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”.

Bruce Moon: 20 constitutional questions

Since the Constitutional Advisory Panel may be holding meeting at a place near you, sometime soon, it would be a good idea to prepare some questions to fire at the visiting panellists. Given that much Nazi-style propaganda about the meaning of the Treaty continues to receive publicity, e.g. that Maoris are a "sovereign Treaty partner" (Danny Keenan, Wanganui Chronicle, March 16, 2013), one question would be whether the panel makes its best efforts to deny such falsehoods at every opportunity, and if not, why not? I have prepared a list of questions which some of you may think worth asking, should opportunities arise. No doubt others would use somewhat different wording. They are in no particular order and for your consideration: