Section 2: Colonisation and Te Tiriti o Waitangi 32. The Guidelines outline what the right to a decent home means in the unique context of Aotearoa. This context includes colonisation, the systematic dispossession of Māori from their land, ongoing impacts of colonisation and Te Tiriti. This section briefly highlights this context, as well as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Key additional resources on these issues are provided in Appendix 4. 35. After most of the land was taken from tangata whenua, colonial housing policies made it difficult or impossible for Māori to access home ownership. They were hampered in their efforts to maintain or build traditional forms of housing on communally owned land (papakāinga). As individuals, they struggled to access adequate urban housing. They faced racism in both access to mortgage home ownership and the private rental market. 33. It is impossible to implement the human right to a decent home in Aotearoa today without recognising its colonial history and the lasting impacts of colonisation on Māori rights and wellbeing. The arrival of Pākehā settlers resulted in colonisation and the systematic dispossession of Māori from their land. Generations of policies disenfranchised tangata whenua and destroyed their traditional ways of living, including communal land ownership. 36. Today, some local and national government rules and practices, as well as Pākehā legal assumptions about individual ownership and denial of rangatiratanga (authority), continue to impede Māori communal and other housing initiatives. Māori have lower rates of home ownership (28%) compared to New Zealand Europeans (57%). Colonial and discriminatory policies were designed to be inequitable and their impact on the housing of Māori persists to this day. At the end of her visit to Aotearoa in 2020, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing likened this to “a dark shadow that hangs over the country”.15 34. Taken by violence, confiscation and purchase, tangata whenua lost control of 95% of their land. Purchases often breached Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Native Land Court converted customary collective ownership into individual title, an alien concept to tangata whenua and at odds with tikanga Māori. This process accelerated Māori alienation from their land. Today, land collectively owned by Māori accounts for less than 5% of Aotearoa’s total land area. 20 Human Rights Commission