Crown pays $25m to settle claim with Maori

Final settlement has been reached with Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi, which will see the Whakatane-based Maori tertiary institution receive $25 million over three years.

Three Government ministers yesterday signed the deed of settlement with representatives from the wananga at a function at Parliament.

The deal follows a 1999 ruling by the Waitangi Tribunal that three wananga - Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi, Te Wananga o Aotearoa and Te Wananga o Raukawa - were unfairly disadvantaged by not receiving establishment funding from the Crown.

The Government accepted the recommendations in 2000 and began negotiating the settlements.

Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi is the second of the three wananga to settle with the Government.

Its $25 million over three years will include the $3.6 million provided in 2000 and 2001.

Negotiations are continuing with Te Wananga o Raukawa.

Education Minister Trevor Mallard, Tertiary Education Minister Steve Maharey and Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia, who is also an Associate Education Minister, said the wananga now had the capacity to realise its potential for providing quality tertiary education to the Mataatua people in Whakatane and throughout New Zealand.

"It already has a reputation for high standards, especially in the vital science area," they said in their joint statement.

Wananga Council chairman Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith said the settlement would allow the wananga to undertake long-planned capital works.

The wananga was committed to developing graduate programmes at Masters and eventually PhD level, he said.

Awanuiarangi had established the country's first dedicated Maori science laboratory.

The ministers said the wananga planned to develop facilities in Auckland, Wellington, Tauranga and Whakatane, a new science research facility and to set up new Maori language and distance education programmes.

- NZPA