Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti KahuLand Claims Report for June 2015
1. Offer from Crown to fully and finally extinguish Ngāti Kahu’s claims
2. Progress with publication of Deed of Partial Settlement
3. Research on Claimant views of the treaty settlement process.
4. Ngāti Kahu Trust Board Litigation Against Ngāti Kahu Mortgage Services
5. National Iwi Chairs Forum – review of Te Ture Whenua Māori
Summary
· We are in the High Court on 23-25 July for a judicial review of the Waitangi Tribunal’s report declining to give us binding recommendations.
· A research project on claimant views of the treaty settlement process is indicating that Ngāti Kahu’s views of it are shared throughout the country.
· We attended the government’s hui on their review of Te Ture Whenua Māori.
· Bill Hamilton will attend the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ meeting in Geneva in July to deliver the Monitoring Mechanism’s report.
1. Offer from Crown to fully and finally extinguish Ngāti Kahu’s claims
While we await the decision and directions of three marae on the government’s offer we are in the High Court. Our application to judicially review the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision not to give us binding recommendations will now be heard on 23-25 June in the High Court in Wellington. The High Court’s decision to quash the Tribunal’s report refusing binding recommendations for Mangatū Incorporation is very helpful for us.
2. Progress with Publication of the Deed of Partial Settlement
We continue to await a response from Huia Publishers.
3. Research on Claimant views of the treaty settlement process.
Since December 2014 I have been leading a research team looking at Māori views of the treaty settlements process. We have now been through all the thousands of submissions received by the Māori Affairs Select Committee on the thirty or so settlements legislated between 1989 and 2014. They demonstrate that, contrary to government propaganda, there is almost no support amongst Māori for the settlement policy and process and that all the objections that Ngāti Kahu have expressed and many more besides have already been expressed by whānau, hapū and iwi throughout the country. Having considered these we will now started talking with those involved in the process and asking them to tell their stories.
4. Ngāti Kahu Trust Board v Ngāti Kahu Mortgage Services Ltd
We have asked representatives of the Trust Board to attend our hui on 27 June so that the out of court settlement in this matter can be progressed.
5. National Iwi Chairs Forum
As agreed at the last National Iwi Chairs Forum hui, we attended the government hui on the review of Te Ture Whenua Māori (Māori Land Act) on 5 June. It was held at Waimanoni marae. I presented and tabled the seven resolutions passed by the Forum in August last year that have been ignored in the Bill for the new legislation (see minutes of our June 6 hui). The hui confirmed those resolutions and asked that the date for commenting on the Bill be extended to the end of August. It was moved to 7 August.
The Monitoring Mechanism set up by National Iwi Chairs Forum is sending Bill Hamilton (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngā Rauru) to report to the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Geneva in July. He will report on the government’s lack of compliance with and refusal to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Ngāti Kahu leads the Monitoring Mechanism and so Bill will attend under our mana. (I am unable to attend this year because of my teaching commitments at the University.)
Professor Margaret Mutu
19 June 2015