O’Sullivan’s paper claims that Māori have self-determination rights as indigenous people, not just needs as citizens. Such a claim requires a normative theory of indigenous self-determination; but such theory has many compelling problems, when it views self-determination rights as held within a state. Most obviously, indigenous claims for self-determination rights within the state are often seen to be trumped by contemporary distributive justice theories. Also, historical injustice and structural inequality arguments are arguments for self-determination by secession not self-determination. But when arguments for indigenous rights are shorn of claims of structural inequalities within the state or historical injustice, they look like aristocratic privileges.