April 2011

Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu

Land Claims Report for April 2011

1.    First Draft of the Ngāti Kahu Deed of Partial Settlement sent to Minister 1 April

2.    Initial Crown indication of response 14^th April

3.    Letter to other four iwi 8^th April on finalizing shared interests

4.    Hui with other four iwi 19^th April

5.    Appendix – List of Contents of the Ngāti Kahu Deed of Partial Settlement

Summary

Your Treaty claims negotiations team has put in some very, very long hours in the last month, finalizing the first draft of our deed of partial settlement and sending it off to the Minister of Treaty Negotiations. Indications are that we can expect the Minister to visit us some time in May so that we can explain our deed to him. We have also been in communication with the other four iwi of Te Hiku o Te Ika.

We have discovered that, contrary to advice pressured onto us for more than six months now, none of the other iwi is ready to settle, three have not even started their deeds of settlement and the fourth has started but not progressed far. It appears that the Crown has the four iwi tied up in meetings with government and local body officials which have distracted them from completing their settlements.

1.    First Draft of the Ngāti Kahu Deed of Partial Settlement sent to Minister 1 April

We sent the first draft of our Ngāti Kahu Deed of Partial Settlement – Te Hakapūmautanga o Te Mana o Ngā Hapū o Ngāti Kahu to the Minister of Treaty Negotiations, Chris Finlayson, on 1 April. We gave the Minister two months to make written submissions on it because it is more than 700 pages long. We intend to consider those submissions when we receive them to see if any changes are to be made to our draft.

Purpose and Outline of Deed

The primary purpose of the deed is too provide as complete a record as possible of how the six generations of Ngāti Kahu from 1840 to this day have tried to prevent Pākehā lawlessness, what we have been able to achieve and the responsibilities we are passing on to the following generations of Ngāti Kahu in respect of

·         who Ngāti Kahu is and the extent of our mana and tino rangatiratanga;

·         who the hapū of Ngāti Kahu are and their kōrero;

·         the principles, values and laws laid down by our ancestors by which we live;

·         who the British Crown is and the nature of our relationship with her(/him) as agreed with our tūpuna and set out in Te Hakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tīreni, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;

·         a lengthy account of the atrocities committed by the Crown and Pākehā immigrants since the 1800s as they laid false claims to and then seized Ngāti Kahu lands, seas, fisheries, flora, fauna, waterways, airways, minerals and other natural resources, waged war against our language and tried to destroy the highly specialised knowledge we hold of our world;

·         details of how to fix the damage done by the Crown – what is required to fully and finally settle the grievances of Ngāti Kahu;

·         the partial nature of the current Crown offer of settlement;

·         the Crown’s apology and guarantee to cease and never again breach Te Tiriti o Waitangi;

·         schedules of lands within the rohe of each hapū for which the Crown is now relinquishing its claims and transferring control back to Ngāti Kahu;

·         the statutory boards that will manage some of those lands including Maungataniwha and Te Oneroa-ā-Tōhē;

·         how the previously state-held forest lands, Te Hiku o Te Ika forest (previously Aupōuri forest) and Ōtangaroa forest, will be managed jointly with other iwi;

·         how Rangiāniwaniwa (the airport and kura) will be jointly managed by Ngāti Kahu and Ngāi Takoto;

·         how wāhi tapu on land currently occupied by tauiwi will be protected;

·         place names to be corrected on Pākehā maps;

·         the initial monetary contribution being made by the Crown to the Ngāti Kahu Lands Fund and the ransom being demanded out of that Fund by the Crown in respect of our lands;

·         the governance structures and constitutions of Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu and the Ngāti Kahu Land Holding Trust.

I’ve included the list of contents at the end of this report to give some idea of how these matters are covered.

Tidying Up and Revising Various Sections

Once we had couriered the first draft off we started going back through it, tidying up and then revising some sections, and adding in more technical legal matters to do with transferring title once the Crown has relinquished its claims to specific areas of land. We are continuing to add kōrero into each of the hapū sections as they come in and it has been really helpful to have hapū members checking and revising their own kōrero.

