The Waitangi Tribunal’s latest hearings delved into the historical and systemic marginalisation of Māori women – and the constitutional future their voices demand.

As the cold embrace of Hine Takurua set upon Te Upoko-o-te-ika-a-Māui, the wharenui at Te Herenga Waka Marae was warmed by the testimony, challenge and reassertion for the Mana Wāhine claim. Last week, the Waitangi Tribunal held hearings for the Mana Wāhine Kaupapa Inquiry: a landmark claim addressing the Crown’s ongoing failure to uphold the status, rights, and constitutional authority of wāhine Māori.

Heard before judge Sarah Reeves and panel members Robyn Anderson, Kim Ngarimu, Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Ruakere Hond, the Mana Wāhine inquiry centres on the enduring impacts of colonisation, patriarchy and the Crown’s exclusionary systems of power. From the appointment processes of state boards to the structure of commercial fisheries, the claim argues that wāhine Māori have been deliberately sidelined from decision-making, leadership and economic participation.

Claimant representative Natalie Coates opened with a challenge to look inward as well as out: “Acknowledging that the patriarchal ideas infiltrated our tikanga and how we conduct and order ourselves in our whānau, hapū and iwi is a necessary part of our healing journey as a people.” It was a confronting reminder that while colonisation imposed new systems, some damage manifested through the reshaping of tikanga.

Legal academic Ani Mikaere was the first witness, opening proceedings with a clear articulation of what has been lost: “Our creation stories and tikanga once upheld the mana of wāhine Māori, recognising them as leaders, protectors of whakapapa, powerful spiritual figures. Colonisation has rewritten those stories, often with misogyny, fear and racism layered over our own truths.”

Across four days of presentations and cross-examination, a diverse group of lawyers, historians, researchers, kuia and claimants took the stand. The hearings wove together a narrative that was both historic and current, doctrinal and lived.

The claim traces its lineage to one woman in particular – Mira Szászy. As the sole wahine commissioner on the Māori Fisheries Commission in 1990, her exclusion from subsequent appointments was a catalyst for Wai 381. Several witnesses described her as having “grandparented” both the fisheries settlement and the Mana Wāhine claim. Ripeka Evans, an original claimant, told the tribunal: “The opportunities for wāhine Māori weren’t lost. They simply weren’t presented.”

Much of the testimony outlined how the Crown’s systems are structurally incapable of recognising mana wāhine on their own terms. Tribunal veteran and claimant representative Annette Sykes framed the inquiry as “a constitutional moment”. “This is the first time the tribunal has been called to confront the Crown’s breaches through the distinct and intersectional lens of wāhine Māori.”

That lens includes land and resource alienation, gendered violence, the denial of political agency and systemic exclusion. According to historian Aroha Harris, the doctrine of discovery and the English common law model erased not just indigenous rights, but indigenous women. Tina Ngata highlighted the stark link between the two: “The doctrine of discovery replaced our systems of sacredness with a hierarchy. The more white, and the more male you were, the more sacred. The further you were from that, the more disposable.”

Carla Houkamau, deputy dean of the University of Auckland Business School, spoke about the 1989 and 1992 Treaty of Waitangi fisheries settlements, focussing on Mira Szászy’s extensive qualifications and governance expertise, and her inexplicable exclusion from the 1992 Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission, observing: “Commercial success cannot erase the exclusion experienced by wāhine Māori during the fisheries settlement negotiations.”

But the hearings showed that wāhine Māori are not just participating – they are leading in the way. The final day was dedicated to testimony from the Māori Women’s Welfare League, led by current president Hope Tupara. The league, with its ECOSOC status at the UN and more than 70 years of intergenerational organising, emerged as a central vehicle for mana wāhine.

That unity was tested over decades of Crown interface. Tupara told the tribunal: “They don’t value our mātauranga. The Crown doesn’t understand our way of thinking, because it doesn’t operate that way.” Several former presidents outlined how Crown processes had repeatedly sidelined the league from major policy decisions. One spoke of the “opportunity cost” of the Crown’s insistence on engagement with newer pan-Māori bodies: “Despite our leadership in communities, we were increasingly outside the consultation room.”

A core focus of the next steps is remedies. Many witnesses called for changes to appointment structures, constitutional recognition of mana wāhine, and support for pathways rooted in whakapapa rather than CVs. Indigenous rights lawyer Dayle Takitimu urged the tribunal to consider the fundamental shift needed: “Wāhine Māori have inherent mana and authority embedded into us. The Crown have causal responsibility in the disruption of our traditional stories, our traditional curricula, our history.”

Barrister Natalie Coates reinforced that any future framework must move beyond individual fixes: “We’re talking about the wellbeing of wāhine Māori being inseparable from the communities from which we come from… It’s not a zero sum struggle, it’s a return to collective health and justice.”

The claimants were also clear that this was not about slotting women into existing colonial frameworks. Rather, as Mikaere said, it is about restoring a reality that existed long before colonisation – one where mana was understood as shared, relational and grounded in whakapapa. “It is only when women achieve mana recognition that the Māori people will rise up,” she said.

Last week marked the first round of hearings in a long process. However, for many present at Te Herenga Waka, it was also a reclamation. The Wai 2700 hearings will continue later this year.

This story previously contained a inaccurate quote attributed to Carla Houkamau that has been amended.