Jock Phillips begins his journey through our Waitangi collection by recalling an awkward encounter with a security guard at the treaty grounds. Wandering 50 years between the first film in this collection and the last, Phillips explores changing attitudes to the Treaty. Discover everything from Mike King on the treaty trail, to trench warfare, waka-building and epic drama.

Kim Hill interviews historian and writer Dr Michael King at the time of the release of his acclaimed book The Penguin History of New Zealand, in 2003 (the year before King's death). King talks about his optimism about Māori and Pākehā relations. He says one of the reasons he writes books is because "information dissolves prejudice". He offers a theory that you can have two indigenous peoples in one country - that Māori are our first people and Pākehā are our second people.

Actor Rawiri Paratene was 16 years old when he joined Māori activist group Ngā Tamatoa (Young Warriors) in the early 1970s. "Those years helped shape the rest of my life," says Paratene in this 2012 Māori TV documentary, directed by Kim Webby. The programme is richly woven with news archive from the 1970s, showing protests about land rights and the Treaty of Waitangi, and a campaign for te reo to be taught in schools. Several ex Ngā Tamatoa members — including Hone Harawira, Tame Iti and Larry Parr— are interviewed by Paratene, who also presents the documentary.

This TVNZ production screened at the end of 1989, just before the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Filmed at Government House, presenter Ian Johnstone oversees passionate kōrero as a panel of youngsters, academics and Māori and Pākehā elders debate the place of New Zealand’s founding document. Don Selwyn and Angela D’Audney explore its history, and Sir Paul Reeves begins by musing on chief Te Kemara’s famous about-turn, when, after first opposing the Treaty, he turned to Hobson and said: “How d’ye do Mr Governor”.

In 1991 six tribes took a major claim to the Waitangi Tribunal, encompassing everything from intellectual rights to management of indigenous fauna. Law professor David Williams describes Wai 262 as “the most important claim the tribunal is ever going to hear”. This backgrounder interviews key claimants from three Northland tribes. In 2011 the Tribunal’s Wai 262 report recommended major law reform, arguing for Crown and Māori to shift to a forward-thinking relationship of “mutual advantage in which, through joint and agreed action, both sides end up better off”. 

Māori Television’s award-winning news and current affairs show took its bold name from a colonial government department. This 2017 episode profiles four non-conformists: Mongrel Mob boss Rex Timu’s war on P; Raihania Tipoki's waka protest against East Coast oil surveying; Taranaki mother Tina Tupe's preparations for her own tangi; and globetrotting screenwriter David Seidler. Seidler makes an annual trip to a Tarawera cabin – he has a Kiwi son to a Māori woman – and talks about his Oscar-winning movie The King’s Speech, and his admiration for kapa haka.

This courtroom drama sets in conflict opinions about the proposed sale of a block of Māori ancestral land. The arguments are intercut with footage of the 1975 land march, and Jim Moriarty comments on proceedings as a tangata whenua conscience. The drama shows its stage origins (it was adapted by Rowley Habib from his 1976 play) but it is passionate and articulate, and is notable as the first TV drama to be written by a Māori scriptwriter. The grievances aired echoed contemporary events, particularly the Eva Rickard-led occupation of the Raglan Golf Course.

This TV drama follows a whānau taking a claim to the Waitangi tribunal, over plans by a Pākehā neighbour to build a resort on disputed land. Ngā Tohu jumps between the present day and 1839/40, when Māori chiefs were canvassed to support the Treaty of Waitangi and a settler makes an equivocal land deal with Chief Tohu (George Henare). The exploration of the Treaty's evolving kaupapa is effectively humanised by an age-old love story, and it scored multiple drama gongs at 2000's TV Awards. Director Andrew Bancroft wrote the teleplay with playwright Hone Kouka.

This documentary goes behind the scenes on New Zealand television's first historical blockbuster: 1977 George Grey biopic The Governor. Presenter Ian Johnstone looks at how the show reconstructed 19th Century Aotearoa, and handled large scale battle scenes. The footage provides a fascinating snapshot of a young industry. Also examined is The Governor's place in 1970s race politics and its revisionist ambitions. Key players interviewed include creators Keith Aberdein and Tony Isaac, and actors Don Selwyn, Corin Redgrave, Martyn Sanderson, and Terence Cooper.

The Governor was a television epic that examined the life of Governor George Grey in six thematic parts. Grey's "Good Governor" persona was undercut with laudanum, lechery and land confiscation. NZ TV's first (and only) historical blockbuster was hugely controversial, provoking a parliamentary inquiry and "test match sized" audiences. It won a 1978 Feltex Award for Best Drama. Auckland Star reviewer Barry Shaw trumpeted: "It has made Māori matter. If Pākehā now have a better understanding of the Māori point of view [...] it stems from The Governor.