Story: Ngā māngai – Māori representation

The Scottish-born, Māori-speaking government official and politician Donald McLean is one of the men in the lower left of this picture, which shows a hui at Whakairo pā, Napier, around 1863. In that year McLean was appointed government land agent in Hawke's Bay, and three years later he became the area's MP. The following year, 1867, McLean introduced a bill to create four Māori seats in Parliament. According to his son Douglas, McLean believed in a future when 'the Maori race might become as one with the European, governed by the same laws, employed in the same occupations, using one common language, and sharing alike with the Europeans all the benefit of civilization'.