Waitangi Day: Not perfect, but beats Australia Day hands down

Sunday, 26 January 2025

With Waitangi Day we don’t know how lucky we are, as Kiwi icon Fred Dagg would say.

And we nearly buggered it all up with the Labour government under PM Norman Kirk changing it to New Zealand Day in 1973, reverting to Waitangi Day in 1976 under National PM Robert Muldoon.

Why that makes New Zealand culturally lucky (or wise), will today be evident in the turmoil around Australia Day - called Invasion Day or Survival Day, by Indigenous Australians.

It marks the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, when colonisers started the dispossession of Indigenous peoples.

Such is the division that some companies allow employees to work on Australia Day and take leave on an alternative day, so a hurtful day for them is not in any way marked as something special.

Waitangi Day may not be perfect, but it marks the coming together of two cultures, rather than the celebration of the dominant culture in a “all the good stuff happened from this day on” way.

Waitangi Day commemorates the first Treaty of Waitangi signing, on February 6, 1840 by British Crown representatives and Māori chiefs.

An argument can be mounted that had New Zealand Day remained, our national day would be more bitter, as it is across the Tasman.

Professor Margaret Mutu of the University of Auckland said the short-lived move to New Zealand Day was transparently anti-Treaty.

“It was trying to stop any talk about the Treaty – and thereby trampling on the mana (power and authority) of the Treaty which Māori found grossly insulting.

“Māori have always challenged every government to honour and abide by the Treaty and to stop stealing from and discriminating against Māori,” she says.

“From 1970, that message began being articulated publicly and in English and featured strongly in protest marches, especially at Waitangi.

“Governments of the day demonised those drawing attention to Treaty and human rights violations against Māori and tried to shut down those speaking out.

“The name-change from Waitangi Day to New Zealand Day was one of the mechanisms used to try to stop people talking about the Treaty.”

Waitangi Day became our national day in only 1934, when Governor-General Lord Bledisloe gifted the Treaty House and grounds at Waitangi to the nation.

By the late 1950s, February 6 was thought of as the unofficial national day; it officially received the name Waitangi Day in 1960, through the Waitangi Day Act.

In 1963, Northland switched from Auckland Anniversary Day to Waitangi Day, making it a holiday in Northland only. It was not a public holiday until 1974.

Anniversary Days (such as Auckland Anniversary tomorrow, and Wellington’s last week) do highlight the arrival of colonial settlers, in the way Australia Day does.

Provincial devotion to anniversary meant New Zealand could not agree on a national day for the 50th jubilee, in 1890.

Wellingtonians argued for January 22, when the Aurora landed New Zealand Company settlers at Petone.

Aucklanders opted for January 29, when Lieutenant-Governor William Hobson - the first governor of New Zealand - sailed into the Bay of Islands.

So, the two provinces held holidays on different dates. “No one” suggested February 6, according to the Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

Provinces commemorated their own 50th anniversaries with events that focused on settler progress and celebrated their pioneers. The theme was 50 years of provincial progress.

Taranaki marks on March 31 the landing of the first settlers at New Plymouth; Nelson Anniversary is February 1.

Otago commemorates March 23, 1848, when the first of two sailing ships chartered by the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland brought settlers there.

Canterbury originally celebrated December 16, the arrival of the first four ships from England in 1850, then moved to November to coincide with Christchurch A & P Show Day.

In a final quirk, Waitangi Day marks the day the reo Māori version of the Treaty was signed, agreeing to allow subjects of the Queen of England to immigrate, Mutu says.

“The English-language draft usually referred to as the Treaty of Waitangi was not signed on February 6, 1840 at Waitangi – nor was it signed anywhere else in the north in the following months – only Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed”.

From tomorrow the Justice Committee will start hearings into the divisive Treaty Principles Bill, which proposes to set out the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi in legislation and to be used when interpreting legislation.

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