Framing Maori Affairs issues within a needs discourse is the second means by which the Aotearoa New Zealand state has promoted its goal of national cohesion and thus contained the self-determining desires of Maori. A focus on needs is a major characteristic of the political discourse of welfare-states founded on Anglo-Saxon traditions. In prioritising a residualist approach to social welfare and policy, this needs focus simply provides an 'ambulance at the bottom of the cliff (Boston 1992:2-3). As a result, policy tends to be concerned with the symptoms, rather than the causes, of socio-economic disadvantage (see Parata 1 994:40) .
Poverty is traditionally conceptualised as the most important of these symptoms and thus regarded as the central issue of social policy. In such a context, poverty is defmed as a state or condition (pertaining to a lack of resources or experience of deprivation) that must can be eliminated through a 'taming' of the 'poverty-stricken'. Policy is thus framed in a way that considers the 'poor' to be
members of a culture of idleness exhibiting moral, cultural and behavioural deficiencies. The 'solution' is to teach the poor basic economic skills and to inject them with a 'work ethic' so they can participate fully in the labour market (Bowring 2000:308).
Applying a needs-based discourse to Maori, the policy of Aotearoa governments has historically defined indigenous culture as an explanation for poverty amongst Maori. Blame has thus been placed upon the cultural traits of communalism and tribalism, along with Maori dispossession from resources, cultural deprivation, inadequate human capital related to education or housing and 'personality flaws' such as laziness (Fleras and Spoonley 1999: 1 1 1) . Belief in these theories of cultural deprivation or deficit has been supported by the way in which 'special' initiatives, such as multiculturalism and biculturalism, have not radically altered the low socio economic status of Maori (see Fleras and Elliott 1999 : 1 72; Smith 1999 : 9 1 ) .
In blaming the poor positioning of Maori as a group on Maori individuals or culture, successive governments have ignored the effects of colonisation, institutional racism and, more recently, the neo-liberal restructuring that many western economies have experienced (see Fleras and Spoonley 1999: 1 3 1 ; see Smith 1 999 :90) . Thus, the application of a needs discourse has failed to provide long-term 'solutions' to the downward-spiral that many Maori face in terms of socio-economic status (see Fleras and Spoonley 1999 : 1 3 1) . This is the case, even though the 'closing' of socio-economic 'gaps' between Maori and non-Maori has been the central goal of Maori Affairs policy for many years.
In addition, the government sector has continued to hold the power to act as 'expert' and thus define the needs of Maori. Drake (200 1 :97) has indicated that in order for needs to be fulfIlled, intervention that effects change only at the level of individuals is insufficient, for it is also necessary to alter environments and redistribute power so that the disadvantaged can be empowered. One of the main routes to such empowerment, which cannot be given but must be achieved by disadvantaged groups or individuals themselves, is to challenge prevailing definitions of needs, which tend to be founded on prevailing norms and values. Maori have long stressed that government definitions of poverty fail to acknowledge deprivation in regards to intangible, non-material property, such as language (Cheyne, 0' Brien and Belgrave 2000: 57-58; see Chapter Five) . Yet, alternative interpretations of Maori needs, while gaining greater recognition in recent years, have traditionally been ignored or marginalised.
Even more problematic is that the framing of Maori by a needs discourse has diverted attention from the rights-based discourse, founded upon internationally recognised indigenous and Treaty rights, through which Maori have attempted to advance their claims upon the state (see Chapter Three). Needs arise from disadvantages or material deficits caused by injustice, especially a denial of rights. However, a needs-discourse is concerned only with the domestic, dependent rights of citizenship. These gain their specific meanings in any partiCUlar setting according to
the influence of adjacent concepts such as liberty, equality and justice and thus depend on the social and political contours of the state (see Drake 200 1 : 84-87;95-96) . It has already been noted that a traditional citizenship discourse has been used to promote a form of national cohesion that suppresses Maori nationalist claims. Defined as 'disadvantaged citizens' rather than as having 'special status', such a focus on citizenship rights has assumed that once disadvantage has been alleviated (through improvement in access to opportunities or outcomes) then Maori individuals should be treated the same way as other citizens.
Nevertheless, successive Aotearoa New Zealand governments have also made increasing recognition of Maori as indigenous peoples and as Treaty partners. Given that the Treaty was originally a device to secure the legitimacy of Crown rule over Maori, this has opened the way for a questioning of the state's integrity and its conflation with nation. As a result, governments (particularly those led by the National Party) and their officials have deliberately attempted to protect state legitimacy by ignoring, marginalising or reinterpeting the rights discourse promoted by Maori when claiming resources and the right to exercise greater self-determination. Such an endeavour has been achieved by two major means.
