The Principle of Partnership Sample Clauses

The Principle of Partnership. In New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General (1987), the Court of Appeal found that the Tiriti/Treaty signified a partnership between the Crown and Māori, which required each party to act reasonably and with the utmost good faith towards the other 1 Expanding on the duty of good faith, the Waitangi Tribunal in the Xxxxxx Hospital and Health Services Report stated that this duty established ‘the general character of the relationship’ between Māori and the Crown 2 In the Te Whanau o Waipareira Report, the Tribunal explained that ‘the gift of kawanatanga was in exchange for protection and the guarantee of rangatiratanga in all its forms’ 3 The report acknowledged that ‘Partnership serves to describe a relationship where one party is not subordinate to the other but where each must respect the other’s status and authority in all walks of life ’4 Furthermore, the Tiriti/ Treaty partnership should be founded on ‘reasonableness, mutual cooperation and trust’ 5 Implicit in the Tiriti/Treaty partnership, then, was the notion of reciprocity and the acknowledgement that neither kāwanatanga nor tino rangatiratanga was unqualified or absolute 1. New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney–General [1987] 1 NZLR 641 (CA), p 667 2. Waitangi Tribunal, The Xxxxxx Hospital and Health Services Report (Wellington: Legislation Direct, 2001), p 66

The Principle of Partnership. In our Stage One Report on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (2016), we noted that: For both claimants and the Crown, the starting point is the principle of reci- procity. This is the Treaty’s ‘essential compact’ – the recognition of the Crown’s right of kāwanatanga (the right to govern) in exchange for the guarantee of tino rangatira- tanga (the right of full chieftainship, also known as autonomy, or self-government).36 The principle of partnership flows from this essential compact, requiring the partners to act reasonably and in good faith towards each other. In so doing, the Crown has a duty to engage with Māori on matters of importance to them. As the Central North Island Tribunal found, what is reasonable ‘depends on the nature of the resource or taonga, and the likely effects of the policy, action, or legislation’.37 In our Stage Two Report on the Crown’s Review of the Plant Variety Rights Regime (2020) we noted that, in addition to reciprocity, the principle of partnership con- tains ‘the acknowledgement that neither kāwanatanga nor tino rangatiratanga was unqualified or absolute’. We went on to say: The premise that a successful partnership involves the need for compromise and requires multiple interests to be balanced – kāwanatanga with tino rangatiratanga, the national interest with Māori interests, the Crown’s right to govern with its duty to pro- tect – has been explored repeatedly in Tribunal reports.38 In Ko Aotearoa Tēnei (Wai 262), the Tribunal found partnership to be ‘an over- arching principle beneath which others, such as kāwanatanga and tino rangatira- tanga, lie’.39 Further, it found: This emphasis on partnership makes New Zealand unique among the post-colonial nations . . . other countries, by contrast, emphasise the power of the state and the relative powerlessness of their indigenous peoples by placing state fiduciary or trust obligations at the centre of domestic indigenous rights law. New Zealand, by contrast,