28-05-2025
Removing tikanga from legal education is a symptom of a wider disconnection
At its core, this isn't just a legal debate – it's a challenge to the legitimacy of Māori worldviews within public institutions, argues Kingi Snelgar.
Just last week, the government took the unprecedented step of disallowing a regulation – recommended by the New Zealand Council of Legal Education – that would have embedded tikanga Māori as a core part of every law degree in Aotearoa. The regulation reflected the growing recognition of tikanga Māori as a source of law, as affirmed by the Supreme Court in cases like Ellis v R. Despite broad support from the legal profession, this disallowance marked only the second time in our history that our parliament has reversed such a regulation.
This decision does more than impact law students. It raises a deeper question: whose knowledge systems are allowed to shape our laws, and whose are excluded? At its core, this isn't just a legal debate – it's a challenge to the legitimacy of Māori worldviews within public institutions.
Tikanga, grounded in relationships, collective responsibility and spiritual connection to land, presents a profound contrast to a system rooted in individualism and legal positivism. This tension is not new – but in 2025, amid climate upheaval, mental distress and political polarisation, the stakes feel higher. We urgently need to ask: what kind of future are we building, and whose values will guide us?
This moment, though centred on legal education, is a symptom of a wider disconnection – from community, from whenua, from purpose.
Since the 1700s, Aotearoa has wrestled with new arrivals bringing new systems and values. These tensions – between land as commodity and land as ancestor, between individual rights and collective responsibility – aren't unique to us. Indigenous peoples worldwide continue to navigate them.
We may pass laws or set climate targets, but without structural change – political, economic and legal – we will fall short. Transformation begins not with policy alone, but with a shift in worldview from human-centred to environment-centred, from extraction to interdependence.
In recent decades, the global rise of individualism has prioritised rights – speech, property, movement – above collective responsibilities. These rights matter. But when elevated above our duties to each other and the environment, they sever the very connections that sustain life.
Fortunately, Aotearoa is not without solutions. Indigenous-led models already exist.
Matike Mai, the constitutional transformation report grounded in tikanga and te Tiriti o Waitangi, imagines governance based on relationships, not domination.
We led the world in recognising Te Urewera and the Whanganui River as legal persons. These decisions reflect a worldview where land and water are not resources, but living ancestors.
Despite being more digitally connected, we are more socially and ecologically disconnected than ever. It only takes a scroll through social media to find trolls, ridicule or dismissal of anything labelled 'woke'. These are symptoms not of oversensitivity but of spiritual and cultural alienation.
We belong to a wider whānau – not just people, but awa, maunga, ngahere and all living beings. These aren't poetic flourishes; they are relationships with obligations. We've forgotten this. Reclaiming it is the work of our time.
For me, the answer lies in indigenous values – not as relics of the past, but blueprints for the future. They offer practical and spiritual frameworks for addressing climate change, inequality, disconnection and ecological collapse.
This isn't just a cultural challenge – it's a structural one. Our systems prioritise profit and growth over people, the environment and long-term wellbeing.
Some may feel uncomfortable with the idea that nature could have rights – or mana. But this is not about diminishing human worth. It's an invitation to see ourselves with humility, as pōtiki – younger siblings within a vast, living whakapapa.
Transformation is not easy. It requires confronting deeply held assumptions about what it means to be human. But as stories of Māui, Tāwhaki or Whina Cooper remind us, growth comes through descent – into darkness, into challenge – before emergence into light.
I write not from ideology, but from aroha – for our tamariki, our whenua, our future. I see the way children engage with the world: with awe, care and instinctive whakapapa.
This is not a Māori-only kaupapa. It's a call to all of us: to relate to land not transactionally, but as kin. For non-Māori, this may mean stepping back, listening and supporting indigenous leadership. It means reshaping the systems – legal, political, and economic – that frame our lives around care, interdependence and collective wellbeing.
This work is also healing. Disconnection damages spirit and mind. Indigenous frameworks offer more than environmental solutions – they restore belonging and meaning.
Change won't come overnight. But through small acts – reflection, gratitude, resistance, reconnection – we can begin. Aotearoa is uniquely placed to lead: founded on a treaty, rich in indigenous knowledge, and shaped by resilience.
Let us move, together, from darkness into light.
