Raniera Tau: This is the year of Ngapuhi

The Ngapuhi waka Ngatokimatawhaorua at the Waitangi treaty grounds. Photo / Francesca Jago

Imagine if Ngapuhi had settled in the 1990s, as Ngai Tahu and Waikato Tainui did.

Today Ngapuhi could be the biggest tourist operator, forest owner and corporate farmer in the north, providing jobs, career paths and training opportunities for our people. Our marae would be lovingly refurbished and there would be programmes to revitalise our tikanga and reo. There would be affordable housing arrangements for our whanau, kaumatua and kuia.

This is the year of Ngapuhi, and the 125,000 who proudly affiliate to the largest iwi in Aotearoa. After seven years of seeking mandate and preparation, this year Ngapuhi begins negotiating with the Crown to settle all historical claims and Crown breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

This will be the last of the big Treaty settlements and it will have a profound impact on Ngapuhi and on Northland.

It will also have important national ramifications, as once Ngapuhi are settled, more than 80 per cent of iwi Maori will have concluded their negotiations, and Aotearoa New Zealand will progress into a new dynamic post-settlement era of advancement and development.

Last year at Waitangi, the Prime Minister said the financial redress alone will be several hundred million dollars. Whatever the amount, it will be a massive injection into the economy of what is the country's most impoverished area.

But most of all, it will mean a shift for our people from grievance to development thinking and this will be the environment our children will be born into. Lifting our people out of poverty must come from within each whanau and a strong iwi can help with this turnaround.

There is no reason Ngapuhi cannot achieve, or even exceed, everything brought about by Ngai Tahu and Waikato Tainui in their 18 years since settlement.

Instead of losing generations of our young people to Auckland, Australia and the Corrections Department, they could return home, prospering where jobs are plentiful, where their youngsters are immersed in our Ngapuhitanga, where we honour our kaumatua and kuia.

Northland will not be a drag on the national economy, but a powerhouse driving growth and opportunity.

This vision is not off the planet. Our surveys show that by far the majority of Ngapuhi are very clear about two things:

1. They want Ngapuhi to stay united - this is their absolute priority.

2. They want settlement now, so they and their mokopuna live to see Ngapuhi reach its full potential in their lifetime.

There are those who would deny our people this dream, preferring instead to stop settlement at any cost. In the past month I have approached some of these individuals, encouraging them to find a way forward for the good of our people. Sadly, these overtures have been rejected.

Let us not fight among ourselves. Let us unite to achieve the best settlement we can - not in generations to come, but this year. Let 2015 be the year of Ngapuhi.

Raniera (Sonny) Tau is chairman of Te Runanga-A-Iwi-O-Ngapuhi, the tribal authority representing Ngapuhi.