The more legally oriented sections (which we are going to try to translate into comprehensible English) cover Ngāti Kahu Statutory Board lands (ex-DoC lands not fully transferred), Te Hiku o Te Ika forest lands (previously known as Aupōuri State Forest lands), Rangiāniwaniwa (the kura and airport lands) and the Ōtangaroa forest lands. For these we will have to have agreement from our neighbouring iwi before they can be finalized. We will start drafting a similar section on Te Oneroa-ā-Tohe once we’ve reached agreement with the other iwi on it.

We are continuing to work on this draft and plan to send a tidied up first draft to the Minister in the next few days. A copy of the Deed is at the office for people to look at (it’s too big to email).

2.      Initial Crown indication of response 14^th April

Pat Snedden reported on the initial Crown indication of response in a brief meeting with Te Kani Williams on 14^th April.

Some aspects of our deed problematic for the Crown

Pat’s advice to the Crown has been to take a very measured approach. The reason for this is that what is provided for in our deed is clearly well outside of anything the Crown have ever seen or done. In addition the redress proposed in the Deed goes well beyond what is contained in our AIP and the Te Hiku AIP. Further the Crown thinks the whole issue around the settlement being partial is extremely problematic.

Deed takes a Principled Approach and Should be Taken Seriously

All of that said, Pat has said that he has started to read it and what is clear in his view is that there is a very principled approach which Ngati Kahu has taken and there can be no question that Ngati Kahu have interests across the board (which appear to have been expanded by virtue of the strength of the Paatu influence). He says that he was struck by the depth of thought which has been put into the drafting and has recommended to Finlayson that he should not be dismissive or respond in writing (as invited) but to in fact come up to Ngati Kahu and hear it from Ngati Kahu themselves and seek an understanding of the iwi viewpoint before attempting to respond. He recognises the intellectual input into what has been provided in our draft and whilst it is challenging, he considers that the Crown should and must engage in it. Pat is suggesting that the Minister himself engage directly with Ngati Kahu on this.

Recommended Minister and Ngāti Kahu Meet

Ultimately Pat was suggesting a meeting directly with the Minister in the first week of May. We have indicated to Pat we will meet with the Minister on Friday 27 May at home if he can make it then.

3.      Letter to other four iwi 8^th April

Matters Outstanding and Needing Completion before Settlement

On 8 April we sent a letter to each of the other four iwi of Te Hiku O Te Ika and a separate one to the Minister reiterating our position that Te Hiku Forum now no longer formally exists and reiterating Ngāti Kahu’s position on mana whenua, Aupōuri forest, Te Oneroa-ā-Tōhe, Kaitāia, lands administered by the Department of Conservation, and customary fisheries. All, except the last of these matters, had been previously set out in a memorandum to each of the four iwi in December 2010. We emphasized the urgency of sorting out issues of mana whenua upfront and immediately so that forest and beach matters could be successfully addressed and agreed between us. We indicated that having finished our deed of partial settlement, we were now ready to re-engage with the other iwi, but that the first matter dealt with had to be mana whenua. And we asked them once again to respond. We were working on the advice from both the Crown and media interviews of the four iwi grouping that they were all ready to settle and the only thing holding them up was us.

No Response so Contact Each Iwi and Arrange Hui

When none of the four iwi had responded after a week (but the Crown had), we rang each of them asking for individual meetings just to discuss mana whenua issues. While Ngāi Takoto and Ngāti Kurī initially agreed, Te Aupōuri declined to meet until after Easter, and Te Rarawa insisted on a five iwi meeting of Te Hiku Forum. We refused to attend a purported Te Hiku Forum meeting but agreed to meet all four together at Tātai Hono marae in Auckland. Just hours before the meeting was scheduled we received a letter saying the four iwi would only meet us at a hotel in Mangere. We decided that the issues we needed to meet them about were too important for them to be allowed play avoidance games, so we shifted our hui to the Mangere venue. For any whānau who turned up expecting a meeting at Tātai Hono marae that evening after we’d left, please accept my apologies.

