06/04/2026
NZ Cooperative Communities Party seeks to find a pathway to a New Zealand that better embodies the spirit of what Aotearoa could have been: a council of chiefs who decide together how collective resources might be shared and who govern their own communities as they see fit.
New Zealand is a nation state formalised under the provisions set out under a founding document titled Te Tiriti o Waitangi, whose legality must be understood under the context of the time it was signed.
Even if we set aside the many complications brought about by misrepresentations/errors in translation, this document was signed only 5 years after the signing of the northern tribes' formal Declaration of Independence (He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni signed on October 28, 1835, by 34 Northern chiefs, later totaling 52 signatories by 1839. It declared New Zealand an independent state, asserting that sovereign power and authority (rangatiratanga) rested with the chiefs, recognizing their unity as Te Whakaminenga- initiated officiallly by James Busby, the resident colonial authority in NZ at the time).
At the time of signing of The Treaty of Waitangi (the gathering to sign an English approximation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi) Māori were overwhelmingly dominant, numbering between 70,000 and 100,000, while the non-Māori population was only about 2,000—roughly 1% of the total. It is challenging to imagine a logical argument that justifies Māori chiefs handing over the right to govern to a person on the other side of the world, whose people were currently causing a nuisance in their homeland. It is obvious, however, that they would recognise the benifits to finding a way to formalise civilised cohabitation and trade.
There are important discrepencies between the English version, (generally cited as the founding document of the nation) and the verision in māori to be signed by indigenous signatories (many of whom did not actually have the authority to sign)
- Governance vs. Sovereignty: Māori understood they were giving the Queen governance (kāwanatanga- governorship over non-māori residents) but retaining their authority/sovereignty (tino rangatiratanga) over the land and people.
- Taonga: In Article 2, the promise to protect taonga (treasures) implies more than just physical property, extending to intangible culture, language, and resources (rights to which were later deliberately stripped and extinguished by acts of assumed national governance, which was never conceded).
NZ Cooperative Communities Party has a goal of redefining New Zealand using entrepeneurial principles of testing and scaling alongside principles of cooperative ownership and community. NZ Cooperative Communities Party aims to disestablish the central governance middleman and return power to the people.
