Te Tiriti o Waitangi — read through AI
Three articles. One taonga. A living instrument against digital colonisation.
This is the interpretive spine of the whole kaupapa. Every module, every campaign, every rhizome node is read through the three articles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi — the Māori text signed at Waitangi on 6 February 1840. We use the Māori text, not the English "Treaty," because it is the text the rangatira signed. Read the plain-language summary at NZ History or the scholarly comparison at Te Ara.
Article 1 · Kāwanatanga
Governance — limited, ceded, conditional.
Rangatira ceded kāwanatanga (governance) to the Crown — not sovereignty. In the AI age, this means: the Crown may regulate telecommunications, digital ID and platform harms — but only within its ceded, limited authority. It cannot regulate away Māori data or Māori voice.
What we teach: the difference between kāwanatanga and mana motuhake, and where each begins and ends in the digital domain.
Article 2 · Tino Rangatiratanga
Unqualified authority over all taonga.
Rangatira retained te tino rangatiratanga — full, unqualified chieftainship — over their whenua, kāinga and taonga katoa. Language, whakapapa, waiata, mātauranga and now data are all taonga. Any AI model trained on Māori taonga without free, prior and informed consent is a Tiriti breach.
What we teach: the Te Mana Raraunga principles, iwi data governance, and how to write a data-sharing agreement that actually protects your rohe.
Article 3 · Ōritetanga
Equity — of citizenship and outcomes.
Māori were guaranteed the same rights and duties as British subjects. Where algorithmic systems produce worse outcomes for Māori — in credit scoring, predictive policing, welfare fraud detection, or health triage — Article 3 is breached. Equity is a floor, not a ceiling.
What we teach: how to audit an algorithm for disparate impact, and how to make an OIA request or Waitangi Tribunal claim about it.
The oral fourth
Wairuatanga — the spoken promise.
At Waitangi, Governor Hobson's spoken assurance included freedom of belief and custom. We extend this to digital wairuatanga: the right to karakia, tikanga and tapu around data, code and communication — the right for AI to be shaped by Māori worldviews, not just accommodated to them.
Iwi, education & the pā
Every iwi is already a digital sovereign — the pā just makes it visible.
Iwi authorities already hold rangatiratanga over their rohe. Te Pā Literacy is a tool for exercising it in the digital domain: a shared curriculum, a shared campaign kit, and a shared rhizome — but each iwi runs its own node. Waikato-Tainui's pā looks different from Ngāi Tahu's, which looks different from Ngāpuhi's. That is the point.
Education is the connector. When Te Pāti Māori's education kaupapa talks about Māori-led education, we read it as including the digital classroom — the algorithms our tamariki learn from every day.
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