SPANIARD: Schrödinger’s Citizen

Enabling some New Zealanders to be citizens of both a democracy under the Crown and a pre-feudal grouping alongside the Crown is as ludicrous and dangerous as it sounds.

In a famous 1935 thought experiment, Austrian-Irish theoretical physicist Erwin Schrödinger hypothesised a cat simultaneously dead and alive. Schrödinger’s Cat exposed fancifulness of a then-idea in quantum mechanics: that things can exist in more than one state.

That imaginary scenario showing a scientific caprice’s absurdity was well and good; it made a point, cost little, and no felines were harmed.

Unhappily for New Zealand, the idea that some of its people – those with Māori ancestry - can exist simultaneously in two states of national citizenship, as New Zealand citizens under the Crown, and as sovereign iwi citizens, is not, at influential levels, treated as preposterous. The notion is also neither inexpensive nor harmless. Based on misrepresentation of the Treaty of Waitangi, it is at large, with organisations and individuals in many corners of life acting on the premise. Packaging the idea as ‘partnership’ or ‘co-governance’ does not make its fundamental impossibility - or hazard - go away. It’s more appositely described as Schrödinger’s Citizenship.

The fantastical nature of this bob-each-way concept is self-evident in everyday experience. From the long-time mingling of New Zealanders’ ancestries to the daily intertwinement of our varied lives, to the parts everyone plays in our nation’s taxation and redistribution systems, such citizen categorisation is clearly undoable and pointless.

Constitutionally, it’s just as much a folly. Democratic and tribal governance are intrinsically unmarriageable (not to mention that the Treaty established equal citizenship and Crown sovereignty along with private property rights). The former is committed to public accountability; the latter works by fiat. No relationship can work when one side operates to agreed rules and the other is inherently volatile. Enabling some New Zealanders to be citizens of both a democracy under the Crown and a pre-feudal grouping alongside the Crown is as ludicrous and dangerous as it sounds.

For now, the delusion of Schrödinger’s Citizenship continues to seep through most aspects of the nation’s life from lawmaking to community activities. It is presented as axiomatic. As for George Orwell’s ‘doublethink’, many tolerate it in preference to the conflict questioning or opposition could create. The offence it causes reality and fairness doesn’t vanish with that tolerance, however. Recent well-profiled cases include:

·       Covid-era closures of publicly owned roads by iwi, as tribal actors, who were in other respects in the Crown ‘fold’ (including with respect to the roads).

·       Due to potential loss of mana, 2024 high court overturn of Ngāti Tūwharetoa man Joshua Green’s conviction for obstructing a police officer.

·       Co-creation of Otago marine reserves in 2026 by Ngai Tahu and the Crown’s Department of Conservation, with ongoing co-governance and co-management, despite no legislation giving the tribe such authority.

While all this invites satire, it requires an irreversible halt. There’s danger in anything else.

The main predictive factor for civil war is a country’s function as a partial democracy. Embedding anti-democratic preference for iwi within statutes, for example, in the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngai Tahu Representation) Act’s provision for unelected iwi members, does not save New Zealand from description as a ‘partial democracy’. Ethno-focussed political parties also raise a nation’s risk of civil war; Te Pati Māori’s existence brings this predictive factor into play.

No nation treating its citizens differently based on ethnicity has ever done well, whether that translates to ‘developing nation’ categorisation, or to outright war. For New Zealand, some Māori groups’ active advancement of a tribal future should ring warning bells. Living examples of what ‘tribal’ means exist in parts of Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Democracy was hard-won over centuries, establishing a nation’s citizens as equal and free. It requires careful tending. It is worth considering: ‘How much neglect and forced accommodation of tribalism can democracy take until citizens are no longer equal and free – and cannot readily go back?’

‘Rule by the people’, democracy’s literal meaning, is corroded by disproportionate elevation and influence of Māori in everyday contexts, for instance, from Māori preferential access in public systems, to Māori spiritualism’s impositions on secularity and science, and charitable tax rates for iwi commercial organisations.

Pace matters, also. Democracy is slow because it necessarily involves the public; tribalism moves as fast and well – or not - as its hegemons allow. Tactically leveraging the two systems’ tenets offers significant advantage to Schrödinger’s Citizens. Mariameno Kapa-Kingi’s Te Pati Māori membership is an exemplar. Expelled by her party in 2025 for overspending and causing disrepute, the Te Tai Tokerau Member of Parliament claimed the expulsion decision failed party tikanga, and gained reinstatement through the Crown’s judicial system.

Democracy can’t uphold itself. However, it gives citizens the equality of opportunity and expression to keep it valued and strong. The pervasiveness and speed of growth of sovereign iwi citizenship claims threaten it and prove the worthlessness of appeasing those claims. How elastic can democracy be? The best answer is: ‘We can’t afford to wait and see.’

Constitutional double-dealing must end in New Zealand. From sloppy wording in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, to fast forgetting of the ‘akin to’ part of ‘akin to a partnership’ in the seminal Lands Case of 1987, and Treaty provisions in many laws, the aetiology of Schrödinger’s Citizenship is clearly traceable and can and must be undone – by a democratically-elected New Zealand Government.

There is one kind of New Zealand citizenship. The Honourable Matiu Rata, when introducing the Treaty of Waitangi Bill in 1974, echoed Captain William Hobson on the Treaty’s signing: “He iwi Kotahi tatou; we are one people”. Let that be the case.

Spaniard has a background in conservation, farming, and recreation.