Rights, Resistance & Māori Resurgence · Lesson 3 · Source analysis
Language as Resistance
On 14 September 1972 a petition with more than 30,000 signatures was delivered to Parliament asking that te reo Māori be taught in schools. This lab is about who did that, what they were claiming — and what happened to the claim over the next fifteen years.
Language as Resistance — Source Lab
The 1972 te reo Māori petition · Named actors · Three kinds of claim · The chain to 1987
Ingoa | Name:
Akomanga | Class:
Ngā Whāinga Ako | Learning Intentions
- Describe who organised the 1972 petition, what it asked for, and when it was delivered — with names.
- Explain why the loss of a language became a political claim, not only a cultural loss.
- Classify three moves in the te reo story by the kind of claim each made.
Paearu Angitu | Success Criteria
- I use names — people and organisations — and never the phrase “Māori activists”.
- I can state which kind of claim each move was making, and what gave it authority.
- I can say what the sources here cannot tell me.
Kawa for this lab: for many whānau the decline of te reo Māori is not a topic — it is a family history, and often a recent one. Nobody in this room owes the class their own or their whānau’s story, and nobody should be treated as the room’s expert because of who they are. Keep your claims inside the evidence on this sheet, and say plainly when a source cannot settle something.
Part 1 · Ngā Tāngata — who actually did this
History written without names is history that is easy to ignore. For each card, write in the margin what this person or group did — three words.
Ngā Tamatoa“The Young Warriors”. Formed around 1970 by Māori students at the University of Auckland, and based in Auckland. Te Ara says it brought “a new and radical edge to Māori protest in its calls for the Treaty of Waitangi to be ratified”, using “nationwide petitions to have the Māori language taught in schools, and submissions on government policy”.
Te Reo Māori SocietyEstablished in 1970 at Victoria University in Wellington. It pushed the university to support te reo Māori tuition and worked on other revitalisation projects. It worked with Ngā Tamatoa specifically to get te reo Māori taught in schools.
Hana Te Hemara JacksonOf Ngā Tamatoa. She instigated the petition, was one of its organisers, and presented it to Parliament on 14 September 1972.
Te Huinga RangatahiThe New Zealand Māori Students’ Association, which gathered signatures alongside Ngā Tamatoa and Te Reo Māori Society.
Te Ouenuku ReneOf Ngāti Toa. NZHistory identifies him as the kaumātua leading the group that took the petition to Parliament. The petition was carried with kaumātua support, not by students alone.
Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te ReoThe group that lodged the te reo Māori claim (Wai 11) with the Waitangi Tribunal in 1985 — the move that turned a request about schooling into a Te Tiriti claim.
Part 2 · The Record
Fact card A · The petition
14 September 1972 — te reo Māori petition delivered to Parliament
Established by: NZHistory (Manatū Taonga) and Archives New Zealand. Type: documented historical event; the petition itself is held in the archival record.
- Delivered to Parliament on 14 September 1972. NZHistory says it “challenged politicians to prioritise saving te reo Māori”.
- Carried over 30,000 signatures gathered from across Aotearoa, on around 1,500 sheets.
- It emerged out of the efforts of Ngā Tamatoa, the Te Reo Māori Society and Te Huinga Rangatahi (the New Zealand Māori Students’ Association).
- Archives New Zealand describes what it asked for: “courses in Māori language and culture to be offered in all New Zealand schools”.
- Hana Te Hemara Jackson of Ngā Tamatoa instigated it, was one of its organisers, and presented it. Te Ouenuku Rene (Ngāti Toa) is named by NZHistory as the kaumātua leading the group.
- Archives New Zealand records: “Most of the people who signed the petition were not Māori.”
- To mark the event, 14 September was declared Māori Language Day. Three years later this was expanded to Māori Language Week.
What this card cannot tell you: whether the petition succeeded. A petition being received is not a policy being changed. Look at Fact card C and the timeline before you decide.
A number not to confuse: Archives New Zealand also holds a file of submissions carrying over 300,000 signatures. That is a different document. The petition had over 30,000.
Her own words · a real quotation
Hana Te Hemara Jackson, on why te reo mattered
What this is: part of Hana Te Hemara Jackson’s submission on the 1972 Māori language petition. Reproduced by: NZHistory and Te Ara, from the Waitangi Tribunal’s Ko Aotearoa Tēnei (Wai 262), volume 2, page 395. Spelling and spacing follow the source.
“the only real symbol of Māori identity … For us to be able to speak Māori is the truest expression of our Māori tanga. It is the substance of our Māori tanga. It is our link with the past and all its glories and tragedies. It is our link with our tīpuna.”
Read it closely: she does not say te reo is useful, or beautiful, or worth keeping. Underline the three things she says it is. Then answer: why does that framing make this a political claim rather than a preference?
What this source cannot tell you: what anyone else in the movement thought. One person’s submission is strong evidence of that person’s argument — it is not evidence of what 30,000 signatories believed.
