We respect the Treaty of Waitangi as an important historical document for the residents of New Zealand. We believe it was written and signed in good faith by wise and honourable men from both the Maori and the European people. The Europeans treated the native people with respect as having more right to the land than they did. This was advanced thinking at that time. The Maori showed great perception by realising that there was much to be gained but much that could be lost by becoming one nation with the Europeans.

Rogues and scoundrels of both peoples have sought to exploit the Treaty but the power of the state has advantaged Europeans. Maori were not for a long time treated as the full British citizens the Treaty made them. Maori lands and taonga were not protected as the Treaty promised that they would be. There is no doubt that Maori have the moral high ground on Treaty issues.

As a government representing all the people of New Zealand there is no way we could now give to Maori everything that, if the Treaty had been honoured in the past, would have been theirs. We believe that most Maori recognise and accept this. Certainly most of the claims by tribal authorities are very modest in comparison to what the Treaty gives them every right to expect. In any negotiations with Maori we would acknowledge the weakness of our position and be grateful for the generosity of theirs.

Our philosophy is, however, different from that of Europeans at the time of the Treaty. We do not believe that the first people anywhere have more right to the resources of that place than people coming later. We believe that Maori have as much right to the oil in Kuwait as the Kuwaitis do and that Europeans have as much right to the land in New Zealand as Maori do. Kuwaitis did not make the oil and Maori did not make the land.

We believe that every person and every group of people have the right to a place where they can organise themselves according to their own culture. The size of that place may be limited by the rights of other people to their own place. A group may not have rights to all the resources of the place where they happen to settle if that place is rich in a scarce resource.

We have been encouraged by some of our Maori friends to believe that our sharing philosophy may be close to what pre-European Maori philosophy would have been if it had been formalised and generalised to the whole country or the whole planet. We feel certain that Maori people would be better off and better able to live according to their own value systems, that is more nearly truly self-determining, under our system than they will ever be under present European definitions of property rights. We therefore believe that when we become the government and influential Maori see us as the right people to speak to, respectful listening on both sides will lead to full Maori endorsement of our philosophy and the withering away of all Maori grievances.

We do not expect to need any special Maori policy in the long term but would of course be very open to any workable short term arrangements to speed up the improvement of conditions for Maori.