“Needs not race”: A discursive Tiriti analysis of the 2024 New Zealand cabinet circular on <i>needs-based service provision</i>

Following a change in government in New Zealand in 2023 the influence of Te Tiriti o Waitangi has been systematically diminished. This article uses Discursive Tiriti Analysis to examine the 2024 Cabinet Circular on Needs-based Service Provision . The stated aim was to remove ‘race’ as a criterion for public service delivery, in spite of ‘race’ being a word and concept that Te Tiriti did not use. Its contemporary use accompanies a popular rhetorical expression that ‘we are all one people’ demanding assimilation and implying that universal services either work equally well for everyone or that Māori people cannot fairly expect effective service delivery. We make the case against the Circular’s characterisation of equality as sameness, and its substitution of Te Tiriti for race, to counter its exclusion of distinctive Māori engagement and values in service delivery. We argue that despite the Circular’s foundational presumption, New Zealanders are not all the same under Te Tiriti. Explicitly, Māori people never surrendered the right to be Māori and to exercise authority over Māori affairs. We argue that there is a causal relationship between the weakening of decision-making authority and the advantages that other population groups experience vis-à-vis Māori across a range of policy indicators. Discursive Tiriti Analysis is a decolonising method that can be used to explain the master narratives of state authority that appear, with no obvious Māori contribution, in the Circular. Te Tiriti remains foundational to efforts to restore Māori authority over Māori affairs and substantive equality so Māori people can exercise mana motuhake in public life as Māori citizens.