Nu Tireni · Evidence Series · Part 40 · Cabinet Advice Reconstruction
What advice did Cabinet receive about the United Tribes flag in 2009?
Part 39 located the Cabinet minute. Part 40 reconstructs the advice trail around it. We still do not have the complete primary Cabinet file in hand. But a contemporaneous scholarly study, based on documents released under the Official Information Act, identifies the Te Puni Kōkiri memo, the consultation reports, the 8 December Cabinet paper and CAB Min (09) 44/15 — and preserves several important details about what officials and submitters said.
OIA-released recordsSecondary reconstructionPrimary file still required
First control: this is a reconstruction, not yet the full Cabinet file
The strongest source presently located is Ewan Morris' 2010 study in the Journal of New Zealand Studies. Its footnotes identify primary records released under the Official Information Act: a Te Puni Kōkiri memo to the Minister of Māori Affairs dated 3 June 2009, reports from the consultation hui and the consultation summary, the 14 December Cabinet minute CAB Min (09) 44/15, and Pita Sharples' 8 December 2009 paper to the Cabinet Domestic Policy Committee.
The option set was deliberately constructed before the public consultation
The 2009 consultation did not simply ask the public to nominate any flag. Four options were placed before participants: the Tino Rangatiratanga flag, the United Tribes flag, the New Zealand Flag and the New Zealand Red Ensign.
Morris reports, citing the 3 June 2009 Te Puni Kōkiri memo, that a wider range of flags had been considered before those four were selected. Other flags were apparently excluded because officials considered them too closely associated with the colonial past, too closely associated with particular iwi, or affected by intellectual-property concerns.
The United Tribes flag received a significant minority vote
The consultation produced 1,220 oral and written submissions. Approximately 80 percent selected the Tino Rangatiratanga flag. The published reconstruction records that 16 percent selected the United Tribes flag.
That result matters because it is more informative than the later shorthand that “80 percent chose Tino Rangatiratanga”. The United Tribes flag was not merely nominally listed: it attracted the overwhelming majority of the remaining preference.
Tino Rangatiratanga flag
Supporters emphasised that it was designed by Māori for Māori, represented unity, mana and self-determination, and was future-focused.
United Tribes flag
Supporters emphasised its historical significance. That tells us the historical argument was already present in the consultation record in 2009.
That historical-significance evidence is important for 28 October
The present 28 October request is not asking Government to reverse the 2009 preference vote or replace the Tino Rangatiratanga flag as the preferred national Māori flag. It asks Government to recognise a particular historical relationship between the 1834 flag and He Wakaputanga on the anniversary of that instrument.
The 2009 consultation record appears to contain exactly that distinction in embryonic form: support for Tino Rangatiratanga was framed around modern Māori identity and self-determination, while support for the United Tribes flag was framed around historical significance.
The 8 December Cabinet paper appears to have contemplated future legal development
Morris reports that Pita Sharples' paper to the Cabinet Domestic Policy Committee on 8 December 2009 referred at paragraph 22 to the possibility of amending the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981 at some future time, depending on practice arising from the proposal.
The same paper reportedly said at paragraph 24 that the initial focus would be flying the selected flag on Waitangi Day.
But Cabinet still did not resolve the United Tribes flag's historical status
The available record shows a policy exercise to select and recognise a preferred national Māori flag. It does not show Cabinet deciding whether King William IV's recognition of the 1834 flag had continuing legal effect, whether the flag retained any official status after 1840, or what constitutional significance should be given to its express reference in He Wakaputanga.
Indeed, the later Government historical account describes the Tino Rangatiratanga flag as the preferred national Māori flag while separately recording the United Tribes flag as New Zealand's first official flag. Those are different classifications.
A second historical clue appears in what happened at Waitangi in 2010
The same published study records that the Waitangi National Trust did not fly the Tino Rangatiratanga flag at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds in 2010, in part because of opposition from nearby Te Tii marae and the preference of many northern Māori for the United Tribes flag.
That does not determine legal status. But it reinforces that the 2009 Cabinet decision did not produce a uniform Māori view that the United Tribes flag had been displaced in every context.
The exact primary records now have names and dates
- Te Puni Kōkiri memo to the Minister of Māori Affairs — 3 June 2009. We need the complete memo and all attachments showing how candidate flags were assessed and selected.
- Kia Whakamana he Haki Māori / Recognising a National Māori Flag — July 2009 consultation brochure. We need the complete wording and historical description supplied to participants for each option.
- Reports of the 21 consultation hui and the consultation results summary. We need the regional breakdown, qualitative comments and all references to the United Tribes flag.
- Pita Sharples' Cabinet Domestic Policy Committee paper — 8 December 2009. In particular paragraphs 22 and 24, plus all advice on legal status and the Flags Act.
- CAB Min (09) 44/15 — 14 December 2009. We need the full minute and any recorded qualifications, implementation directions or agency responsibilities.
- Implementation records for Waitangi Day 2010. These should show how Cabinet's decision was translated into instructions to the Ministry of Transport and bridge operator.
Finding at this stage
Sources
Manatū Taonga — 2009 national Māori flag consultation ↗