Treaty settlement success stories: how they did it

Some treaty settlements are producing better results than others. In the final of a three-part series, ANGELA GREGORY finds many factors at work.

The suspicious-sounding woman on the end of the Ngati Paoa Whanau Trust's telephone in Massey doesn't identify herself.

But her tart response to the Herald's inquiries about what the hapu has done with a $1 million Treaty of Waitangi settlement identifies what many Maori think.

"It's nothing to do with you," she snaps, and hangs up.

Her sentiment is shared by those who do not see why Maori need to defend how they have handled settlements, which they regard as the return of stolen goods.

The chief executive of the Ngati Whatua Orakei Maori Trust Board, Tiwana Tibble, is another who objects to prying into what the Auckland-based iwi did with its part-settlement of housing and cash in 1987.

"We decline to comment, it's our private business."

Attempts to compare the woes of Tainui and apparently more successful iwi are also fraught. Even tribes willing to highlight their successes back away from public comment about others.

And while it is tempting to contrast the fortunes of the prosperous South Island iwi Ngai Tahu ($170 million settlement, 1998) with the travails of Tainui ($170 million, 1995), the packages were made up of quite different mixes of cash, land and rights.

Tainui was the first tribal group in New Zealand to be tossed into the uncharted waters of a major treaty settlement.

A senior lecturer in Maori Business Development at Auckland University, Manuka Henare, said people did not appreciate the extreme difficulty of managing settlements and expected far too much.

The reasons some settlements succeeded and others did not were complex.

For instance, Ngai Tahu suffered nowhere as greatly as Tainui in the 19th century and the iwis' different histories affected how they coped.

Tainui people had also inherited a complex tribal system and the transition to new management styles was huge, he said.

Ngai Tahu has said its settlement would have been a disaster had the iwi not set itself up properly. In a three-year transition period, it recruited key staff and established a governance framework. Other preparation included asset selection and valuations, getting to know the market and determining an investment strategy and learning how to adjust to life after settlement.

In 1996, the Te Runanga O Ngai Tahu Act enabled the formation of an 18-member governing council to replace the iwi's trust board. Eighteen runanga provide the foundation for the tribal structure at a local level with participation in marae and home-based activities.

The reasonably cohesive iwi benefited from strong leadership and vision, and was prepared to ask for outside advice.

Since settlement, Ngai Tahu has increased its total asset base to $366 million. In the past financial year, the tribal equity grew from $206.2 million to $256.6 million.

In the 2000-1 financial year Ngai Tahu is expecting to spend around $10 million on tribal programmes and development.

The strongest performers were the fisheries and property businesses, and the iwi is easing into tourism.

Another settlement worth $170 million to Maori, the 1992 Sealords deal, has mushroomed to about $800 million under the control of the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission, despite allocation squabbles.

Other settlements, some only partial, range in value from $129,032 to $5.2 million.

The $5.2 million settlement was secured by the 5000-strong Rotorua hapu Ngati Whakaue in 1993.

Malcolm Short, chairman of the hapu's holding company, said Ngati Whakaue had gained and developed a 13ha block of railway land in the city centre. The land value had improved from $5 million to $35 million, with 50 per cent hapu equity.

"We had the right people at the top making the right decisions, and sought and took financial and legal advice ... Our people can look at the results and if they're not good reading they can boot you out on your ear."

Law Commissioner Denese Henare said small iwi or hapu could more easily adapt to such principles of democracy and accountability.

"For large tribes it is more difficult where there are more complex traditional structures."

In Tainui's case, the large iwi was now having to examine the role of Kingitanga.

Denese Henare said it had taken Tainui a great deal of political courage to settle the first large claim.

The Waikato land confiscations were more than the taking of resources - they meant the breaking down of community unity and identity.

She said Tainui's troubles in part represented the growing pains of a re-emerging Maori tribal unification.

Historically, Maori land holdings had been fragmented through the law courts, and the individual titles had shattered some tribal systems.

The settlement process, by virtue of returning land and resources to collective ownership, was a complete reversal of that, and delivered a further set of challenges.

The preparation in bringing a claim, then negotiating a settlement took a huge toll because the people involved were from disparate hapu, and urban or rural backgrounds.

"Then issues of accountability and leadership come to bear. You have to give effect to tikanga, cultural values, governance issues, the management of resources and administration."

For some iwi, it had taken a monumental effort to galvanise resources and people to even promote the idea of claims resolution.

"It is extraordinarily difficult to get some people to understand that there is an opportunity to settle a claim, when for many years they have been in grievance mode."

Denese Henare said that for the past 10 years, iwi had lacked proper legal structures or substantive law to properly cope with the mix of issues.

"We are going to need to move on that. Maori should be able to settle matters themselves, not through the law courts ... We are talking about very strong kin issues in which currently there is not too much of a forum to resolve such issues."

A dispute resolution forum was required for internal tribal disputes, she said.

There was already a progressive shift towards mediation services under the auspices of the Waitangi Tribunal, and the Maori Land Court was considering with the Law Commission whether a unique indigenous public law system was possible.

In North Taranaki, litigation over internal disputes has already cost iwi members about $1 million.

Te Atiawa Iwi Authority member Grant Knuckey said a Maori tribunal, independent of the Crown, would have helped.

"At the end of the day, the settlement won't go ahead unless we all go along together ... We need Maori law that the people will buy into."

Mason Durie, Professor of Maori Studies at Massey University, said Kingitanga and Tainui's democratically elected Kauhanganui tribal parliament need not be incompatible.

"But there has been a lack of clarity in how they relate."

He believes other Maori will learn from Tainui, and he is optimistic that the tribe will also come through.

"This is not the end of the world for Tainui, or what it stands for ... It's a salutary exercise. I know the people, there is a soundness. I think Tainui will come back as a powerful commercial player and in Maori politics."

Emeritus Professor James Ritchie, closely involved with Tainui, said the iwi members had as a group been less educated than other Maori because Tainui was the tribe that had suffered most.

In that sense, it was not best placed to receive the first large settlement.

Professor Ritchie was concerned at the damage to Tainui's credibility because it jeopardised a number of things the iwi wanted to do.

"It became so soap opera-ish ... That contributed to the decline ... One thing I find particularly offensive is people talk as if it is taxpayers' money, and it is not ... once it passes across it ceases to be that."

The former Minister in charge of Treaty Negotiations, Sir Douglas Graham, said that when the Crown transferred assets to Tainui, he was satisfied the structures were robust.

"And it is not all bad news. The iwi gives out 450 scholarships every year and many marae grants."

His Labour Party successor, Margaret Wilson, said that if Tainui's difficulties were not resolved, there could be some impact on public support for treaty settlements.

But the point of the settlement process was to redress past wrongs.

"It is not a means of avoiding all problems, and there is no way by which the state can protect treaty claimants from business realities."

She said Maori understood that and had not asked for Government control of their private affairs - "That is as it should be."

Former race relations conciliator Hiwi Tauroa said the damage was not to public perception of the claims process, but to the well-being of the people of Tainui.

Iwi were made up of many hapu and whanau, and divided loyalties could lead to competition and jealousy, while some old leaders were out of touch.

"When they still want to be leaders, it doesn't work. I think we have been very slow learning it."