Aotearoa - New Zealand

“Race relations” and the place of the Treaty of Waitangi as a blueprint for nation building were very much at the forefront of the national political agenda in 2004. The broad political consensus shared by both National and Labour-led governments in New Zealand over the past decade collapsed in the wake of the soaring political popularity of Don Brash, the new leader of the National Party, the main opposition political party in the New Zealand Parliament. The legitimacy of policy initiatives and programmes that specifically target Mãori in order to reduce the relative socio-economic disparities that exist between indigenous communities and other New Zealanders, and the role of the Treaty of Waitangi in managing contemporary relationships between indigenous communities and the Crown, have come under sustained attack.