John Tamihere, chief executive of the Whanau Ora Commissioning Agency, supported the challenge in the Waitangi Tribunal. Photo / Brett Phibbs
John Tamihere, chief executive of the Whanau Ora Commissioning Agency, supported the challenge in the Waitangi Tribunal. Photo / Brett Phibbs
The Waitangi Tribunal has rejected a challenge over Government plans to give iwi and hapu a leading role in setting up planning committees under the law to replace the Resource Management Act.
But the tribunal believes that the planning committees should comprise 50 per cent Māori representatives, instead of giving each region flexibility.
In an unusual finding, the Waitangi Tribunal concluded the Crown was not in breach of the Treaty, after a three-day priority hearing in August.
The New Zealand Maori Council took the claim against the Government's plans to give iwi and hapu the leading role in determining the Māori representatives.
Its case was supported by former High Court Judge Sir Edward Taihakurei Durie and John Tamihere, chief executive of Te Whanau Waipareira and chief executive of the Whanau Ora Commissioning Agency.
Tamihere claimed that post-settlement governance entities set up by iwi were "feudal constructs" run by elites who had no genuine connection to Māori at the hapu or whanau level.
Lisa Tumahai, kaiwhakahaere of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu, gave evidence to the tribunal opposing the challenge. Photo / Supplied
Their arguments were opposed by the Iwi Leaders Freshwater Group, and iwi such as Ngai Tahu and Ngati Whatua, who claimed that rangatiratanga resided exclusively with iwi and hapu and that New Zealand Māori Council was an irrelevant institution of the state.
The Government has decided that under the RMA reforms, to be introduced to Parliament in October, there will be 14 regional planning committees throughout New Zealand comprising representatives of local government and of Māori.
The committees will be a minimum of six people altogether and a minimum of two Māori - to be negotiated between local government and Māori in each region.
Environment officials told the tribunal ministers had agreed on a board outline of how Māori representatives should be selected but said there should be a large amount of flexibility within each region to allow for self-determination.
The Government wants iwi authorities and groups representing hapu to lead and facilitate discussions in each region as to how to appoint its Māori representatives. They will be required to consult other groups, such and the New Zealand Māori Council and Federation of Māori Authorities and to keep a record of its engagement.
Judge Wilson Isaac, chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal. Photo / Waitangi Tribunal.
The committees will be autonomous decision-making bodies that will have to prepare a plan for every local authority in the region and monitor its implementation.
The tribunal has found that the proposal that iwi and hapu should lead and facilitate the process to decide an appointing body "is Treaty compliant at a high level of principle" – noting that all detail has not been decided.
But the tribunal expressed concerns about the composition of the planning committee.
"On the broader composition issue, we appreciate that the regional planning committees have to be a reasonable and workable size to do their jobs effectively, and that this will mean that (as officials put it) the many [Māori groups] will have to be represented by the few."
But it said a high-level commitment to 50:50 composition "could take a lot of the heat out of the selection process."
It noted that 50:50 was the co-governance structure in the Waikato River Authority, the Hawkes Bay Regional Planning Committee and the proposed regional groups in the Three Waters reforms.
And it pointed to a submission that had said the new resource management system should not aspire to less than is already available in terms of partnership arrangements.
