Treaty irrelevant to New Zealand, says academic

Treaty irrelevant to New Zealand, says academic

For at least a decade after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, it remained largely irrelevant in New Zealand as well as in Britain, claims AUT University history professor Paul Moon in his controversial new book.

The book entitled The Newest Country in the World details how British officials completely lost interest in the Treaty shortly after it was signed, and how later they came to see it as an obscure and irrelevant agreement.

“The British Government in early 1840 saw the Treaty as the key to opening the door to governing New Zealand,” says Professor Moon. “But once that door was open there was no further need for the key.”

He says in the ten years following its signing, the expansion of British rule in the colony had nothing to do with the Treaty.

“And when the Treaty was openly breached, hardly anyone even seemed to notice.”

Professor Moon’s book has already aroused disagreement because of its contentious conclusions about the Treaty, and has put its author on a collision course with other Treaty experts. Professor Moon is unrepentant.

“This work is the result of many years of archival research,” he says. “People may not like what they read, but this does not alter what actually happened in New Zealand in the 1840s.”
 
The Newest Country in the World: A History of New Zealand in the Decade of the Treaty
Author: Paul Moon

Published: 3 Sep 2007 

ISBN 13: 9780143006701 

RRP: $39.95 

Type: PAPERBACK (PB) 

Pages: 256 Edition: 1

Imprint: PENGUIN 

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