Would Victoria be amused?

In all discussions about the relationship between the Crown and Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi, has anyone thought to ask what Queen Victoria would think?

The idea that she would enter into a partnership with anyone, perhaps with the exception of her husband, let alone people she would have regarded as being of a different – and surely in her eyes lower – class and race, is ridiculous.

She would not be amused at that idea nor the idea that she was giving up sovereignty. That wasn’t how monarchs thought in the 19th century.

Whether or not the Māori who signed the Treaty understood the idea of sovereignty is debatable but the idea that the Crown isn’t sovereign in New Zealand today and that we’re not all equal under, and subject to, the same laws should not be.

Anything else is a recipe for division and separatism.