Maori being short-changed, claims expert

By EUGENE BINGHAM

Iwi are being forced to accept treaty settlements worth much less than they are owed, making challenges to the fairness of the process likely, says a leading Maori figure.

Professor Margaret Mutu, head of Auckland University's Maori studies department, said a Waitangi Tribunal claim against the settlement process was a realistic possibility.

"I can't find a single negotiator ... who says the process is fair and that they have got a fair settlement, which tells me these things are just not going to last," said Professor Mutu, who is also chairwoman of the Ngati Kahu runanga in the Far North.

A special report in the Weekend Herald last week showed $581 million had been paid out so far to Maori settling grievances with the Crown.

Former treaty negotiations minister Sir Douglas Graham warned future deals should not be too generous or they risked unravelling deals already done. Tribes with the biggest settlements so far, Ngai Tahu and Tainui, had clauses entitling them to come back and ask for more if future deals were out of step with theirs.

But Professor Mutu said she believed the payouts were only a fraction of what they were worth.

She worked out a formula using the 1995 deal in which Pakeha landowner Alan Titford received $3.25 million in compensation for the 94 acres of Far North farmland taken off him to return to Maori.

Based on that, she said, the settlements paid out so far were 0.06 per cent of what they were worth. Ngai Tahu's $170 million was 0.01 per cent of $1192 billion they would have got under Professor Mutu's formula, and Tainui's $170 million was 0.4 per cent.

Professor Mutu said she believed that although National's $1 billion fiscal envelope had been dropped from Government policy after howls of protest from Maori, it was still being used as a benchmark or cap.

"When you see how much they've spent, they're nowhere near the $1 billion that was set aside," she said.

"I think I can only put it down to that there is a deeply embedded racism. I don't think it's necessarily there in New Zealanders at large but there are definitely two distinct ways officials in Wellington deal with Maori issues and non-Maori, and on Maori issues it is: give them nothing if you possibly can and if you have to give them anything, get away with giving them as little as possible."

She said the individuals in the system were not racist - but the culture across the public sector was.

"I don't use the term racism loosely. Racism is the powerful exercising control against the powerless and depriving them of resources that are rightfully theirs."

The idea that the claims are worth more than they have been settled for has been raised by Associate Maori Affairs Minister Tariana Turia. In a speech to Parliament marking the $41 million settlement with Taranaki iwi Ngati Ruanui, she said it was a tiny proportion of what was lost.

"If tangata whenua enjoyed proper protection of their property rights, this settlement would be worth considerably more," she said.

"The reality is the difference between what was taken and what can be returned to Ngati Ruanui represents a massive contribution by Ngati Ruanui to the national economy, from which every member of this House and the nation has benefited."

Professor Mutu said the Government should talk to Maori about a better way to deal with settlements, rather than enforcing Government expectations on claimants.

Processes where iwi were expected to negotiate on Crown terms and use Pakeha methods to prove they were entitled to negotiate a settlement - even when the Waitangi Tribunal had already upheld their grievances.

"I wonder what Pakeha would do if they were made to do this sort of thing. You prove conclusively that you've been robbed and then you go through years of trying to prove you have a right to talk to the Crown."