A Call for Unity

In the Herald for 7 June 2024 Bruce Cotterill expressed concern at what seemed to be loss of purpose on the part of New Zealand, especially given the fact that when governments change, a lot of time and effort is spent undoing the previous lots’ mistakes. The result is a lack of long-term vision.

Cotterill puts it this way:

One of the challenges for our current Government is to deal with this broadening gap around the political centre. They should be seeking an opportunity to adapt our form of governing so that we can acknowledge the differences while maintaining a longer-term outlook.

As our challenges mount, that longer-term outlook is more critical than ever. The reason is simple. We can’t afford to keep chopping and changing long-term policy initiatives as governments change.

Instead, we need to develop a broadly agreed long-term view, or vision if you like, on major areas of government policy. A view that will ensure that the core elements of those policy areas can survive a change of government.

He points out that much of the problem lies in short-term thinking. We need to develop some guiding principles. Cotterill suggests that:

“It might be some form of charter. A visionary document that ensures the continuation of core themes within government policy, irrespective of who might be in power.”

He identified the start of the problem with the Labour- led government of 2017. He points out:

We saw rapid reversals such as the scrapping of charter schools, cancelled roading projects and the elimination of our mining industries.

The most recent change of government last year saw the abrupt halt to years of work around Auckland’s light rail, and the replacements for the Interislander ferries cancelled. The recently established Māori Health Authority and Te Pukenga were similarly curtailed.

While the outcomes of such decisions probably satisfy the then-relevant party faithful at the time, the reality is that little is achieved as a result. A lot of money is spent, on ideas and projects that are ultimately cancelled, with nothing left to show for it.

What he suggests is a consensus approach to what really needs to be done — the identification of core priority areas like health, crime, education, immigration and infrastructure, all of which require a longer view.

Cotterill is a businessman so he brings a business perspective to the problem. He says:

I often say that the starting point for any organisation is to be clear about what they are trying to achieve. For a country like ours, the answer to that question is multi-dimensional. But we have to start somewhere. … Let’s get the two main political parties around a table and try to understand what they can agree on, instead of listening to the pointless debate about what they don’t agree on.

And so we might envision a country with well-educated people, who enjoy the lifestyle their unique setting offers and the good health that goes with that, low crime rates and a balanced immigration strategy that ensures an appropriate level of population and access to world-class talent.

That is a pretty good vision for the future.

But perhaps what else is lacking is a sense of national identity and national purpose.

New Zealand lacks a national unifying myth that embodies the shared views of the country’s history and future. The loss of a common national story is central to many of New Zealand’s problems. Myths explain our history, chart a path to the future and help bind the country together.

Richard Slotkin, who has written extensively about the various mythologies underpinning the United States experience, suggests that “myths are the stories — true, untrue, half-true — that… provide an otherwise loosely affiliated people with models of patriotic action.” A more formal dictionary definition suggests that myths may be popular traditions embodying core social values as well as being an unfounded or false idea. C.S. Lewis in a discussion with J. R. R. Tolkien stated that myths were lies. Tolkien’s response was that they may be lies, but lies wrapped in silver. 

There have been a number of what may be described as archetypal experiences in New Zealand history that could approach a “mythological” status that reflect the embodiment of some of the values that underpin the national identity. ANZAC immediately comes to mind. Wartime activity and service brings a people together often because national survival is at stake.

Then there is the “man alone” myth that underpins much of Jock Phillips’s writing along with the Kiwi do-it-yourself “number 8 wire” approach to problem solving. Sport tends to be a unifier but primarily a hysterical support for the All Blacks which rapidly diminishes if the team does anything but win. Sport is meant to demonstrate resilience in the fact of adversity but not, it would seem, on the part of the fans.

Historians are well positioned to invent and develop new national stories. We have seen this in the way that the culture wars have developed where each side appeals to history or reinterprets it. One example, which I am presently researching, is the Doctrine of Discovery and I hope to have a piece about that in the next month or so.

Each side in the culture war appeals to history. But historians have not taken on the task of devising a coherent national mythology that can bring unity to a fractured nation. Instead, students are being taught radically different versions of the nation’s past. All this reflects not simply divergent opinions on specific issues, but disagreements about the fundamental character of our institutions and the purposes of our nation.

One myth which did possess a unifying feature but which has been badly eroded is the position of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Treaty established a foundation for equal citizenship, one people with equal recognition under the law. 

Hobson at the signing of the Treaty is reputed to have said “He iwi tahi tatou” — “we are now one people”. That statement has been referred to by some Maori as racist drivel and Maori historian Dr Danny Keenan suggests it is unlikely that Hobson made such a pledge.

Interestingly in his revisionist article Dr. Keenan suggests:

“New Zealand history is fraught with myth — things that never happened, or at least, the evidence is sketchy. ‘Hobson’s pledge’ is one example. Was there ever such a thing?”

But myths are critical in providing a unifying point for a national identity. In many cases myths develop from sketchy evidence and by their very nature defy a clear evidential foundation.

Dr. Keenan says that the only source for Hobson’s statement is William Colenso, a mission printer who was present at Waitangi on the day of the Treaty signing. His version of events can be found in his The Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, published much later, 50 years after the event, in 1890.

Other accounts do not record the statement and because of that Dr Keenan suggests that it is unlikely that Hobson made such a pledge. Dr Keenan states:

“Colenso’s record of events, then, is structured around remembered — or invented — conversations, written for effect rather than accuracy. Some popular historians use this method, it is true, but you wouldn’t get away with it in your PhD thesis.”

Point one: If one were to use Colenso’s statement in a PhD thesis any conclusions from it would have to be limited and qualified.

Point two: I acknowledge Dr Keenan is writing for Spinoff which does not require the rigour he suggests would be required for a PhD, but he inserts a suggestion about “invented” conversations yet provides no evidence to support such a claim. I think he is inferring that it could be invented because no other sources record it.

Dr Keenan then embarks upon a speculative line of thinking — revisionist perhaps — suggesting that in the 1890s after the New Zealand Wars and the confiscations “Colenso would have had good reasons for presenting Hobson as a benevolent figure, conciliatory to Māori because, by then, New Zealand was in the grip of a new Pākehā nationalism.”

He goes on to say:

It therefore served Pākeha nationalist purposes to portray Hobson, and the Crown, as always having been well-meaning and benevolent towards Māori from the very beginning.

Despite everything, said Colenso, Pākehā had really meant well.

Such a newfound regard for Māori absolved Pākehā of the ravages inflicted on Māori since 1840 on the way to a new sense of Pākeha identity, hegemony and nationhood. Inventing a ‘Hobson’s Pledge’ served a useful purpose.

So Dr Keenan shifts from a position that it was “unlikely” that Hobson made the pledge, based upon the fact that only Colenso recorded it, to the position that it was “invented”.

The problem is that in many respects myths contain a great deal of invention and not a lot of evidence. But Hobson’s Pledge, whether it was said or not, provides a solid background for a national identity and the foundation for a common purpose. We should be one people. We should acknowledge our differences but our shared objective should be a unity of purpose. And with that unity of purpose we can become, as Mr Cotterill suggests, a country with well-educated people, who enjoy the lifestyle their unique setting offers and the good health that goes with that, low crime rates and a balanced immigration strategy that ensures an appropriate level of population and access to world-class talent. 

Without that unity of purpose we will descend into chaos.

This article was originally published on David’s Substack, A Halfling's View on 14 July, 2024. Subscribe to David’s Substack to read more.