The story of the Waitangi Tribunal is fascinating in itself and also raises a series of essential issues concerning (a) social memory (b) the relationship between the state and market, and (c) the connection between the global and the local. The Tribunal’s work evolved in the midst of a collision between two contradictory forces: on the one hand, a genuine political will to improve the situation for Maori; on the other, a new commitment to neo-liberal economic policies that transformed state structures and undermined the capacity to fulfil the promises generated by that political will. In effect, New Zealand was torn between the possibilities for establishing a new and more equitable social contract between Pakeha and Maori, and the formation of a new template for social policies, a template shaped primarily by a remarkably fierce determination to introduce market calculations into virtually all features of public life.
