Treaty 'industry' benefiting elite, says Peters

By HELEN TUNNAH

New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has hit out at the Treaty of Waitangi claims "industry", which he says is benefiting a select elite but few ordinary Maori.

Mr Peters, speaking to a predominantly Pakeha and elderly audience of 200 in Milford yesterday, focused his attacks on the Waitangi Fisheries Commission and the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, chaired by Sir Graham Latimer.

He said the trust had budgeted to spend almost $19 million in the next year, but just $2.5 million would be paid to treaty claimants.

"So $16 million is to be spent on themselves by themselves."

Neither Sir Graham nor the trust could be contacted last night.

"The treaty industry is a bloated leach that is gorging itself on a geyser of public money that Labour and National have seen fit to squander, but that has brought no significant benefit to Maori," Mr Peters said.

It is not the first time the trust has been criticised, with Parliament's Maori Affairs select committee part-way through an official inquiry into its activities.

The committee chairman, Labour MP John Tamihere, said yesterday that the inquiry would be completed after the election.

Issues to be addressed were who was funded, why they were funded and whether there were conflicts of interest between trustees and recipients of trust funds.

The trust was formed in 1989 to manage receipts from Crown forests in the central North Island until the ownership of various lands and forests was determined under treaty claims.

It has accumulated more than $300 million and the interest is used to help claimants prepare claims to the Waitangi Tribunal.

When it was first set up, the trust predicted that all claims would have been heard by mid-1992.

Instead, accusations of nepotism, waste and a lack of accountability have dogged the trust, in part because of the links between Sir Graham and the Volcanic Interior Plateau (VIP) group of claimants, whose legal adviser is Donna Hall, also Sir Graham's longstanding lawyer.

Mr Peters released documents which he said showed the trust was spending $1 million on rent and would spend $680,000 with Ms Hall's law firm and $3 million on VIP work.

"This is the worst conceivable example of Third World aid. Less than 14c in each dollar reaches the claimant. A black African dictator would be proud of this result."

Mr Tamihere said he was limited in what he could say publicly because he had been chairing the inquiry into the trust.

"We've gone on the front foot to open this whole thing up. We've all got reservations about the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, particularly historically, not so much now.

"My own personal opinion is I've had a gutsful of Maori blaming everybody else for not getting the job done and the way the Crown Forestry Rental Trust has conducted itself, and the Fisheries Commission, they're both in large part managed, run and operated by Maori for Maori."

Mr Tamihere said NZ First had chosen not to be represented on the Maori affairs select committee.

Full news coverage:
nzherald.co.nz/election

Election links:
The parties, policies, voting information, and more

Ask a politician:
Send us a question, on any topic, addressed to any party leader. We'll choose the best questions to put to the leaders, and publish the answers in our election coverage.