Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Link between research and indigenous peoples' day - HRC

Updated at 6:43 am on 9 August 2012

The Human Rights Commission says there's an indirect link between 9 August being International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, and research it's doing on rangatiratanga or self determination.

The commission wants to find out what people think rangatiratanga means today, compared with the understanding by Maori chiefs in 1840, when they signed the Treaty of Waitangi

The United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007.

Treaty kaiwhakarite (manager) Bill Hamilton says two years ago the New Zealand Government supported the declaration, which includes some international standards used to describe what is essentially self determination, that could be usefully looked at to see how applicable they are to New Zealand.

Mr Hamilton says the commission is consulting widely on what people's understanding is of rangatiratanga, and has five questions on its website it wants answered.

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