated that power rested with the leaders of hapū. Those rangatira would meet regularly, He Whakaputanga said, to make general laws. In a way, this established Aotearoa's first parliament.
Mutu and other Treaty experts say the following document, Te Tiriti, should be seen as one of the laws which followed on from the creation of He Whakaputanga and Aotearoa's 'first parliament', the meeting of chiefs which was called Te Whakaminenga.
"Te Tiriti was the immigration laws to allow British to come in here, He Whakaputanga is the base written constitution for this country," Mutu says.
So, what does this mean for us now?
The Waitangi Tribunal found in 2014, and has restated since, that Ngāpuhi (and therefore, likely other iwi as well) did not cede sovereignty to the British Crown.
Mutu and Treaty lawyer Moana Jackson have called for New Zealand to reconsider how government works, to better recognise the sovereignty of hapū over themselves.
Their report to the Iwi Chairs Forum, Matike Mai Aotearoa, calls for constitutional transformation.
"We need to reset everything, Parliament can probably stay where it is but Parliament was only ever meant to be for the incoming settlers. Māori were left under our own mana, but the two groups had to learn how to get on with each other," Mutu says.
The disputed status and force of Te Tiriti and He Whakaputanga has led to numerous and ongoing disputes between Māori and Parliament.
He's talking about the process of redress the Government offers, signing deals with iwi which are said to be "full and final" despite only compensating for a minute fraction of what was taken – and refusing to negotiate other issues such as rangatiratanga.
At Ihumātao, the latest in more than a century of land disputes, protest leader Pania Newton discussed how "1100 acres were confiscated" from Te Kawerau a Maki.
"All we have now are 0.067 acres where our marae lies."
The land which was taken, as is the case at Ihumātao, was often gifted to Pākehā families or sold. Its gifting or sale means it sits beyond the scope of the Waitangi Tribunal and settlement process, and isn't really compensated for. Even in the case of Ihumātao, where incredibly historically and culturally significant land was taken, the Crown has refused to negotiate the return or management of that land.
It took the Crown about 44 years to take a quarter of Aotearoa into its control.
Through the land wars, most of New Zealand was taken from Māori but confiscation continued into the late 20th Century.
Sites such as Bastion Point, or as Ngāti Whātua called it Takaparawhau, were whittled away through the 20th Century. The Crown used a variety of techniques to take land from Māori, at Takaparawhau a sewer was built around Ngāti Whātua homes in the 1940s. However, the Ngāti Whātua residents were not allowed to connect their homes to the sewerage system.
By force, the Crown ordered Ngāti Whātua's last remaining homes and marae destroyed in 1952 because Queen Elizabeth II was visiting.
The army, directed by Prime Minister Robert Muldoon in 1978, then forcibly evicted hundreds of supporters of Ngāti Whātua who refused to leave the site which the Crown wanted to use for a housing development. Some land was returned following a 1988 Waitangi Tribunal hearing.
Of course, the Bastion Point story is not unique. Similar protests and attempts to take Māori land occurred in Raglan and Whanganui, among other areas.
The latest case, at Ihumātao, has raised international concern. The UN has raised concerns about the ability for tangata whenua to be consulted and listened to, as well as the ease with which land of special significance can be built on.
The UN concerns arose after Newton spoke in New York, highlighting her long-running protest at Ihumātao.
Iti, who has a long history as an activist protesting against the Crown confiscations and the apartheid Springbok tours, says young leaders such as Newton give him hope about the future.
"There's a whole new form of young people taking this to another step. I'm excited this is happening. We have a voice, they are carrying on from the last 150 to 200 years," he says.
Continued discussions and discontent, even post-settlements, about Treaty rights and responsibilities suggest New Zealand has a long way to go to recognise Māori rights.
The response from the Government has also improved, he says.
"At least we're having these discussions where people have an opportunity to think, whereas back in the day they would have just mowed you down."
Iti, his whānau and iwi in Te Urewera were raided by armed police in 2007, with the Crown alleging and failing to prove they were conducting militia training. With guns and helicopters, the police shut down the town of Ruatoki on a false belief that Iti was working at a paramilitary training camp.
