Mike Butler: A negotiator and a $308m bonanza

Land stolen from Maoris made our country wealthy and everyone who has benefited must help put it right, according to Rick Barker, a former Labour Government Minister who has reinvented himself as a treaty negotiator.

Barker, who leads negotiations for the Crown in the Wairarapa-Dannevirke area, wrote an article in the latest edition of Bay Buzz magazine, which is distributed around Hawke’s Bay, softening up Hawke’s Bay residents for a wave of treaty settlements coming down the pipeline.