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Happy Waitangi Day to one and all. One hundred and sixty-two years ago, the Crown entered into a treaty with Maori for the sovereignty of New Zealand, in return for guaranteeing them "full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess so long as it is their wish and desire to retain the same in their possession." And that's where the fun started.

Flash forward to 2002 and the celebrations on the marae at Waitangi. Tempers flared. Old rivalries were settled. People looked towards the future.

"The treaty has to be seen as an asset, not a liability. There are many countries that are fraught with tension between ethnic groups with no processes for sorting them out. We have processes."

Ms Clark (the Prime Minister) is right. We've got a pretty fine thing going back there ... you learn that having left the place. We recognise there have been problems and injustices in the past. We want to resolve them. We're too small a nation to bury everything under the carpet and hope it will just go away, and we're too small a nation to keep squabbling with each other. So here's to little old New Zealand - looking to the future but not forgetting its uniquely turbulent history.

[N.B. For those wondering about marae protocol, there's some interesting material here]
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