Rethinking policing in Aotearoa New Zealand: decolonising lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic

Notwithstanding the global praise directed to New Zealand's approach to COVID-19, the pandemic has intensified harms and inequalities in many areas of national life. The racialised, classed and gendered inequities that percolate through this settler-state have intensified, especially within criminal justice settings. At the same time, the pandemic has illustrated other opportunities for protective and just measures - not least in terms of how Maori asserted self-determination by establishing checkpoints to prevent potential carriers of COVID-19 from reaching rural Maori communities. This article shows how these responses highlighted the fundamental limits of state protection for Maori on health or law and order grounds but they also offered pathways for greater policing autonomy for Maori. From here, and drawing on the example of Watene Maori (Maori Wardens), the article considers how self-policing within and among Maori communities might be more clearly determined and actioned in ways aligned to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi).