Urban Maori? UN envoy was 'stunned'

UN Special Rapporteur Professor Rodolfo Stavenhagen had thought most Maori lived in isolated, rural settlements and was stunned to learn most lived in towns and cities, Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen said yesterday.

Dr Cullen has lambasted Professor Stavenhagen's report which criticised the way Treaty of Waitangi settlements were reached and called for the repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act.

Dr Cullen has described the report as disappointing, unbalanced and narrow - which he said was hardly surprising given that Professor Stavenhagen only spent "about eight working days consulting in the country, all up".

Dr Cullen told Parliament Professor Stavenhagen had been "quite stunned to find out that most Maori live in towns and cities [and not] isolated, rural settlements".

Professor Stavenhagen had been mainly influenced by one or two "academic radicals" from Auckland University and a few others.

"I asked him whether he'd actually talked to any large numbers of urban Maori. He seemed somewhat surprised that there were large numbers of urban Maori."

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said Professor Stavenhagen had been "captured by those entrenched in a grievance mentality".

"He ignored the fact that a Maori set up the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal."

Dr Cullen said the report was "littered" with errors of fact and interpretation. The Government would provide an "appropriate" response to the UN, he said.

Former Treaty Negotiations Minister Sir Douglas Graham also said there were contradictory statements in the report.

- NZPA