KEY POINTS:
Michael Cullen was a portrait of modesty yesterday. Not one prone to blowing his own trumpet _ at least not very often _ he was fulsome in his praise of iwi negotiators, awarding them the lion's share of the credit for Central North Island tribes and the Crown striking the $400 million "Treelords" deal.
Without Cullen currently occupying the Treaty Negotiations portfolio, however, it is unlikely there would have been any deal to parade.
As up to 600 members of the seven North Island tribes sharing the agreement's proceeds descended on Parliament for the ceremony marking the signing of the deed of settlement, the talk was of "leadership" _ that displayed by Cullen on the Crown's side and by Tuwharetoa paramount chief Tumu te Heuheu in breaking the deadlock over competing Maori claims to 176,000 hectares of Central North Island Crown forest land.
Argument among the claimants has dragged on for two decades. Things reached a head last year with Waitangi Tribunal rulings and subsequent High Court proceedings involving the Maori Council and Federation of Maori Authorities.
Those bodies challenged the 2006 settlement package hammered out between the Crown and Te Arawa for giving that iwi the right to purchase 51,000 hectares of Crown forest land.
Tumu te Heuheu convened a hui last July for those iwi with claims to the forest land. That resulted in the formation of the Central North Island Iwi Collective. He approached Cullen shortly after he was appointed Treaty Negotiations Minister with a proposal for the tribes to put their differences aside and negotiate collectively.
If getting to the negotiating table was iwi-driven, Cullen is in a large part responsible for agreement being reached so quickly thereafter.
Not since National's Doug Graham held the portfolio has there been someone in the job who is seen within Maoridom as having both the necessary authority to drive negotiations forward, but also a strong empathy with the claimants which gives them the confidence the Crown is negotiating in good faith.
Yesterday's settlement is important for being the largest transfer of economic resources to Maori since the 1992 Sealord fisheries deal. But it is also important for breaking the mould of past treaty settlements, which have either dealt with the claims of one tribe or, as in the case of the fisheries, a claim across Maoridom as a whole.
Cullen welcomed the agreement as showing a new flexibility. Yesterday's settlement was also crucial for Labour. Alongside progress in other iwi negotiations being highlighted this week, the Treelords deal is demonstration to the party's Pakeha constituency that the pace of treaty settlements is finally picking up. It is a reminder to Maori voters that it is results that count, not rhetoric.