4.      Hui with other four iwi 19^th April

Well attended by four of the five iwi

The hui was well attended by ourselves and Ngāi Takoto. All the negotiators for Te Aupōuri and Ngāti Kurī were present. Te Rarawa’s chairman stayed only briefly, and their CEO arrived half way through the meeting. Te Rarawa’s lawyer attended the entire meeting.

The meeting was cordial and there was no evidence of the animosity we had seen previously. In the mihimihi, Tīmoti Flavell put our position very clearly that now that we had completed our deed of partial settlement, we were returning to speak with our whanaunga about mana whenua, the forest, the beach and other shared interests.

Only four of 33 sections in our deed we cannot complete

We could not discern from the responses to the mihi where the other iwi had reached with their settlements. So we pointed out that now that we had drafted our deed, of the 33 sections it contained, there were just four we could not complete without the four iwi and we needed their help to complete them.

In order to complete the four sections we had to first focus on mana whenua. So I went through the part of our letter sent to them nearly two weeks earlier, about finalizing the mana whenua process and getting on with hui that would allow the mana whenua of each iwi to be determined.

Angry reponse – Ngāti Kahu far ahead of the other iwi

Te Aupōuri responded first and were angry – although the chairman of their newly formed Rūnanga Nui o Te Aupōuri, Raymond Subritzky, was very diplomatic. He told me off for coming and asking them to deal with something that they hadn’t even considered. He said it was unfair that Ngāti Kahu should expect the other iwi to help to finish our deed when Ngāti Kahu was obviously miles ahead of everyone else and their iwi hadn’t even started. He told me off for coming and dictating to them about finishing our deed.

Ngāti Kahu Delighted and Relieved – Need to Sort Out Mana Whenua

We were all delighted and very relieved to hear confirmation of what Te Kani and Bernadette had been advising us – that Ngāti Kahu was, in fact, a long way ahead of all the other iwi and not holding up anyone. However I responded to Te Aupōuri that for the past six months Ngāti Kahu had been accused repeatedly and publicly of holding all the other iwi up because they were all ready to settle. As such we assumed that everyone must have completed their deeds of settlement and therefore only needed to sort the final four issues that we needed to sort out. Raymond confirmed that was not the case and repeated that they hadn’t even started. I immediately responded that Ngāti Kahu would not subject the other iwi to the pressure we had been subjected to and that we were happy to wait until they were ready to finalise those sections in their deeds of settlement. But in the meantime we asked if we could discuss mana whenua nevertheless.

Mana Whenua Not a Priority for Other Iwi – Crown Sets Their Priorities

Each of the iwi said mana whenua was not a priority for them. One said it was not important. Instead they talked of the priorities set down by the Crown that they are locked into. It seems that they are all heavily involved in detailed discussions with a range of officials from different government departments. As such, two iwi told us to forget mana whenua – it was too time-consuming and we’d never sort it out.

Mana Whenua is Core to All Our Claims – Must be Addressed

We indicated that couldn’t happen – and that mana whenua issues had to be addressed because they lay at the very core of all our claims. We undertook to contact each of them to discuss specific mana whenua issues.

Only Ngāti Kahu Speaks for Ngāti Kahu

We also told them that no-one speaks for Ngāti Kahu but Ngāti Kahu and they are not to negotiate settlement of lands in Ngāti Kahu’s territory without Ngāti Kahu being there. We reminded them that Ngāti Kahu deals only with ministers or Pat Snedden, not with officials.

Crown Obstructing Progress of Other Iwi

Unless the other iwi can free themselves up from the bind the Crown has got them into, they will not be able get on with their own deeds of settlement. Even if they allow the Crown to draft their deeds for them it will still take a very long time. At present, it appears that the Crown is obstructing the progress of the other iwi and effectively preventing them from finalizing their deeds of settlements.

Professor Margaret Mutu

21 April 2011

Te Hakapūmautanga o te Mana o ngā Hapū o Ngāti Kahu