SEAN RUSH: Letter to the Roseneath School Board

Response to Your Letter Regarding Upholding Te Tiriti

Dear Members of the Board,

I am writing in response to your recent letter to the Government stating your intention to uphold Te Tiriti. I have been a proud resident of Roseneath since 2013, my two children were pupils at the school, I have supported the school in fundraising activities and I chaired the Roseneath Resident’s Association. I also did a term as a Wellington City Councillor. I will continue to champion the school.

While I appreciate the desire to honour a unifying document of significance I suspect the Board is quite unaware of the implications of your endorsement of “te titiriti” as opposed to the “The Treaty”.

History is important and includes Cecelia Rush, who arrived on the Oriental on January 30, 1840, before the treaty was signed – her legitimacy in New Zealand was not founded on the Treaty. Our family story tells a very different tale which I encourage you to read – I attach Chapter two of “A Humble Beginning” which documents the arrival of the early settlers.

Cecilia Eliza Rush with third husband John George Rush circa 1875

The settlers occupation was legitimized by the invitation from the local mana whenua (Te Atiawa), who had recently invaded Wellington from Taranaki 1, and who saw their arrival as a means to protect themselves from rival tribes, particularly Te Rauparaha’s Ngati Toa. By 1840 two Taranaki iwi had already fled to the Chathams because they knew Ngati toa wanted control of the Cook Strait, including Miramar. History tells us how disastrous that was for the Moriori.

What most don’t realise is that the emphasis on “Te Tiriti” rather than “The Treaty” reflects a broader, subversive, political agenda that risks undermining our democracy.

I studied Treaty law at Victoria University in 1990 and learnt about its te reo teina, te tiriti. It would be 29 years before I would hear it expressed in that manner when I was elected as a Wellington City Councillor. I observed that Green and Labour councillors exclusively referred to the Treaty as “te tiriti” - a clear steer that a coordinated framing was at play. New Councillors participated in a two-day workshop being instructed that Māori didn’t cede sovereignty, even though many Waitangi Tribunal records show the claimants, including Wellington iwi, as having done so. In the last hour of this propaganda exercise, in response to a direct question from me, the organisers admitted that their two-day workshop did not reflect the Crown position. I suspect that “training” along these lines is endemic amongst the civil service and probably some school Boards.

The shift from the English phrase “The Treaty” to the fashionable “Te Tiriti” may appear to be a gesture of cultural respect – of using the te reo version to express the same thing. But it is not. It is a trojan horse for a subversive movement that seeks to elevate the te reo version as the sole authoritative text, enabling claims that Māori never ceded sovereignty. The ultimate outcome, sought by some, will be that Roseneath school should be governed by the Rangatira of the mana whenua. This interpretation is not only historically questionable but also democratically indefensible.

In all reality, the question of sovereignty is legally irrelevant. The Court of Appeal’s

landmark “Lands” decision in 1987 confirmed that British sovereignty was conclusively

recognised when the English version of the Treaty was published in the London Gazette in late 1840. That formalised British sovereignty under international law. Only one Waitangi Tribunal decision in 2014 has found that the claimants did not cede sovereignty – a decision based on oral tradition that would not stack up as evidence in court. As the Court said in Lands an intent to cede, or not cede, is not actually relevant.

History shows that Māori society evolved rapidly after 1840. As settlers and Māori

recognised mutual benefits, individuals—first taurekareka or mōkai (slaves), then tūtūā

(commoners), then rangatahi (young people) — left traditional village life for life-changing opportunities outside the rohe built on democratic values, the rule of law and freedom. These freedoms, were guaranteed and honoured under the article 3 of the Treaty. They displaced a feudal-like system based on rangatira mana and warrior dominance. This transformation was embraced, not imposed. In Wellington in 1846, Māori warriors, combined with settler police and British troops from Sydney to defend these freedoms from those who would say otherwise.

The current push to prioritise Te Tiriti is not about equity; it is about power. Those leading this campaign often descend from elite families who held sway in 1840 —families whose influence rested on mana that often was earned from brutality. For many their goal is not to uplift ordinary Māori, not the Jake the Muss’s or those I acted for in the Napier District Court back in the day. They are agnostic to the plight of those kids in poverty, the boys in trouble, the Mums being beaten. Their aim is restore their own prominence under the guise of cultural revival. Naïve school boards, eager to display virtue, risk enabling a narrow agenda that does not reflect the aspirations of Māori New Zealanders. Like most Kiwis they are focused on education, health, and economic independence— not constitutional revisionism and politically correct virtue signaling. As Bryce Edwards stated recently, it is about an “elite class whose interests no longer align with those of the Māori working class.”

This should not surprise anyone. The Rangatira never cared about the Māori working class. They used them.

Your letter engages in political theatre that is ill-informed about a complicated issue. It is at odds with the school’s core purpose: providing quality education and fostering unity among students and the wider community – please, teach about Māori culture, teach the local stories and te reo. Please participate in Māori cultural festivals – but know that I did all of these in the 1970s without a statutory direction or public complaint to the Government.

If Roseneath School truly wishes to honour the spirit of the Treaty, I urge you to focus on the rich history of unity between Te Atiawa and the settlers and practical measures that promote fairness and opportunity for all students. Language matters, but so does the truth.

Upholding democratic principles and equality under the law, as well as paying deference to history, is the surest way to respect both Māori heritage and the shared future of all New Zealanders.

Thank you for considering this perspective.

Sean Rush

1 Waikato tribes had been raiding Taranaki for some years before the Taranaki whanui decided to migrate from around the 1820s. Europeans were already in the wellington area surveying it for possible settlement.

Sean Rush is a barrister and former Wellington City Councillor