Globalisation, neo-liberalism and the struggle for indigenous citizenship

Abstract

Using indigenous citizenship as a frame, the article examines the deeply ambiguous effects of globalisation for indigenous peoples in the Antipodes. We demonstrate that processes of economic globalisation have had an impact upon New Zealand Maori and Australian Aboriginals in ways that have heightened their vulnerability and undermined their citizenship entitlements. However, we also argue that Maori and Aboriginal peoples have used the reforms of state practice brought about by globalisation to gain greater control over their existence.

Notes

* In this article indigenous has been spelt in lower case except in reference to Indigenous Australians.

¹We have placed the word ‘sovereignty’ in inverted commas because its meaning in this context is not equivalent to the one generally assigned to it in international law. For a discussion of the different meanings that ‘sovereignty’ assumes in this context see Behrendt (2002); Rowse (2003); Te Puni Kokiri (2001, 49–60).

²This correlates with Michael Pusey's analysis: ‘the big winners from the restructuring so far have been corporations, and the losers, at least in relative terms, have been government programmes, public sector employees, and the broad middle 70% of wage and salary earners’ (Pusey 1998, 54).

³The South Island tribe whose historic claims against the government were finalised via the Ngai Tahu Settlement Act 1998. Their 2005 annual report recorded total tribal assets at NZ$515.9m, with revenues of NZ$174.5m.

⁴Witness Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu Ltd v Durie (1998) 2 NZLR 103; Ngai Tahu Maori Trust Board v Director-General of Conservation (1995) 3 NZLR 553.

⁵Established by the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, the Waitangi Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry charged with making recommendations to government on claims brought by Maori regarding breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi.

⁶For a complete guide to that jurisprudence, see Te Puni Kokiri (2001).

⁷S. 9 State-owned Enterprise Act 1987.

⁸ New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General (1987) 1 NZLR 641 Lands. New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General (1989) 2 NZLR 142 Forests. New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General (1992) 2 NZLR 576 Broadcasting.

⁹See, for example, Wi Parata v The Bishop of Wellington (1877) 3 NZ Jur (NS), SC 72.

¹⁰For the diversity compare the following bills: Ngatia Turangitukua Claims Settlement Act 1999; Ngati Ruanui Claims Settlement Act 2003; Nga Rauru Kiitahi Claims Settlement Act 2005.

¹¹Office of Treaty Settlements, 2005.

¹² New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General (1994) 1 NZLR 513 Broadcasting Assets, per Lord Woolf at 516.

¹³ New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General (1987) 1 NZLR 641 Lands, per Justice Cooke P at 655–6.

¹⁴ Tainui Maori Trust Board v Attorney-General (1989) 2 NZLR 513 Coal.

¹⁵For discussion within Treaty discourse see Te Puni Kokiri (2001) and in application, Waitangi Tribunal (1992, 1998).

¹⁶The 1996 New Zealand Census found that 80% of Maori live outside their traditional tribal area and 20% do not affiliate with a tribe.

¹⁷There are now around 2800 bodies incorporated under the ACA Act nationally.

¹⁸As Virginia Watson (2004, 591) has argued, the ACA Act was designed ‘to support specifically Aboriginal modes of association’. So long as it survived in its original form, therefore, the legislation placed a legal limit on attempts to make Aboriginal Councils operate according to liberal principles. Watson attributes the various attempts, dating back to 1992, to bring the act more in line with the mainstream Corporations Act to the despotic tendency in liberalism.

¹⁹‘Australia was the only government delegation to speak unequivocally against the inclusion of the principle of self determination in the draft UN declaration [at the fifth session in October 1999]’ (Pritchard 2000, 32).

²⁰This paved the way for more than $1bn of former ATSIC-AITSIS programs to be transferred to mainstream departments.

²¹For an outline of these measures see Grattan (2004, 2005) and Yunupingu (2005).

²²One could compare, for instance, Noel Pearson (2002) with Larissa Behrendt (2002). Research undertaken by the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) suggests that Indigenous health, education, housing and, with certain qualifications, employment all improved between 1971 and 2001. Between 1991 and 2001, for instance, unemployment rates decreased from 30.8% to 20.0% and the proportion of adults with post-school qualifications increased from 9.5% to 18.2% (Altman, Biddle and Hunter 2004). Altman concludes from this ‘that [the] broad policy settings have been favourable’ (Altman 2004, 2).

²³Although Indigenous leaders like Noel Pearson and Pat Dodson initially embraced the concept of SRAs on the basis that they resonated with Aboriginal notions of ‘reciprocity’, they have interpreted the notion of obligation in very different way from the government (Dodson and Pearson 2004).

²⁴The government already has a track record of reacting unfavourably to international censure of its Indigenous policy. In March 1999, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed concern that the Howard government's Native Title Amendment Act (1998) was racially discriminatory and in breach of Australia's obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The government dismissed the findings of the Committee, describing them as ‘an insult to Australia’ (Pritchard 2000, 31).

²⁵ Ngati Apa v Attorney-General (2003) 3 NZLR 643.

²⁶New Zealand Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004.

²⁷CERD, 66th Session, 17 February–11 March 2005, Decision 1 (66): ‘the legislation appears to the Committee, on balance, to contain discriminatory aspects against the Maori’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lindsey Te Ata O Tu MacDonald

Lindsey Te Ata o Tu MacDonald is a lecturer in politics in Aotahi: School of Maori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury. His research interests include Indigenous politics and political theory. Paul Muldoon is a lecturer in the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University. He is currently working on questions of sovereignty in colonial societies and the politics of reconciliation.