Bruce Moon: The Tall Tales of Ngatiapa

And now we have Ngatiapa, a Nelson area tribe which, according to its cultural advisor, Kiely Nepia,[i] was "almost wiped off the face of the earth", “marginalised to a degree, ... largely without language, ... landless” and “had suffered from colonisation”.

Well now that certainly seems a sad state to be in but if indeed it “had suffered from colonisation”, why is it that, judging from the white faces of many of its members, it is largely a product of that colonization?  And with a fat “Treaty Settlement” for its 846 members in 2014 of $28.374 million from its own white relatives and others, together with a substantial amount of “cultural redress”,[ii]  it would appear to have done rather well at the expense of the New Zealand taxpayer.