If immigration were underpinned by manaakitanga, manuhiri would be seen as more than just an economic contribution or cost burden. Eda Tang explores the idea of a tino rangatiratanga-based immigration system.

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Imagine being invited to someone’s house as a guest, and instead of spending time with the hosts, you stand at the door, gatekeeping, harassing, and taking money from other guests you don’t really want at the party. 

It’s what the New Zealand government has done for well over a century. Some notable examples span back to the poll tax on Chinese migrants from the 1880s to 1930s, the dawn raids in the 1970s and 1980s, right up to today’s “acceptable standard of health” criteria which excludes disabled people from the guest (visa) list. 

The way the government treats immigrants would not happen under the watch of Māori tino rangatiratanga. Even when the whalers in Kororāreka started playing up, Māori didn’t yell “SEND THEM BACK”, but responded by appealing to the whalers’ home government to get their people under control. 

If te Tiriti was upheld, Māori would have control over immigration. It’s not up to me to say what migration would look like under tino rangatiratanga, and as associate professor Khylee Quince said, there is no single Māori position on immigration. However, she believes that residence in a new community should be relationship-based and grounded in manaaki, aroha and utu – roughly translating to reciprocal host/guest responsibility, compassion and mutuality.

These values have been consistent with the dozens of times I have been on marae, which is why the language that equates migrants to guests and tangata whenua to hosts is particularly useful. I’m a second-generation migrant who studies te reo Māori at wānanga, an institution of Māori and Crown collaboration. It is on these marae and at these kura that I learn what guesthood is, far beyond the material contribution I bring with me. 

Based on these experiences, if immigration were underpinned by manaakitanga, manuhiri (guests) would not be seen and treated as just an economic contribution or cost burden. Given the Crown’s track record in terms of how it has treated certain immigrants, I want to imagine what manaakitanga would look like if migrants were invited under the authority of tino rangatiratanga instead. Would they be expected to learn te reo Māori? Would they swear allegiance to te Tiriti o Waitangi rather than the Crown? 

Cue an imagined immigration system…

A single mother is looking to move to Aotearoa with her two teenage sons amid political turmoil and the regular devastation caused by climate change in their home country. The New Zealand government will allow them in the country, except for one of the sons who has cerebral palsy and requires full-time support. They’re told his condition will be a significant cost to the government’s health system. Travelling between two countries to visit her sons is not an option for the mother. Recognising the need for the family to be together and to have a safer home, a hapū, under their authority as mana whenua, welcomes the family regardless and offers housing, work and healthcare for as long as they need. 

Currently, those wishing to apply for residence or a temporary visa in New Zealand must provide evidence of good health to Immigration New Zealand, as proof that they won’t pose a risk to public health, be a cost burden on New Zealand’s health and special education services, or be unable to study or work while on a study or work visa. The ability of the hapū to care for this family depends on the wealth that comes from being able to manage the hapū’s own affairs. As Tahu Kukutai and Arama Rata write, “Only when tino rangatiratanga is realised will Māori be in a position to fully express manaakitanga to manuhiri.” Ultimately, immigration needs to be considered against resources, and when Māori resources have been alienated, misused or abused in the way they have been by previous guests, it’s fair that historically, Māori have voiced concerns about immigration. 

Former refugees have lived and worked with the hapū for over a decade and any concerns they have over their employment are addressed through a transparent dispute resolution process guided by tikanga Māori. 

Last year the Human Rights Commission found a range of urgent human rights concerns faced by migrant workers, ranging from not getting promised jobs and not being remunerated fairly to being dismissed under dubious circumstances. When employment is the only way that many migrants can become a resident or a citizen, employers are given the upper hand. Employment of migrants in a Tiriti-centric way would recentre manaakitanga, aroha and utu, and would likely not lend itself to exploitation in the first place.

Migrants speak fluent Māori and English and teach locals their ancestral tongue too. With the combined knowledge of growing kai, the māra is flourishing with introduced fruits and vegetables. 

While there are a lot of bad gifts and party tricks you can bring into the house like pests, disease and a sense of entitlement, there were some gifts that Māori were eager to access during the pre-1840 contact period, such as nails, the Bible, western music and peaches.

While I have no such thing to offer, my sense of obligation to this whenua grew the more I realised my ability to legitimately live in Aotearoa is both enabled by and at odds with te Tiriti. My parents migrated as Crown subjects, but also through an immigration system that denied Māori their tino rangatiratanga. When tangata whenua are teaching me their language, their music, their histories and their ways of looking after people and the environment, the best thing I can do is make use of it and share that knowledge with others. 

Some manuhiri have had children here. Most of them attend the local puna reo and even though they look different from their Māori peers, they don’t feel like they have to become Māori to be socially accepted. 

In the days when eugenics was popular, there was a widely held belief that rights given to those “unfit” and “unwhite” would be a threat to the racial hygiene of White New Zealand. While early immigration policy was brasher about restricting those “lunatic, deaf, dumb, blind or infirm” and “no person other than a person of British birth and parentage”, racial and ableist preference is still expressed through English-language testing and medical tests. By only accepting migrants through standards of whiteness, migrant social survival depends on how closely they assimilate to it. 

There are few places outside of marae where I have felt like it is just mana whenua and members of my community at the party, where Māori can exercise tino rangatiratanga. Without diminishing the importance of Māori-Crown initiatives such as the Māori education system and iwi justice panels, many spaces currently labelled as “Māori spaces”, spaces that should be reserved for tino rangatiratanga, are still influenced by the government.

An alternative immigration pathway, and maybe one authorised by tino rangatiratanga, is yet to happen. But if we learn from our history, there’s an urgency to honour human rights, particularly the rights of disabled people; there’s an opportunity to better exercise mutual exchange and sharing; and there’s safety to enable diaspora communities to express their identity and practise their culture. But a tino rangatiratanga model won’t be possible unless te Tiriti is honoured and authority over immigration is restored to mana whenua. 

Eda Tang will be speaking on the panel ‘Tangata Tiriti, Tangata Kaipuke, on being tangata Tiriti, New Zealand Chinese communities and the SS Ventnor’ at Freemans Bay Community Hall in Auckland on Saturday March 22 at 2pm

This piece was made possible by funding from Foundation North’s Asian Artists’ Fund.