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Nā Dr Martin Fisher The role of third party interests in Treaty settlement negotiations is often not fully recognised. Their influence on the Ngāi Tahu negotiations (1991–1998) was significant and presented a series of challenges to the development of the Fourth National Government’s Treaty settlement policy in the first half of the 1990s, with conservationists…
Read MoreCentral to the tensions that arose during the course of the Ngāi Tahu negotiations was the question of how the total value of the settlement would be ascertained and dealt with. While the Crown approached the negotiations from the perspective that earlier settlements of the 1940s only required updating, negotiators for Ngāi Tahu believed that the amount returned to them had to reflect the value of what they had lost. Ngāi Tahu understood that full reimbursement would have been impossible, but they believed that some rationalisation or formula was necessary.
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Twenty years ago we gathered at Takahanga Marae, Kaikōura, to execute the Ngāi Tahu Deed of Settlement with the Crown. It was only after weathering another storm-tossed year of litigation and political stress, both internal and external, that the agreement was finally passed into law by Parliament – that year was to be another story in its own right. It was the Deed of Settlement, though, that marked the turning point in the several histories that comprise the seven-generation story of the Ngāi Tahu Claims – Te Kerēme o Ngāi Tahu.
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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the first Waitangi Tribunal Hearing into the Ngāi Tahu Claim. On 17 August 1987, the Waitangi Tribunal commenced its first hearing into the Ngāi Tahu Claim. The hearing began with a pōwhiri at Tuahiwi Marae, before moving the next day to Rangiora High School for the remainder of the…
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During the Waitangi Tribunal hearings into the Ngāi Tahu Claim, three historians played an integral part for Ngāi Tahu. Where are they now? In many ways it may have been the making of the young historian. Three years plus in the hothouse atmosphere of Te Kerēme, and the Waitangi Tribunal hearings that would deliver the Ngāi Tahu Deed of Settlement and end more than 150 years of petitioning the Crown.
Read MoreMore payments may be made as the relativity mechanisms allow a further claim to be made in five years’ time.
Since the Waitangi Tribunal began operating in 1975, around 34 Treaty settlements have been completed, several more are in the pipeline and a recent book Treaty of Waitangi Settlements by Nicola R Wheen and Janine Hayward and published by Bridget Williams Books says that there may be as many as 60 more to come.
On the issue of iwi rights to water, the [Land and Water] Forum kicked for touch, finding that it was a matter to be sorted out between the Crown and Māori.
Since 1984, seven Waitangi Tribunal reports have dealt with Māori rights in waterways in a substantive way. In each case these reports have found significant Māori interests in water, as well as significant pollution affecting those interests.