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The Waitangi Tribunal has found "serious flaws" in the way the Government handled the Te Arawa settlement, which includes more than 50,000 hectares of forestry land.
The confidentially valued settlement, estimated at $200 million, was reached last year with Rotorua's Te Arawa to receive more than 50,000ha of Kaingaroa Forest, along with $36 million in cash.
Today, the Waitangi Tribunal said there were "serious flaws" in the way the Crown consulted with "non-settling Te Arawa groups".
"The Crown has failed to safeguard the interests of groups who are yet to come to the negotiation table", the Tribunal said.
The Tribunal expressed also said it had "grave concern" for Te Arawa as a whole.
"Hapu are in contest with other hapu and the preservation of tribal relations has been adversely affected. We are left fearing for the customary future of the Te Arawa Waka as a result," it said in a statement this afternoon.
In a High Court hearing in Wellington in April, three Maori groups representing competing interests in the land asked for the transfer to be blocked, but Justice Warwick Gendall ruled the court cannot do what the groups want.
The Maori Council and the Federation of Maori Authorities had argued the Crown's actions in transferring the land to Te Arawa had denied other Waitangi Tribunal claimants the chance to benefit from future profits from rental of the crown forestry land.
They also argued the Crown had illegally made itself a beneficiary of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust and stood to wrongly receive $61 million in rental profits.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
