Making the Kāwanatanga Accountable for Te Tiriti: Possible Mechanisms for Fiscal Accountability

Any progress made by Indigenous peoples in advancing accountability within a settler-colony is fragile. At the time of writing, many of the processes that have recently been put in place in Aotearoa New Zealand to make the Crown accountable for te Tiriti o Waitangi are at risk. It is within this context that we finalise this report exploring possible specific and concrete accountability mechanisms for the Crown and its Tiriti obligations. This context highlights the contradiction at the heart of democratic accountability in settler colonies. That is, Crowns/States claim near-exclusive rights to revenue raising and typically use that revenue to go towards resourcing accountability mechanisms, to the limited extent that they are resourced or put in place. On the one hand, adequate resourcing is required for Indigenous self-determination that would build capacity to continue demanding accountability from the kāwanatanga. On the other hand, this cannot be achieved without holding the kāwanatanga to account concerning the resourcing of Indigenous self-determination.