A state-determined solution for Maori self-determination: the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Bill

Indigenous peoples' movements have posed a considerable challenge for governments in calling for a renegotiation of their relationship with the state. In the case of Aotearoa New Zealand, growing Maori interest in developing a more equal partnership with the state through constitutional reform has been met by government attempts to fit Maori into the political status quo without fundamentally challenging the foundational principles of the settler constitutional order. Despite increasing reference to 'partnership' and 'self-determination', such 'solutions' have remained state-determined not self-determined. To illustrate this contention, the paper focuses on the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Bill, which the Labour-Alliance government intended to be a sensitive and significant response to Maori calls for greater power-sharing. In providing only 'bicultural' add-ons to general legislation, however, this 'solution' provoked rather than pacified further debate as to how Maori - state relations should be or could be negotiated in the twenty-first century.