Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.
He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).
The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.
Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.
Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.
Love the song but how can a country claim to be a Democracy when it works to overthrow elected Governments (thinking Egypt for example) or supports a country that rules over millions of disenfranchised people living in squalor (thinking Israel). If this is Democracy who cares who the ruler is. As for Obama, well he was just business as usual (thinking Yemen and Libya). But Obama did at least show what he thought of Democracy when he flew to the UK on the eve of the Brexit vote and threatened the voters with grievous consequences if they voted to leave.
If only it was 2008 again. Aithough the monster has been ousted, I fear Biden doesn’t quite cut it.