KEY POINTS:
The centrepiece proposal of the Maori Purposes Act passed last Thursday, to impose a deadline of September 1, 2008, on historical claims under the Treaty of Waitangi, ends justice for Maori.
The Act breaches the great principles laid down during two decades of liberal jurisprudence by the Waitangi Tribunal, Court of Appeal, Privy Council and successive Cabinets - that the Treaty is the founding document of our nation, that it created a partnership to be honoured, established a Crown duty to actively protect Maori interests and to provide fair redress for Treaty injustices, and an obligation to consult in good faith with Maori in the best interests of the nation.
It denigrates the progress we have made as a country by dishonouring partnership.
The philosophy of the Waitangi Tribunal is to resolve claims to achieve reconciliation between Maori and Pakeha. The Office of Treaty Settlements (OTS) decribes this as "ka tika a muri, ka tika a mua" (healing the past, building the future).
Partnership does not deny justice; partnership does not discriminate against the grievances of ethnic minorities in the homeland where ancestors suffered. The spirit of partnership would allow existing and future generations of all New Zealanders to sharein the honour of freeing the legacy of past burdens.
This is an act of denial. The Crown cannot impose a cut-off time limit without consultation with Maori.
New Zealanders accept that the historical claims process must end at some time. That is when justice has run its course. Fairness begs dialogue and the agreement of Maori.
An 18-month deadline is the tyranny of the Crown partner. Historical baggage cannot be unilaterally legislated away. We cannot pretend wrongs did not exist. Justice is righting wrongs, however long that takes.
The proposal will not protect Maori rights, it walks over them. There are no provisions to assist the Tribunal or tribes to get claims in before the deadline. Claimants are already under-resourced. There is an ongoing crisis of fatigue and overload among claimants.
Indecent haste will create abhorrent indecencies. The unentitled could lodge false claims. Rightful claims could be disenfranchised.
We are acting prematurely. Some 1315 claims have been lodged with the Tribunal and about 300 have been resolved through consolidation into about 25 settlements.
More than 1000 remain unsettled and no one knows how many more hearings are needed.
Many areas - such as Taihape, Hawkes Bay, Wellington, Horowhenua, Rangitikei, Manawatu, North East Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Raukawa and the King Country - have not been adequately researched.
The deadline will create Maori winners whose claims have been settled and losers whose claims were never heard.
The deadline is born from concerns about the length of time it is taking to settle Treaty claims. Frustration can be forgiven, but the Act cannot.
Most do not understand that the current process is already fraught. There is excessive control from the Crown and OTS. Compensation is 2 per cent of losses.
Over the past two decades, the Tribunal set the pace for the awakening our collective historical conscience. Successive Governments responded by restricting its powers, ignoring its recommendations, and limiting its resources.
OTS was established as a Crown-controlled alternative and gets more resources than the Tribunal. Tribunal hearings are therefore drawn out. The Crown's strategy is to pressure tribes to enter direct negotiations with OTS and the Crown. The deadline will exacerbate this.
The OTS process denies tribes the fundamental right of all victims to a full and fair hearing of the crimes against their families, ancestors, tikanga and culture.
The Crown wishes to end the richness and healing that comes when stories are told in the forum of the Tribunal. Their truth is the emancipation of generations, the liberation of suffering and the reconciliation of peoples.
The Crown also wishes to avoid the emerging reality that the settling of all legitimate claims will cost $3 billion not the $1 billion forecast 10 years ago.
The Act provides a new definition of a historical Treaty claim as relating to events occurring before 21 September 1992. This is a mockery of justice, a return to the dark days before 1985 when historical claims could first be heard. Maori have 21 months to lodge all residual claims spanning 152 years.
This is a repeat of history. The infamous State Owned Enterprise Act of 1986 tried to impose a deadline of six weeks for the lodging of claims after Treasury and the Crown Law Office estimated that Maori could submit as many as 7000 claims, including 800 or more that would require settlement.
This year the UN Special Rapporteur Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen recommended that the best solution to process claims more speedily was to properly resource the Tribunal.
The resolution of historical injustices requires integrity and good faith. Natural justice is thorough, unwavering and patient. The unnatural deadline is an end of justice for Maori.
* Dr Rawiri Taonui is head of Aotahi: The School Of Maori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury.