First, although the Treaty claims settlement process has focused largely on Article Two, the standard governmental and legal position has favoured the English language version of the Treaty, where the term 'kawanatanga' in Article One is translated as 'sovereignty'. This interpretation allows Maori special status but suggests that the British Crown alone held the power to govern, limiting the notion of tino rangatiratanga to a form of property rights (Wickliffe and Dickson 2000:44) . It thus ignores the Maori-Ianguage Treaty, which suggests that Article One granted the British Crown the rights of governance but only in balance with the continuing possession of tino rangatiratanga (the autonomy and control to be self-determining) by Maori as noted in Article Two. This latter article is commonly interpreted by contemporary Maori as indicating that their rights to self-determination were not extinguished. Thus, the signing chiefs expected to continue governing themselves, although they did cede to
the British Crown the right to govern all present and future colonists (O'Malley and Hill 2000:23).
Limiting Article Two to property rights by situating debate within a pluralistic common law, successive governments have avoided discussion around the international recognition of indigenous rights to self-determination and protected the absolute sovereignty of the state (Jackson 1 995:252) . For example, in the mid- 1 990s, National's Minister for Treaty Settlements, Douglas Graham, made a surprising admission (which was later endorsed by Prime Minister, Jim Bolger) that two laws exist in Aotearoa New Zealand because Maori continue to hold exclusive customary rights. However, Graham stressed that only government could set the limits of, and establish agendas in relation to, Treaty settlements, thus indicating that the notion of absolute sovereignty remained undisturbed by recognition of customary property rights (Fleras and Spoonley 1999:5). In addition, Treaty settlements have been promoted not just as reparation for past injustice, but as a means for achieving distributive justice through assisting Maori autonomous economic, social and cultural development. This has taken the focus away from the settlements as recognition of Maori indigenous rights and placed debate back within a discourse in which Maori must be 'helped' to meet their needs as disadvantaged citizens through provision of services for Maori (Kiro
1 998:293;298) .
Second, in addition to containing the rights discourse as it is represented in the settlement of claims made under the Treaty, Aotearoa New Zealand governments have also explicitly denied that discussion of Article Two is appropriate in the social policy arena. In outlining the attitudes of National-led governments to the application of the Treaty in social policy, Barrett and Connolly-Stone ( 1 998:29) have suggested that National's stance, at the best of times, lacked consistency and, at worst, failed to exist at all. Social policy, by default, was correlated with the domestic, dependent and universal rights of citizenship which were guaranteed to Maori in Article Three of the Treaty of Waitangi. This led to the continued marginalisation of Maori proposals for
self-determination involving a form of strategic 'exclusion' and shared governance at the national level.
The late 1 990s, however, saw the government sector under increasing pressure from Maori to remedy this situation. The Waitangi Tribunal's Te Whanau 0 Waipareira Report ( 1998) recommended that tino rangatiratanga (as mentioned in Article Two of the Maori-language Treaty) be regarded as applicable to social policy debate. If implemented, such a recommendation would have had major implications on government's responsibilities and the way that these might be carried out (Parata 1994:40-4 1 ; Barrett and Connolly-Stone 1998:4 1 ) . Nevertheless, the National-led government, like its predecessors, continued to repeat the same mistake made by the Crown in the nineteenth century when failing to address the need for balance between Article One's kawanatanga with Article Two's tino rangatiratanga (Brookfield 1 999: 1 70-
1 7 1 ; 1 83) .
In summary, it is argued that Aotearoa New Zealand governments have historically practiced a form of 'welfare colonialism' (see Pearson 200 la: 1 26) . Government rhetoric, particularly in recent years, has suggested that Maori-defmed perspectives have been incorporated into policy. But, in practice, a Maori flavour was simply added to traditional, needs-based policies and programmes which continued to be measured on an individual basis and against 'norms' that did not reflect Maori culture or society. Thus, in co-opting the rights-based discourse promoted by Maori in relation to the Treaty and 'self-determination', governments translated it so that it was compatible with liberal notions of individualism, citizenship and the economic re distributive concerns of the needs discourse (Jackson 1995:252) . These facts support Fleras and Spoonley's ( 1 999: 1 1 0) argument that: "on balance, Maori [Affairs] policy can be interpreted as simultaneously advancing and diminishing rangatiratanga rights, thus revealing how competing objectives and hidden agendas may hinder as much as help".