Press

UPFRONT: MATT NIPPERT TALKS TO DR CLAUDIA ORANGE

12 March 2005

Treaty expert and Te Papa Historian

Claudia Orange timed it right when she turned her PhD in history on the Treaty into a book. It was 1987, and Geoffrey Palmer was laying the foundation for Treaty settlements. Eighteen years on, that book, The Treaty of Waitangi, still sells at the rate of one a day. She has gone on to edit five volumes of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, and last year was appointed director of history and Pacific culture at Te Papa. The Listener called at her Wellington office for a chat on flags and what she's got stashed in the basement.

Te Papa hosted some lively public lectures last month. Do people really turn out to hear more about the Treaty?

We've been overwhelmed by their success; an overflow crowd on the first night, nearly 400 on the second, and pretty much the same for the one on the Treaty and the constitution. People are just interested.

About constitutional matters? Can you say dry? Well, you'd think it was a dry subject. I suppose in a democracy a lot of people just want to know "how are we governed if we don't have a constitution? Should we have one?" Americans think constitutions are so important, and Britain and New Zealand are countries that don't. So, how the devil do we work so well? Or do we?

The real national debate seems to be over the flag. We intend at Te Papa to have an evening on the flag. It probably is time when we should think hard about the message that we give other nations by the virtue of our flag. There are a lot of people, though, who would be very reluctant to let our traditional flag go. So, there probably has to be a moment in time, and I'm not sure when the right one is, when there would be enough of a groundswell and consensus of opinion that any government in power would feel confident to change it.

Should all change be driven by public groundswell, or should we sometimes expect our political leaders to, well, lead? When capital punishment was abolished, it wasn't a universally popular move. Well, the response was mixed, actually.

But over time it's become much more accepted. You and I are presumably not affected by capital punishment, but we are affected by the flag. It's something that applies to each person in New Zealand. I think it's a different matter – and you can't drag the crowd with you. After all, a flag is something you want an emotional response to. As well as making a statement about identifying the country, you also want people to feel good: that is our flag, that represents our lives, our place.

A lot of proposed designs have used ferns and a black background – do you think it's a good idea to fly a rugby jersey from the mast? I don't know, it depends what the crowd really wants. Maybe there's another generation coming through that identifies with that, but is that what you want overseas? On the football field, people go "wow" for black, but in a more normal cross-spectrum it may be that you need a bit more colour. Black, white and red has a very New Zealand, Maori, association.

You've been at Te Papa for a year now. What have you done so far? I've been pushing to do something with our huge collections. To give you an idea, compare what we have on display – 10,500 items – and in total we've got over 100,000. We've got a New Zealand stamp collection – the most valuable in the world – that New Zealand Post gave us. We've got 13,000 items of dress; hats, shoes, you name it – costumes.

You should throw a fancy dress ball. Yes, we could, a marvellous fancy dress ball! They really are quite fantastic, much better than Costume Cave. We've got a huge Pacific Collection – 13,000 items. A big furniture collection, medals, works on paper. We have a whole set of rolling stock of NZ Rail, which was put together by a person in their backyard in Epsom, Auckland.

Moving trains down from Auckland? We also have the most weird things, too. We have a stationary steam engine, we have a 1903 Peugeot car. We have a 1930s caravan. We have an Olympic skiff. We have NZL32 in our collection – and I'm responsible!

Late last year you re-released your Illustrated History of the Treaty of Waitangi. Are you dumbing down your work, or cashing in on the US-driven craze for graphic novels? The first one, in 1987, was basically a cut-down PhD. Although I write in a relatively straightforward style, I was aware that some people were put to sleep by it – I'm sure feeling good that at least they'd had a go at reading something on the Treaty. The second book compacts the 19th century into four chapters, and adds another four on the 20th, and one on the 21st. And some of the photos are marvellous, they tell the story in its entirety.

Winston Peters has a private member's bill that would remove all Treaty references from legislation. Will this erase our race relations problems? He's jumping on a bandwagon – it was Don [Brash] who started this. Don didn't do too badly in the polls. A lot of New Zealanders reacted so strongly because he was saying things that they'd been saying – and they wanted to know more, and were fed up with hearing a lot about the Treaty – but often [they were] not being able to put flesh and blood on the policies and activities that were being reported in the press. The kind of media reporting you often see is sometimes quite balanced, but the headline will be a stirrer. New Zealanders have a great sense of justice and fairness, but they do want to be informed, they do want to ask questions and they do want answers that will stand up. And then leave it to them to make decisions.