This article examines the discursive production of counsellor identity and practice through the operations of colonising and postcolonial discourse in Aotearoa New Zealand. It argues that constructs of cultural safety, tino rangatiratanga and Maori sovereignty, which arose as part of the postcolonial politics of life in Aotearoa, have achieved discursive status and both enable and restrain counsellor practice. This argument is informed by research that explored the discursive production of Pakeha counsellors' practice with non-Pakeha clients. (Contains 5 notes.)