Mana Ahuriri signed an agreement in principle on December 19, 2013, that includes financial redress of $19.5-million. The Hawke’s Bay Airport posted a net worth of $16.6-million and annual revenue of $4.01-million in its 2014 annual report. (1)
A 50 percent shareholding presumably would be worth $8.3-million on current valuation with an annual 50 percent share of profit in a near-enough-to risk-free investment in which Mana Ahuriri would not have to do anything other than pocket the cash.
Mana Ahuriri already receives $30,000 a year for about 10ha leased to the Hawke’s Bay Airport.
Claimant Heitia Hiha told the Hawke's Bay Today last year that Maori engaging European settlers and the Crown in settlement of their land in the mid-19th century believed they were entering agreements of shared development, and implied that the area where the airport is located was "taken away". (2)
But that area was part of Te Whanganui a Orotu lagoon that became land during the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake.
Neither was the area "taken away". Three hundred Maori signed the deed that transferred the 107,242ha Ahuriri block to the colonial government for £1500 in 1851.
The Ahuriri deed said: “Now we have in our assemblies sighed over wept over and bidden farewell to and solemnly consented entirely to give up these lands descended to us from our ancestors with their seas rivers waters timber and all appertaining to the said land to Victoria the Queen of England for ever.”
The airport was not listed as such among the potential commercial redress properties included in the agreement in principle.
A bit of digging was required when a sharp-eyed person noticed the continued absence of two of the four airport directors and wondered whether directorships had been offered to Mana Ahuriri along with the name-change deal.
That raised the question whether the government was planning to transfer their shares in the airport to Mana Ahuriri Inc as part of their settlement. The group’s deputy chairman Piri Prentice confirmed the offer to the Hawke’s Bay Today. (3)
If Mana Ahuriri takes up the offer, this would effectively transfer total control of a vital piece of Hawke’s Bay infrastructure because the government already owns slightly more than 50 percent of the airport shares.
This is no April 1 joke.
Sources
1. HB Airport annual report 2014 http://www.napier.govt.nz/assets/Document-Library/Reports/Council-Controlled-Organisation-reports/hbap-annual-report-2014.pdf
2. Listening and learning leads to understanding, HB Today, February 9, 2014. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11198524
3. Iwi offered airport share, HB Today, April 1, 2015
4 comments:
This outfit was never owed any kind of redress. NZ just gets worse! Just gets weaker in the head! I blame john key for the continuation of this kind of racist garbage ("treaty settlements" [they are all based on lies about NZ history] and all other kinds of racial discrimination in favour of part-maoris) - he should have put a stop to it all on his first morning as prime minister.
John Key has definitely impacted hugely on the NZ economy and the creation of a racist elite posing as Maoris. Those involved have nothing to do with claiming back possessions wrongly confiscated, but rather a growing treaty industry that is gathering participants as it goes (who in NZ does not have at least a one hundred and fiftieth part Maori) just as it is gathering the finances of a country that can not afford a decent medical or education system and is now even cutting down by fixing only one eye for anyone with cataracts and other such ridiculous constraints (the joke of the Australian medical system). Why should New Zealanders pay taxes and work harder and harder to support themselves when the government gives away tax money to appease the gangs of white Maoris? Let's face it there are thousands of real Maoris (those who are at least half Maori or more) who have not joined the gangs and want nothing more than to be part of a modern NZ multicultural society. NZ is at a crossroads right now. It can succumb and become a land owned and lorded over by white Maori gangs (shades of Mexico), or it can eat some beef, pull up its sox and say "enough - this is it - no more handouts - no more 20th full and final settlements - no more giving away of public assets that New Zealanders have worked and paid taxes for - from now on the country is one people working for the good of all". That would be a worthy goal.
This whole treaty settlement area is an affirmation by Maori that they cannot compete in the real world mostly because they do not value education or have a work ethic. They seem to think it's a dopey Pakeha concept to disavantage them. Just watch them over the next decades be relegated to bringing up the distant rear as Asians, who value the oppertunty that this country provides, get educated and get good jobs and with that, power and influence.
The grievance industry just keeps getting more & more absurd.
The airport land in Napier came up out of the sea as a result of an earthquake!!!
What right do these money grabbing muppets have to Napier airport....A big fat ZIPPO!!
Even more to the point..... Are our politicians so spineless and weak that they haven't the intestinal fortitude to put a stop to this insanity???
The government is elected by the people, for the people, of the people.
That means every single person in the country....NOT any self-serving loosers / race.
Where is the equality here. There is none in racial politics.
Therein one of the three 'Treaty- truths' is continually being broken!!!
Think about it John and grow some balls!!!.
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