Mike's Minute: Waikato-Tainui is a wonderful success story

My ongoing advice to the Government is: don’t make big announcements on a Friday.

I watched the Prime Minister from Waikato at the Ruakura Superhub.

This is what the Government lives for. It's what they dream of. It's what they preach.

David Farrar: No one owns water, but someone makes a lot of money from it!

NewstalkZB reports:

Watercare is under fire for keeping a $20 million deal with Waikato-Tainui under wraps.

It’s been revealed the Auckland Council-controlled water provider last year signed up to paying $1 million a year, for two decades.

Mike Butler: The Waikato River taniwha tax

A taniwha tax, indigenous to New Zealand, describes payments to tribal groups to make demands disappear. A closer look at the Waikato River Five Year Report 2015 shows that 44 percent of clean-up funding went as payments to five tribes that claim deep connection to the river.

This report details $22-million worth of funding to 170 clean-up projects and also contains the Report Card that gave the catchment a C+ rating, as reported in Waikato River clean-up awaitedl

Michael Gousmett: Waikato-Tainui’s Privileged Income Tax Status

The existing legislation should be amended to provide that profits from trading derived directly or indirectly by charitable organisations and dividends derived from any company substantially owned by such organisations are assessable for income tax at normal rates.

Taxation Review Committee, 1967

The competitive advantage a charity could gain through the ability to accumulate tax-free profits [enables] a faster accumulation of funds [which would allow it] to expand more rapidly than its competitors.  [This was] the real competitive advantage that trading activities owned by charities have over their competitors.  Trading operations owned by charities would be subject to tax in the same way as other businesses.

Tax and Charities, IRD, June 2001

Mike Butler: Nick Smith’s RFR cave-in

Housing Minister Nick Smith appears to have caved in to threats of legal action from Auckland tribe Ngati Whatua in a dispute over plans to develop Crown land in Auckland for housing.

Under an agreement announced on Thursday, Auckland tribes will have right of first refusal to develop houses on Crown land, with 40 per cent of construction to be social or affordable housing.

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: ‘Maori economy’ underperforms

Financial commentator Bernard Hickey puts his political correctness on show in his article titled “New Zealand's Maori economy: a powerful force in the Kiwi success story” that is posted on the ANZ website.(1) This promotional piece of advertorial writing from Hickey marks a seasonal event, the Maori New Year, by lauding the Waikato-Tainui announcement that they had assets worth $1-billion.

Hickey cites a 2010 study by Business and Economic Research Ltd for the government's Maori department, Te Puni Kokiri, that estimated the asset base of the Maori economy at $36.9-billion, up 18 per cent from 2006.

Mike Butler: A billion in assets but little charity

Waikato-Tainui’s 2014 report boasts assets of $1.1-billion and distributions of $55-million over 10 years but it is over to anyone interested to work out that charitable distributions of $6.1-million over the past year only make up about nine percent of the tribal corporation’s consolidated net profit of $70.9-million. (1)

The fact is very little goes towards charity from this entity that has charitable status that means it pays very little tax. Charitable distributions for the 2014 year were $2.5-million for education, $1.2-million for marae grants and facilities, $1.7-million for Kingitanga, and $0.7 million towards a range of cultural activities.

Mike Butler: Billion dollar tribe’s slanted history

Did confiscation cause the armed conflict in the Waikato, as the Waikato-Tainui annual report 2014 claims, or was it the other way around? History shows that the Waikato-Tainui version is wrong because government troops entered the Waikato region on July 12, 1863, while a proclamation confiscating land was issued in December 1864, after the fighting was over. The Waikato-Tainui report said on page 27:

In 1863 the Crown confiscated over 1.2 million acres of Waikato-Tainui land and resources spanning from Tamaki Makaurau, through the Waikato Valley to north of the Mokau River. This confiscation resulted in the Waikato Land Wars and led to significant loss of life and property, crippling the welfare, economy, and development of Waikato-Tainui.

Sarah Taylor: Waikato charity's lifestyle spending

Spending by Waikato-Tainui's Ururangi charitable trust reinforces the perception that tribal trust money goes on cars and lifestyle for a favoured few and not on charity.The Ururangi Trust was set up in 2008 by Waikato-Tainui Kauhanganui Incorporated for a range of charitable purposes, mostly limited to purpose (b) as described in section 1.4 of the trust deed, to "carry out the duties and services which uphold and support the head of the Kaahui Ariki and which are for the benefit of Waikato Tainui." (1)

Shares in its sole trustee, Ururangi Limited, are owned by the iwi's governance entity Waikato-Tainui Te Kauhanganui Incorporated with the beneficiaries listed as “Waikato-Tainui beneficiaries, children/young people, older people”, and “general public”. (2)

Mike Butler: Lest we forget the Waikato war

The Waikato war was fought 150 years ago but land confiscations that resulted from defeat are still as raw today, a Waikato-Tainui spokesman told Radio New Zealand on Friday, the anniversary of that war. Although Waikato-Tainui executive chair Tom Roa said the tribe has moved on from grievance mode to one of prosperity, his attitude on the confiscations implies that despite 1995 “settlement” of $170-million, grievance is never far from the surface.

Mike Butler: Waikato greed, double dipping

A Waikato-Tainui tribal spokesman is demanding a bigger top-up payment than the government has offered and a Waikato clan has secured a further settlement of grievances that have already had two full-and-final settlements. If anyone was in doubt, greed and double dipping appear to be part of the government’s grand scheme to atone for alleged sins of the past.

Mike Butler: Top-ups to make richest tribes richer

The two richest tribes will become $138.5-million richer since treaty settlement top-ups were triggered, the Otago Daily Times reported this week, with a former tribal negotiator in charge of handing out the settlement spoils. (1)

The Ngai Tahu and Waikato-Tainui tribal corporations, which operate as charitable trusts, negotiated relativity clauses of the sort that used to characterise union wage negotiations, entitling each to a percentage of all future treaty settlements once they exceed $1-billion in 1994 dollar terms. The government has calculated that the amount payable to Ngai Tahu was $45.6-million, or $68.5-million when adjusted for inflation. Waikato Tainui will receive a cash payment of $70-million.