Now, he says, the Government couldn't get away with that. At Ihumātao, rather than dragging protesters away, they're currently in talks.
"They have had to come to the table because of the amazing support, not just on the ground but from around New Zealand and the world. The world is watching."
Around the same time the army was dragging protesters off Bastion Point, the police were getting physical with protesters opposed to New Zealand's close involvement with apartheid South Africa and raids on Pacific Island families.
Violent clashes between police and protesters took place across the country, with protesters arguing New Zealand shouldn't be inviting a whites-only rugby team over from South Africa.
During an economic boom, New Zealand started to welcome Pacific immigrants in the 1950s and 60s – but it all changed in the 70s.
In 1973, amid growing unemployment, the Government scapegoated Pacific Islanders. At the 1975 election, contender Robert Muldoon's National Party ran a television advert which depicted Pacific Islanders as dangerous and said violence would break out because of low employment.
The police then started stopping Pacific Islanders at random, and raiding their homes, to check if they had immigration documents. The goal was to deport as many Pacific Islanders as possible.
But why were police targeting Pasifika? After all, the immigration policy at the time made no secret of its bias towards white immigrants.
In fact, during this time, the majority of overstayers were from Europe or North America – but almost all of the people prosecuted for overstaying were from the Pacific.
Time and time again, mainstream New Zealand has been quick to go from welcoming migrants to turning on them, says Professor Paul Spoonley.
He is working in Germany, at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, where he's studying the far right and demographic change in New Zealand.
When you look back at our history of race relations and immigration, he says clear trends and repetitions start to emerge.
"We have moments when the politics of hate and anxiety reassert themselves," he says. We saw it in the 1970s, against Pasifika migrants, and in the mid-1990s against a new wave of Asian migration.
In the 2000s, there's been similar growing Islamophobia.
White nationalism has always had a place in New Zealand. As Mutu said, the first British explorers operated on a mandate of white supremacy.
Around 1960, Spoonley says contemporary white nationalism arrived in New Zealand with a political party called the National Social White People's Party and other less formal groups.
Moves to welcome immigrants fuelled the white nationalists, he says, as they became "deeply anxious about the decline of white rule and the politics of decolonisation".
On the whole, Spoonley says the majority of New Zealand shows "warmth" towards immigrants. Auckland is one of the world's "super-diverse cities", with Māori, Pacific and Asian people combined making up more than 50 per cent of the population.
But Spoonley warns some people hold onto strong white nationalist beliefs.
"There is a group of New Zealanders, around 12 to 15 per cent, who are deeply anxious about the increasing diversity of New Zealand. And this racial anxiety about diversity translates into opposition and hostility," he says.
On March 15 this year a white supremacist killed 51 Muslim worshippers and wounded many more, in Christchurch.
Propaganda by the alleged killer indicated he held strong anti-immigrant views, and the attacks were praised on white supremacist social media platforms.
"This development of new forms of the radical right, now often referred to as the alt-right, was helped by the internet and the arrival of populist and nationalist politics in the mainstream," Spoonley says.
Over time, New Zealand has made progressive advancements. Through the 1970s and 1980s, protest movements including the Māori Land March forced the country to consider its history and indigenous rights. The Waitangi Tribunal was formed.
Those movements meant New Zealand, more than other nations, had a level of comfort welcoming new immigrants, Spoonley says.
But, as Ip said, when race relations appear to be improving things will often take a turn for the worse.
"It comes and goes. It's like three steps forward, two steps backwards. Or, two steps forward, three steps backwards. It ebbs and flows," she says.
While it looked like New Zealand was comfortable with large levels of immigration, as it took in one of the highest levels of migrants in the OECD between 2013 and 2018, everything started to unravel.
"The visit by Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern in 2018 highlighted New Zealand was now part of the internationalisation of the alt-right and its conspiratorial views about Muslims, the media and politicians," Spoonley says.
"White nationalism was back."
