Roimata Smail (Ngāti Maniapoto, Tainui, England, Scotland, Ireland) was a keynote speaker at the ACE Sector Conference, leading a session called Our Story – Te Tiriti. Roimata is a lawyer who has specialised in Te Tiriti o Waitangi cases before the Courts for the past two decades. She has built a legal practice around the pursuit of equity for Māori with an approach that is forward looking, positive and pragmatic.
“I would love every New Zealander to know the basic facts about Te Tiriti and for that understanding to contribute to Te Tiriti no longer being a political football or issue. From the work I do, I have seen a lot of laws passed and the way we do things changed because New Zealanders, and that includes politicians, are not well educated about Te Tiriti and our history.”
Roimata says people, especially lawmakers, need to be more honest about Treaty issues. “A recent example of this is the recent debate about Te Aka Whai Ora – Māori Health Authority. Te Aka Whai Ora was developed in
response to substandard health care for Māori over decades.
“It was established to address inequities. We have subsequently experienced a repeal of the authority due to a lack of knowledge about how and why it came about. The repeal of the legislation gained so much support because many people do not know enough to confidently challenge the rhetoric,” she says.
“What has arisen because of that challenge and other recent legislative back tracking, is the current growing demand from our communities to really understand Te Tiriti. Greater understanding enables a greater contribution from a wider base to the debate in a much more knowledgeable and confident way. We need this knowledge across a broad sector to ensure we get the right results based on a realistic assessment of the facts.”
Roimata says that in recent workshops she has noticed learners are keen to gain more specifics about how history contributed to Te Tiriti. Learners are wanting to understand and process the facts of our history and how decision making impacted actual outcomes, such as those around land transactions.
Understanding Te Tiriti: A Handbook of Basic Facts
To complement her Te Tiriti workshops and her legal experience and challenges faced, Roimata recently completed a short text – Understanding Te Tiriti: A Handbook of Basic Facts.
The 32-page pocket book was written for readers like her own generation who didn’t get to learn our history. It addresses what has happened since 1840 and how the Treaty promises have been broken.
In just a few months, 3,000 copies of the book sold, rocketing up the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list, and in recent weeks it’s been sitting at number three. Less than six months since launch, multiple reprints have been needed to keep up with demand.
“It’s not just about gaining a factual overview of Te Tiriti, it’s about understanding how Te Tiriti and its interpretation contributed to Aotearoa and societal constructs. I hope my Te Tiriti workshops open people’s eyes a bit to our nation’s history.”
Roimata understands that it is impossible to share every aspect of Te Tiriti in a two-hour workshop, but she hopes the workshops she delivers make people think more critically and take a more investigative approach to their learning.
“The workshops are designed to share some power, to enable people to think critically and engage on this topic that is becoming so much more important in the current environment. And a desire to understand Te Tiriti goes hand in hand with the current strong push to learn te reo. It feels natural for the two to be explored together.”
Roimata’s journey in her role as pouako (teacher) grew from her upbringing in a whānau where education lay at the centre. Her grandparents, parents and her husband are all teachers and after practising law for 15 years she wanted to pursue options that enabled her to explore her creativity to a greater degree. That opportunity unveiled itself when her husband, who is of Lao descent, asked for her help in developing a te reo Māori resource for children in his class.
“Sam wanted to learn te reo Māori with his students, but as a beginner he didn't know where to start or even how to pronounce most of the words. As a long-time learner of te reo Māori I understood the challenges and so began my teaching and sharing journey.
“I came up with some waiata that he could use that reflected key phrases – with correct pronunciation! We created ‘Wai Ako press play and go’ lessons with cartoon teachers to make it fun and effortless for teachers to play five minutes a day. There are currently over 20,000 school children in Aotearoa using the resource.”
From that beginning, online resources for schools on Te Tiriti, New Zealand History, te reo Māori and financial literacy (waiako.com) followed.
As counsel, author and publisher, Roimata is putting to good use her significant legal knowledge, representing lead claimants in the Waitangi Tribunal inquiry that led to the watershed Hauora Report and the establishment of Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority.
Recently she acted in Wai 3307 – Māori Health Authority disestablishment priority inquiry, Wai 3163 – Māori Wards application for urgency, Wai 3300 – Treaty Principles, and Wai 3300 – Constitutional Inquiry, as well as Takutai Moana High Court and Court of Appeal application and appeal.
Other work includes acting on claims about Māori in prison, pēpi and children removed by Oranga Tamariki, and the Crown response to Covid-19, as well as representing the first iwi to receive an offer of Customary Marine Title from the Crown.
Understanding Te Tiriti: A Handbook of Basic Facts is an easy to read and accessible text that will act as an introduction for those wanting to learn more about our founding document or a refresh for those wanting a pithy reference guide to keep close to hand.