We’re assured this latest Whanganui settlement is a “gesture of courage” and “a line drawn in the earth.” Very poetic. Conveniently, though, the line keeps moving. Whanganui iwi have already received substantial redress before most famously the Whanganui River settlement, which granted the river legal personhood and a long-term financial care plan that would make even a spoiled trust fund kid blush. But don’t worry, this settlement is absolutely the final one for these specific historic grievances. Totally final. Completely finished. Just like the last “final” one before it.
The Crown’s redress package follows the usual template: compensation, accumulated interest, cultural revitalisation funding, reo funding, marae funding, and because no modern settlement is complete without it a brand new statutory board. Nothing screams “reconciliation” like creating yet another layer of bureaucracy on the public dime. And while officials repeat the mantra that this is the “full and final” chapter, history shows Treaty finality has a funny habit of spawning sequels. Think of it as the cinematic universe no one asked for but keeps getting expanded anyway.
Then there’s the history portion. The Crown now solemnly acknowledges that it “provoked” conflict in the 1860s an impressively modern reinterpretation of the messy, politically complex world of 19th-century frontier disputes. Yes, the colonial government pushed land sales. Yes, Māori resisted. But repackaging everything into a tidy morality tale where the Crown is always the villain and iwi are always passive victims fits neatly into today’s preferred narrative. It’s history rewritten for contemporary tastes: simple, blame-focused, and comfortably black and white.
Has the Crown given away too much? Well, when you tally this settlement on top of earlier ones, sprinkle on the interest payments, add the cultural funding, insert statutory bodies, and then account for the ongoing Crown obligations that never actually end it's hard not to feel that generosity has wandered into indulgence. And all of it comes from the same group: everyday taxpayers who had precisely zero involvement in events of 1840, 1848, or 1860, yet are reliably expected to keep underwriting them.
But rest assured, this settlement is different. This one is really, truly final. At least until someone discovers a fresh grievance to revive, another fracture to “heal,” or a new “line in the earth” to draw right beside the last one, which was supposed to stay put forever.
Reference: https://shorturl.at/MercF
Steven is an entrepreneur and an ex RNZN diver who likes travelling, renovating houses, Swiss Watches, history, chocolate art and art deco.
19 comments:
Anyone really believe this is ever gonna stop.
So this $50,000,000 of OUR (taxpayers money) is being shelled out to settle grievances that go back more than 150 years.
Really!! Get with it. The modern German and Japanese people are not being forced to pay billions to compensate the appalling atrocities committed during WW2.
Eternal grift
Where does the money go?
Just like current day Iwi wont acknowledge or take any responsibility for their ancestors starting skirmishes with European settlors, for killing their woman and babies, for stealing and burning houses and such like, then current day taxpayers should not take any responsibilities for what their ancestors did or did not do...
On the banks of the Wanganui (minus the h) and Ongarue Rivers in Taumarunui is Cherry Grove. A brick-columned gateway which was built at the entrance to it was erected in 1932. In 1832, exactly 100 years before, lived some 600 Patupaiarehe peacefully, who were killed, cooked and eaten by marauding Maori. And the Maori expect another "full and final" payment of $50,000,000 from the taxpayer?
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Governments are elected to make decisions on behalf of the people. As much as they would prefer to carry out their own agendas, in a democracy this is not acceptable. How many people want to live in the past constantly paying reparations? I guarantee most taxpayers want to concentrate on the present and the future. If we go back to the "real" Treaty of Waitangi we can see that all New Zealanders are guaranteed equal treatment and most have played their part harmoniously until recently. We seem to have an elite class emerging now who live on the hard work and good will of the gullible.
Don’t forget the Green Party’s manifesto says they plan to revisit and review all of these “full and final” settlements to ensure they were “fair”.
This post isn't clever commentary, it's a tantrum ignoring the Crown's own admissions of illegally confiscating over 1 million hectares of Māori land during the 1860s New Zealand Wars, sparked by colonial invasions like the Waikato campaign that displaced entire communities.
Settlements aren't "bureaucratic sequels" or handouts; they're legally binding redress for breaches of Te Tiriti, where the Crown guaranteed Māori rangatiratanga over lands and taonga while claiming sovereignty…yet proceeded to wage war, ignore the treaty signed by 500+ chiefs, and label resistance as rebellion. History isn't a "morality tale": the Crown provoked conflicts by pushing land grabs, leading to systematic dispossession that fueled poverty and disparity: facts from Waitangi Tribunal reports, not "contemporary tastes."
Taxpayers aren't "underwriting indulgence"; we're funding justice for theft that built modern New Zealand's wealth on stolen assets. Cry about bureaucracy all you want, but without settlements, the endless grievances your sequel-phobia fears would multiply. Reconciliation means honouring agreements, not whining that accountability costs money.
To continue in perpetuity - so beyond tribal rule which now looks certain and until the dwindling taxpayers are bled dry.
And it all goes one way. When local tribe Tuwharetoa blocked access to Lake Taupo from SH1 after they got some land in a 2007 settlement -even though they had signed a paper to say that they guaranteed access it's still blocked- and complaints to the various government including this one bought no results at all. Try to get access and you get sworn at and abused.
Cannot concur with Anon at 2.26 pm - A correct interpretation of the Treaty and not the warped Te Tiriti version of same might put this Country back on an even keel, as it is the nonsense interpretation is crippling us all.
To anonymous @ 2.26, it's amazing how far history can be twisted to meet the selfish ends of grasping maori.
Muriel Newman reports on the British Columbia situation where a law has passed ownership of private property to the indigenous people. If the Left is elected in 2026, this would be one of their first new laws - done by just the stroke of a pen . Willy Jackson prepared all the ground work in 2002-23. A big wake-up call for the sheeple!
To Allen Heath: almost as amazing is the total lack of reaction from NZers. What are they smoking?
What anon at 2.26 presents isn’t a neutral record of history. — it’s the Waitangi Tribunal’s interpretation of history, a worldview constructed and amplified by a particular cast of advocates — Anne Salmond with her romantic bicultural moral framing, Douglas Graham who first elevated Tribunal narratives into political currency, Chris Finlayson who transformed those narratives into quasi-constitutional gospel, and Claire Charters who now pushes them toward a full co-governance settlement of the state. It is a belief system, not a ledger.
So we'll written
I don't know who finally signs off the wording of these Agreements, but should pass before some very cynical legal mind. The artful abilty within the maori camp has been grossly underestimated in the past .Far too much of wording has been susceptible. With pro maori 5th columnists embedded throughout ,very close attention to the final product is essential.
Luxon and his team do not understand "perpetuity ", and he continues to give greater rights to a group of people with diminishing Maori DNA.
He does not understand that 0.001 Maori DNA gives property rights, moral rights, against people with 0% Maori DNA.
Wake up Luxon - stop this nonsense that would not be acceptable anywhere else in the First World.
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