Undercurrents Ep. #14: Can Te Tiriti help us build a different economy?
Watch the latest episode of Undercurrents on the relationship between capitalism and Te Tiriti, the economic legacy of colonisation, and whether the struggle for Māori sovereignty could help transform our economy.
Since coming to power in 2023, the coalition government has sought to weaken the place of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in New Zealand law and public life. But what is driving the government's agenda?
On one view, the attacks on Te Tiriti are a form of culture war – a way to divide opposition and distract the public while the government pursues its real economic agenda.
On another view, weakening Te Tiriti is itself part of that economic agenda, because the Treaty presents an obstacle to the accumulation of private wealth and profit.
Whatever the answer, the conflict points to deeper questions about Te Tiriti and economic power.
It's one thing to say Te Tiriti guarantees tino rangatiratanga. But what does that mean economically in an age of billionaires and multinational corporations, in which New Zealand's economy is integrated into global capitalism? Can Māori economic sovereignty be meaningfully realised within capitalism, or is there a fundamental contradiction between the two?
In this special two-part episode of Undercurrents, Ollie Neas is joined by Emeritus Professor Jane Kelsey and University of Canterbury academic Matthew Scobie, co-author of The Economic Possibilities of Decolonisation, to explore these questions.
In part one, they explore the capitalist origins of New Zealand's colonisation, the economic promises of Te Tiriti, and how the dispossession of Māori land and resources laid the foundations of the economy we have today.
Part two brings the story into the present, examining the contradictions between the recognition of Treaty rights and the neoliberal reforms of the 1980s, the opportunities and constraints created by Treaty settlements, and the possibilities for building a different economic system.
Together, the conversations ask not only what it would mean to honour Te Tiriti, but whether doing so could help us build a better society for everyone.
Watch both parts below and subscribe to Public Interest for more discussions making sense of politics and power in Aotearoa.
This episode was edited by Gilbert Patten-Elliott and produced by Hannah Patterson.
