Peter Hemmingson: Waitangi Tribunal

Waitangi Tribunal Reports are widely believed to issue only after rigorous historical investigation of Treaty claims.

In other words, you can take them to the bank.

The Tribunal’s findings then reach the wider public via media reports, make their way onto Government websites, and percolate throughout our education system as authoritative, objective accounts of the events to which they refer.

What if Tribunal Reports were in fact one-eyed rewrites of New Zealand history and not worth the paper they are printed on?

Mike Butler: Tribes compete in Auckland claim

It was only a matter of time that some tribe would claim the city of Auckland. Then, lo and behold, when the frail, intellectually challenged Maori king did just that on Friday, a second claim for the City of Sails was revealed.

First, Maori king Tuheitia told more than 500 people at his annual speech at Turanagwaewae Marae that he was determined to launch a claim for greater Auckland.(1)

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: Harawira’s murky past

An alleged offender in Northland’s latest high-profile sex case had been working for former Te Tai Tokerau MP Hone Harawira and paid by the taxpayer, according to news reports last week. (1) Harawira and his family seized a leadership position in New Zealand’s treaty grievance industry. The eratic positions of Hone and the Harawiras over the years show lack of moral compass and unfitness for leadership.

The link between Harawira and Patrick Rivers, who goes by the name Mangu Awarau, one of Mr Harawira's closest friends, is the latest in a line of murky links with the former politician ousted in the September 20 general election.

Awarau spoke at Mr Harawira's election night function, just days after being charged with raping a girl younger than 12. Awarau has pleaded not guilty to three sex offences.

Mike Butler: The permanent wallow in grievance

A key promise of the treaty settlement process is that as a society, we deal fully and finally with past injustices, achieve “closure”, and move forward as one people. The National Party took this further by setting a deadline in saying that this would all take place by 2014 – yes, this year.

However, there are more financial incentives for claimants, law firms, historians, and politicians, to continue to wallow in the past than there are to build a future. Despite around $2.3-billion being paid in treaty settlements little appears to have been settled.

Mike Butler: Execution site called sacred

A spot on Auckland’s Queen St where the first Maori was executed by the British should be registered as a sacred site, says Ngapuhi leader David Rankin. A 17-year-old named Maketu was executed on the corner of Queen St and Victoria St West on March 7, 1842, the location of one of the biggest commercial buildings in New Zealand – the Phillips Fox Tower.

Rankin said: “He was a rangatira, or chief, and his execution at this spot makes it sacred to Maori – the spot where any rangatira is killed is extremely tapu”. Rankin will be seeking the support of the Auckland Council’s Maori Statutory Board in his application, to have the location officially designated as a waahi tapu.