KEY POINTS:
The Waitangi Tribunal wants one of the country's most contentious settlements delayed despite four hearings.
In 2005 Nga Kaihautu o Te Arawa, a confederation of about 14 iwi, negotiated a 51,000ha Crown forestry lands deal, with a financial redress package understood to be worth more than $36 million.
It has caused friction among competing Central North Island (CNI) iwi, including other Te Arawa tribes who claim Nga Kaihautu, now called Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa, picked the best forestry blocks leaving crumbs for those yet to settle.
Judge Caren Fox headed the tribunal which released its final report on the impacts of the settlement on the wider Te Arawa confederation yesterday.
The report said although the tribunal considered any recommendation to delay should only be made as a "last resort" it had "grave concerns" about the impacts on overlapping claimant iwi and the durability of future CNI settlements. It said the Nga Kaihautu settlement should be delayed pending a forum with all iwi involved in the hearings, which will decide guidelines for the allocation of Crown forest lands.
"The critical thing is that these decisions are made by the CNI iwi themselves, on their own terms answerable to each other."
For Nga Kaihautu the end result would be an altered settlement.
But the report also said the forum approach would benefit the Crown which would no longer be in the "unenviable position" of determining the allocation of settlement assets between these groups.
"Equally it would give Maori an assurance that the allocation of Crown forest assets had been undertaken fairly, transparently and according to tikanga [custom]."
Yesterday, Treaty Negotiations Minister Mark Burton could not be contacted for comment, but there is a possibility the Government - with an eye to ticking off another settlement - could simply ignore the recommendations, which are not binding.
But they could form a future blueprint for letting competing iwi settle contentious issues before one of them gets to the negotiating table with the Office of Treaty Settlements (OTS).
And that's crucial, because the office, which represents the Crown, has come in for stern criticism this year about the way it handles negotiations from the tribunal and iwi opposed to the Ngati Whatua and Te Arawa deals. But the OTS has lacked a process to sort out competing iwi interests.
This recommendation essentially says let iwi do it.
For this settlement, however, it is unlikely Nga Kaihautu will buy into the process.
Chief settlement negotiator Rawiri Te Whare said the idea for a collective CNI approach had been tried at least three times in the last 20 years and come to nothing.
