Time to wipe the gravy train label, says Maori Party

The Maori Party supports Labour's plan to impose time limits on the Treaty of Waitangi settlement process, but says it must be better funded for them to be met.

Party co-leader Pita Sharples says the claims have been used by politicians to "bring Maori into contempt and ridicule, by branding the process a gravy train".

"It is therefore in the country's best interest that the claims be settled as fast as possible to remove this negativeness."

But the party says a significant cash injection is needed to enable the claims to be researched more quickly and to enable hapu and other groups to get the legal and professional help they need. It also wants the Waitangi Tribunal to be better funded.

As signalled in the Herald, Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday announced the plan to impose a deadline for lodging claims with the Waitangi Tribunal by 2008, with the aim of settling all claims by 2020.

The 2008 deadline would be legislated and require Labour to win enough political support to pass it.

It was Labour's fourth pledge card commitment and is partly designed to counter National criticism it is allowing the process to drag on too long.

Helen Clark said Labour was committed to completing the process and recognised the importance of doing so as quickly as possible.

"The time has come to seek finality.

"Many New Zealanders have found issues dating back to the signing of the treaty difficult to comprehend and hard to resolve. Yet in the international context, New Zealand's efforts to seek truth and reconciliation through the treaty settlement process stand second to none."

More claims had been progressed under her Government than under any other, she said, but it was important the cut-off date and timetables were realistic as the claims and the mandating process was complex.

It wasn't realistic to settle the claims in five years - the cut-off point proposed by National, she said.

National's 2010 deadline is widely considered unrealistic unless it put much more money into the process.

Even then a shortage of historians and a range of other obstacles could thwart its plans.

It has promised more tribunal funding but hasn't said how much more.

About 50 settlements are yet to be resolved and a maximum of three are signed a year. Once the tribunal has heard and reported on a claim - a process which typically takes several years - it takes an average of four years from the time the Crown recognises a mandate to the signing of a deed of settlement. Several claims are yet to be heard by the tribunal.

National leader Don Brash described the Labour policy as a "victory of spin over substance", saying it lacked certainty and it would do nothing to speed up the process. He accused Labour of hypocrisy, given its previous rejection of deadlines.

Dr Sharples said National's policy was "not only impossible, it's stupid. It shows their lack of knowledge about the whole process."

Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said there was no way the tribunal could complete hearings in time for settlements to be negotiated by 2010 and the National plan would create "huge new grievances".

The Greens' support for the legislation would be contingent on factors that included adequate resourcing for the tribunal and an "exceptional circumstances clause to allow for a situation where a hapu was unable to lodge a claim earlier for good reason".

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said setting deadlines would fail without a significant restructuring of the tribunal, which had become "highly politicised" and the major roadblock.