It’s the Treaty settlement that keeps on giving – or rather, which requires taxpayers to keep on giving. This time Waikato-Tainui and Ngāi Tahu have each received $1.625 million as a negotiated resolution of a range of disputes concerning the relativity mechanism payments made in 2012 and 2017.
The relativity mechanisms were included in the tribes’ 1995 and 1997 Treaty of Waitangi settlements.
The adjustment payments (we are told) have been guided by the awards of previous arbitrations, and have reduced the number of future arbitration hearings required to resolve remaining disputes.
