KEY POINTS:
An agreement giving an Auckland tribe stewardship of three volcanoes, $80 million worth of real estate and millions in cash has been attacked by the Waitangi Tribunal.
The report, issued this morning, says the Crown's decision to give priority to Ngati Whatua o Orakei over other iwi is too flawed to be allowed to go ahead.
The tribunal said it did not want to stand in the way of Ngati Whatua reaching a settlement, but it believed the Crown could not safely settle with only one iwi.
"The groups' interest are too intermingled for any settlement with one to go forward until the others' interests have been fully understood," it said.
Only when that was done could the Ngati Whatua agreement be allowed to go ahead.
"The process has been too flawed for any of the proposed redress to proceed safely," the report said.
Ngati Whatua said last night that the report's suggestion that its claim should be halted until other tribal groups have their claims settled was a matter for the Crown, and did not change Ngati Whatua's position.
The tribe had held the mana whenua or dominant tribal interest in the central Auckland isthmus for 250 years.
Ngati Whatua o Orakei chairman Grant Hawke said the tribe - unlike all the claimant groups at the recent Auckland tribunal hearing - had met the Crown's stringent rules for mandate and representational size.
The tribe had worked tenaciously through the system for years to get to an agreement in principle.
The Government last year outlined a deal which would give the tribe $10 million and stewardship of One Tree Hill, Mt Roskill, part of Mt Eden and the Purewa Creek area.
It would also give Ngati Whatua the right to buy $80 million of Crown land on the North Shore - which would be leased back to the Crown - a right of first refusal to buy surplus central Auckland Crown land at market rates, and an acknowledgment of Treaty breaches.
But several other iwi complained to the tribunal that the Government had not given enough consideration to their claims.
In the report, Judge Carrie Wainwright said the Office of Treaty Settlements' treatment of competing tribes - including Ngati te Ata, Ngai Tai ki Tamaki, Marutuahu, Te Kawerau a Maki and Te Taou - was "cavalier" and "unfair".
The report also questioned the integrity of the office.
"In responding to the overtures and requests of other tangata whenua groups in Tamaki Makaurau [Auckland], the Office of Treaty Settlements was generally unco-operative," it said.
That attitude extended to the inquiry, where officials handed over important documents "late, reluctantly and piecemeal".
"It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the office has been less than open in its dealings with the tribunal."
Treaty Settlements director Paul James was yesterday reluctant to discus the report, but said his office would be taking it up with the Waitangi Tribunal.
"Acting in good faith is critical to the success of Treaty negotiations.
"I am confident [the office] met those high standards throughout negotiations with Ngati Whatua and in the tribunal's inquiry into those negotiations."
Hauraki Maori Trust Board spokesman John McEnteer said he was saddened by the report.
"It is a damning indictment of the Crown's settlement process. "I hope they [Ngati Whatua] are willing to work with us so we can all get a Treaty settlement."
