Moana Jackson, a leading voice on law and Māori rights, has died

Thursday, 31 March 2022

Moana Jackson, a leading lawyer and one of New Zealand’s most prominent academics on Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Māori rights, has died.

Jackson’s Ngāti Kahungunu whanaunga confirmed his death on Thursday morning, following a lengthy illness with cancer. He also had Ngāti Porou whakapapa.

Academics, politicians and many followers of Jackson’s work mourned his death on Thursday.

Jackson had worked across education, law and academia, including helping to draft the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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**

He was involved in his generation’s most significant movements and events, including working on the seabed and foreshore cases, the 1995 Moutoa Gardens occupation, and he worked as a teacher as part of efforts to revitalise te reo Māori.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson​ said she had been “incredibly privileged” to have known and to have been guided by Jackson.

“I am feeling utterly devastated. A whole lot of us are in quite a bit of pain,” she said.

“I'm going to talk through my tears, I'm sorry. I'm in my emails now going back over the years, long before I was an MP, I ended up in many situations coming under attack.

“He would send me emails saying, ‘Keep going Marama, keep going. Ignore the rubbish.’”

She said Jackson had guided many politicians, and she met with him most recently in November, when he spoke with Green MPs about Māori rights to self-determination and Te Tiriti.

She understood he had been unwell for years, but he was “looking awesome” in November. On Wednesday night, at a follow-up to that wānanga, she said they had paid tribute to Jackson – as they knew he was increasingly unwell.

His passing followed the death of Dame Temuranga June Batley-Jackson, his sister-in-law and renowned advocate for urban Māori, who died on Monday.

Moana Jackson was one of six siblings, including Syd Jackson, one of the founding members of Ngā Tamatoa, and Bob Jackson, who married Dame Temuranga. Their parents were former All Black and Māori Battalion veteran Everard Jackson and Janey Cunningham.

As a lawyer, Jackson’s early advocacy focused on criminal justice. He co-founded Ngā Kaiwhakamarama i Ngā Ture,​ the Māori Legal Service in 1987.

He authored the influential 1988 Justice Department report He Whaipaanga Hou, which Corrections call “a watershed”. It argued for a more productive response to crime, warning that high incarceration would further divide and harm Māori and wider society.

More recently, Jackson’s research had centred on constitutional change and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Alongside Professor Margaret Mutu, he published Matike Mai Aotearoa in 2016, one of the most influential discussion documents on New Zealand’s recognition of Te Tiriti, which called for constitutional transformation to better recognise tino rangatiratanga of hapū.

Author Malcolm Mulholland, also of Ngāti Kahungunu, said Jackson had been a mentor and friend. He studied under Jackson and recalled, when he first met him, telling Jackson that he was “here to find out why people call you a radical”.

Mulholland said Aotearoa had lost one of its finest constitutional experts.

“Moana was the most gifted Māori intellectual I ever had the pleasure of knowing. His knowledge and innate understanding of He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti was unparalleled, as was his constitutional vision for Aotearoa. He was a man of deep convictions based on tikanga Māori, who talked and walked the path of decolonisation,” he said.

“He loved his people and his people loved him. Aotearoa has lost a giant today, and we are the poorer for it.”

Throughout his decades of advocacy and research, Jackson grew immense respect among Māori scholars and legal researchers, but he also made some enemies.

When the Māori Legal Service had its funding cut in 1999, there was concern it was an act of retaliation from Treaty Negotiations Minister Doug Graham. He had questioned if it was appropriate for Jackson, as a lawyer, to be present at the Pākaitore, Moutoa Gardens, occupation.

Jackson’s whanaunga said he would return home to Matahiwi Marae in Clive, Hawke’s Bay.