How Don Brash's Orewa speech changed the way governments talk about Treaty of Waitangi

Tuesday, 7 August 2018

It was a speech that changed the name 'Orewa' from an obscure spot on a map to a term synonymous with racial discord.

Then National Party leader Don Brash's so-called 'Nationhood' speech in 2004 stunned the Labour-led Government of the day into virtual silence.

Brash's opposite, Prime Minister Helen Clark, went from mentioning the Treaty of Waitangi 26 times in her 2004 speeches and press releases to just three times in 2005, an election year. Government ministers have mentioned the Treaty less often ever since.

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How often the Government talks about the Treaty and what it says when it does has changed over the past two decades.

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The finding comes from a Stuff analysis of all speeches and press releases by prime ministers and their ministers since 1996.

Brash's 2004 speech, to the Orewa Rotary Club, lamented what he called a Treaty 'grievance industry' and the injection of the principles of the Treaty into legislation, among other things.

The speech led to a surge in support for National, which almost made Brash prime minister in 2005.

Clark's mentions of the Treaty fell from about one mention in every eight press releases and speeches in 2004 to just one in 100 in 2005.

The speech came at the beginning of 2004, so if the speech caused fewer Treaty mentions, its effect was not immediate.

The trend was mirrored among her ministers - down from eight per 100 press releases and speeches in 2004 to less than four per 100 in 2005 (this excludes the Treaty Negotiations Minister as a high proportion of treaty mentions come from this portfolio and the frequency tends to be tied to progress of Treaty settlements).

In the 1990s, Jim Bolger and Jenny Shipley, who led the National-led Governments in the 1990s, both mentioned the Treaty almost twice as often than their successors, Clark and John Key.

Bill English and Jacinda Ardern have mentioned it even less frequently, albeit from a small sample size.

FISH, CLAIMS, RIGHTS AND PRINCIPLES

What our Government is talking about when it talks about the Treaty has also changed over time.

Stuff looked at which words appeared most often in the same sentences as mentions of 'Treaty of Waitangi' in the same body of press releases and speeches since 1996.

Again this excluded mentions by the Treaty Negotiations Minister, to get a sense of how the Treaty is being mentioned by the Government outside of the functional settlement process.

Words such as 'government', 'fisheries', 'rights', 'claim', 'act' and 'issues' have been decreasing in importance in recent years.

Brash's 'Nationhood' speech on January 31, 2006, complained of a Treaty 'grievance industry'.

References to fisheries in the late-1990s are understandable given that was the decade a fisheries settlement – known as the Sealord deal – with Māori was reached.

The word 'issues', in the context of Treaty of Waitangi, completely disappears in 2005 and is mentioned less often over time.

Helen Clark, pictured at Te Tii Marae on Waitangi Day 2002.

'Claim' is an important word in the late-1990s, but has largely disappeared from ministerial mentions of the Treaty.

'Rights' seems to have become very important during the second term of the Clark Government, before decreasing in 2005 and barely registering a mention this decade.

'Principles' – a key theme of Brash's Orewa speech – begins to appear more frequently in the mid-2000s, but has faded in importance since 2010.

The words that show an increasing trend in importance in recent years include: 'Crown', 'settlement', 'iwi', 'negotiations' and 'signing' – all words that are tied to the settlement process.