Mike Butler: State racism, dysfunction exposed

ACT leader David Seymour has done New Zealand a huge favour through his Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill – he has exposed the racial divide that has been created by successive governments.

The debate and referendum that Seymour courageously pushed for should have taken place decades ago, before former Justice Minister Geoffrey Palmer launched the treaty settlement never-ending story that has apparently not settled anything.

Point of Order: Treaty settlements, environmental management and the insidious march from co-management to co-governance

We can’t be sure, here at Point of Order, about when “co-governance” was first introduced to this country’s political vocabulary. For some time before ministers were talking about co-governance, they had been talking about co-management.

There’s a difference. A big difference, when it comes to constitutional arrangements within public authorities.

According to one distinction we uncovered, “governance” is the strategic task of setting the organisation’s goals, direction, limitations and accountability frameworks. “Management” is the allocation of resources and overseeing the day-to-day operations of the organisation.

The first mention of co-governance we could find on the Beehive website – which records all ministerial statements and speeches and statements since 1993 – was made by John Luxton in May 1997. As Associate Minister of International Trade, addressing guests at a meat industry function, he talked about the meat industry’s movement into the next millennium.

Mike Butler: Lest we forget our murderous past

When New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery planned to exhibit the $1.5-million painting titled A view of Mount Egmont taken from New Plymouth with the Maoris driving off settlers’ cattle, a former treaty claims negotiator kicked up a fuss over the depiction of his Taranaki forebears as thieves.

Factual depictions of 19th-century New Zealand history, like that painting, have become shocking to some because information that show Maori in poor light has been steadily dropped from official accounts.

Mike Butler: Parihaka, the Green Party, and rape

For a few years there has been a call to replace Guy Fawke’s Day with a Parihaka Day to commemorate November 5, 1881, when government troops evicted 1600 people from a village built on confiscated land between Mount Taranaki and the Tasman Sea.

This year the Green Party announced that Marama Davidson will re-enter the Maori Party’s Te ra o Parihaka Bill into Parliament’s Member’s Bill Ballot to establish a further grievance day following Land Wars Day (aka Tribal Rebellions Day) on October 28, and of course Waitangi Day on February 6. (1)

Mike Butler: Race appointees ammo for Winston

The Taranaki Iwi Claims Settlement Bill, that legislates for six race-based appointees on the Taranaki Regional Council, provided new ammunition for New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters this week.

This is the second time Treaty Negotiations Minister Christopher Finlayson has written into law the requirement for tribal appointees on a local body, with the first being the regional planning committee on the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council set up in 2012.

Mike Butler: End tribunal’s permanent lobbying

If Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson thinks the Waitangi Tribunal is going into areas outside its scope he could introduce a bill to disestablish it.

News of an urgent hearing into whether the Crown has failed to reduce high Maori imprisonment and re-offending rates prompted the Minister's comment that he didn't know whether they're a permanent commission of inquiry or some kind of imperial senate.

Mike Butler: Ngapuhi report reason to can tribunal

A report by the Waitangi Tribunal that argues Ngapuhi chiefs did not agree to cede sovereignty is deeply flawed and provides further evidence that the tribunal should be abolished.

The report that was released on Friday, He Whakaputanga me te Tiriti The Declaration and the Treaty: The Report on Stage 1 of the Te Paparahi o Te Raki Inquiry, is the first stage of the tribunal's inquiry into Far North treaty claims and looks at events before 1840. (1)

Ngapuhi leader David Rankin, a descendent of chief Hone Heke who was the first to sign the treaty, said that the tribunal's emphasis on the Declaration of Independence, which a few had signed in 1835, as being the basis of their relationship with the British, is a lie and that is not what the tribunal was told. (2)

Mike Butler: $200m challenge for HB tribes

Two claimant groups say that the $200-million they will soon receive will hold the key to Hawke’s Bay prosperity although there is no suggestion of how that would happen and there is no evidence that widespread prosperity resulted from big treaty settlements elsewhere.

The Crown has signed agreements in principle to settle historical Treaty of Waitangi claims with seven tribal groups around Wairoa and with the Heretaunga-Tamatea group. Each group will get $100-million.

Bruce Moon: Finlayson's 'father' a tribesman!

Treaty Negotiations Minister Christopher Finlayson said Ngati Porou chairman Apirana Mahuika is one of his “fathers” in the settlement field and someone he could always talk to. "One of the great heroes of the treaty settlement era" was how Mr Finlayson described Dr Mahuika at the signing of an accord in Gisborne on April 24, 2014.

The accord provides for an annual summit between Ngati Porou and the Crown "to create an enduring relationship between the two".

Mike Butler: Ngapuhi -- who gets the money?

The Government has recognised the mandate of the entity known as Tuhoronuku to negotiate the settlement of the Ngapuhi treaty claim, but more than 70 percent of tribal elders refused to attend a meeting on the issue on Saturday. What this most likely means is that all Ngapuhi heavy-hitters are getting themselves in the best position to receive the most money.

According to Radio New Zealand, the Ngapuhi tribal council, or runanga, which set up the Tuhoronuku board in 2011, claims majority support for negotiations but has run into strong opposition from an alliance known as Te Kotahitanga.(1)

Mike Butler: Settlements class action planned

It was only a matter of time before claimants would try to take action against the government alleging the treaty settlement process is flawed, divides tribes, and causes fighting within tribes.

Wellington-based lawyer Moana Sinclair visited Taranaki this week to offer claimants the opportunity to support a class action lawsuit against the Crown that includes claims from Rangitane o Manawatu and Deirdre Nehua, the widow of far-left activist Syd Jackson. Sinclair said five Taranaki sub-tribes had expressed interest in supporting the lawsuit.

Mike Butler: Refund from Ngai Tahu required

While South Island tribe Ngai Tahu is demanding more than the $68.5-million top-up paid this year under the relativity clause of their 1998 settlement, the government could demand return of the $170-million paid in 1998 on the grounds that it was paid in error. Ngai Tahu has entered arbitration with the Crown over interpretation of the clauses that detail how the relativity payment should be calculated, according to news reports. (1)

The Ngai Tahu agreement, like that of Waikato-Tainui, was reached in an environment in which the government argued that all treaty settlements should total no more than $1-billion dollars, with the settlement cap called a “fiscal envelope”.

Mike Butler: Tuhoe deal just? You decide

Were Tuhoe innocent victims of crafty colonisers or did their 19th century leaders make a series of bad choices that exposed their people to the sharp edge of the British Empire? This article compares some Office of Treaty Settlements rhetoric that alleges “Crown behaviour made a harmonious relationship with Tuhoe impossible” with historical fact.

Mike Butler: Settlement top-ups for two tribes

Treaty of Waitangi top-up clauses in Waikato-Tainui and Ngai Tahu settlements could be triggered this year, a government spokesman confirmed this week, although the Office of Treaty Settlements said that information on the total value of settlements under the relativity mechanism would not be released “at this time”.

Both Ngai Tahu and Waikato-Tainui negotiated relativity clauses, of the sort that used to characterise union wage negotiations, as part of their original settlements, entitling each iwi to a percentage of all future Treaty settlements once they exceeded $1-billion in 1994 dollar terms.