The Problems with Identifying Māori as Treaty Partners

In my experience, people are often uncomfortable with the view that Māori have special rights because of the Treaty. Of course there are many problems with this view, but one is that treaty partners, by definition, are between nations rather than between races/ethnic groups/cultures. In workshops I find that participants are fine with the idea that groups have different rights based on political status (e.g., citizens compared to tourists), but I haven't been able to convince Treaty educator colleagues that we should shift our language about the Crown's Treaty partners from Māori to rangatira. I'd like to explore why this is the case with other Treaty educators.