Fact card B · The Tribunal claim
1985–1986 — Wai 11, the te reo Māori claim
Established by: Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand and Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori. Type: a formal claim to a standing tribunal, and its published report.
- In 1985, Ngā Kaiwhakapūmau i te Reo lodged a claim (Wai 11) with the Waitangi Tribunal.
- The claim argued that te reo Māori is a taonga which the Crown had guaranteed to protect under Article 2 of te Tiriti o Waitangi, and that the Crown had failed to protect it.
- The Tribunal’s 1986 report on te reo Māori recommended that Māori should become an official language of New Zealand.
- The Māori Language Act 1987 followed — assented 20 July 1987. Its own long title says it is an Act “to declare the Māori language to be an official language of New Zealand, to confer the right to speak Māori in certain legal proceedings, and to establish Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori and define its functions and powers”.
- The part most resources leave out: the 1987 Act was repealed on 30 April 2016 and replaced by Te Ture mō Te Reo Māori 2016 / the Māori Language Act 2016, which now carries official-language status.
Important limit: the Waitangi Tribunal recommends. Its findings are not orders — the Crown was not legally required to act on them. Hold that in mind when you judge how much the Tribunal “achieved”.
Fact card C · Building instead of asking
1982 onwards — kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa Māori
Established by: NZHistory (Manatū Taonga) and Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Type: documented institutional history.
- Pukeatua Kōhanga Reo, in Wainuiomata, Lower Hutt, accepted its first intake of tamariki on Easter Tuesday, 13 April 1982.
- Four more kōhanga reo opened soon afterwards — in Waiwhetū, Kōkiri Seaview and Maraeroa (Wellington), and Ōrākei (Auckland).
- The movement was initiated by elders — among them Jean Puketapu and Iritana Tawhiwhirangi — after meetings of Māori leaders concerned at the decline of te reo.
- Growth was fast: within three years there were more than 300 kōhanga reo. By 1994, 14,500 children were attending more than 800 kōhanga reo.
- The first kura kaupapa Māori — Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Hoani Waititi, West Auckland — was established in 1985. Kura kaupapa Māori gained recognition in the Education Act 1989.
The question this card raises: Fact cards A and B are claims made on someone — Parliament, the Crown. Fact card C is not a request at all. Hold that difference; Part 3 is built on it.
Part 3 · Same goal, three kinds of claim
Run these four questions on each of the three moves:
- Who has the right?
- Who recognises it?
- Who can deny it?
- What gives that right authority?
Think it through
- Move 1 asked. Move 2 argued a promise had been broken. Why is that a completely different argument, even though the goal is the same? Answer in two sentences.
- Move 3 did not ask anyone. What does a group need in order to be able to do that? What does it cost them?
- The hard one, and you are allowed to disagree: is Move 3 an expression of tino rangatiratanga? Note that kōhanga reo later sought and received state funding and recognition. Does that change your answer? Write your position and your reason. There is no answer key for this question.
🪶 A note on question 3: tino rangatiratanga is not a synonym for “independence”, “sovereignty” or “Indigenous rights”, and this sheet does not define it for you. It is authority arising from te ao Māori itself, not authority granted by a state or a declaration — which is exactly why the question above is genuinely hard rather than a trick. Argue it from the evidence, and say what you cannot establish.
Part 4 · The chain
Fifteen years, six events. Complete the last column: was this a change in law, in institutions, in public opinion, or in what people could actually do? More than one is allowed.
Build your claim
Write one paragraph. Use at least two names, two dates, and one statement of what your evidence cannot establish.
Claim shape: Between 1972 and 1987, te reo Māori activism moved from ______ to ______. The clearest evidence of this is ______ (date, names). This mattered because ______. What this evidence does not establish is ______.
Kaiako note | Before you teach
What is on this sheet: named actors, one real quotation from Hana Te Hemara Jackson, the verified record of the petition, the Wai 11 claim and its outcome, the kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa milestones, the four-question analysis table, the chain from 1972 to 2016, and a claim frame. That is the complete student packet for Lesson 3.
What is deliberately NOT on this sheet: (1) no invented quotations — the only quoted voice is Hana Te Hemara Jackson’s, and it is sourced; there is no composed “voice of a protester” anywhere here, and the fact cards are labelled as fact cards, not as primary sources; (2) no definition of tino rangatiratanga; (3) no iwi affiliations for the people named, because the two authoritative sources consulted give different affiliations for Hana Te Hemara Jackson — Te Ouenuku Rene is given as Ngāti Toa because NZHistory states it. If you want students working with the petition document itself, Archives New Zealand and New Zealand Parliament both hold images of it, and that is a strong extension.
Where sources disagree: Te Ara names only two organising groups (Ngā Tamatoa and Te Reo Māori Society); NZHistory and Archives New Zealand name three. This sheet uses three. Te Ara also gives Ngā Tamatoa’s founding as 1970 in one place and “the end of the 1960s” in another, so the sheet says “around 1970”.
Print: four to five A4 pages, portrait. Part 3 and Part 4 tables are the working pages — give students room.