Across the world there’s a revolving-door between politics and finance through which high-ranking political retirees like Tony Blair move from government straight into banking, and high-flying bankers like John Key move unerringly into government.
In that world, governments have not only failed to protect their people from the predations of financiers, they’ve actually passed laws that enable financiers to lure people into a state of indebtedness off which they then feast.
In a spectacularly accurate piece of purple prose, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi described Goldman Sachs, the world's most powerful investment bank, as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
To illustrate, the housing bubble was never about getting people into housing. Rather it was about neighbourhood banks and lenders acting as funnels for debts which were then packaged up with thousands of others and bought by investment banks like Goldman Sachs to either be sold again as mortgage-backed securities or held as reserves. Alternatively they could be used as collateral or gambled on via the purchase of credit default swaps (CDS).
On paper, every transaction generated more money. But it was all plaque; a gigantic fraud that makes the Nigerian scam look puny.
That became clear when New York-based bank Lehmann Brothers (the main competitor of Goldman Sachs) collapsed in 2008. Although Lehmann owed a shocking $65 billion when they collapsed, it turned out there was more than $400 billion worth of CDS being held by various speculators on just such a collapse happening.
The biggest holder, and therefore the biggest winner when Lehmann collapsed, was none other than Goldman Sachs. Conversely the biggest loser was a single insurer which was exposed to more than a quarter of those CDS: That was AIG, and it didn’t have a hope in hell of covering their exposure.
AIG had their back to wall, bankruptcy loomed, threatening to bring down the entire derivatives market, and with it the global banking system.
To forestall further collapses, the US Treasury and Federal Reserve bailed AIG out with more than $175 billion. In exchange, they took more than 80% ownership of the company. In short, all AIG’s losses fell on the backs of American taxpayers. Goldman Sachs, and other banking counterparties were paid 100 cents on the dollar. One single individual, John Paulson, received $8 Billion dollars.
The American government and these financiers have done an al-Qaeda on what was once the strongest economy in the world; they’ve flown it straight into the ground.
And yet nothing much has changed since 2008. Lenders are still luring borrowers into debt. Debt is still being bundled and on-sold to investment banks. Speculation continues. The only difference is that, now that housing is a bust, the lenders are using credit cards and student loans as the bait.
Here in New Zealand we’re seeing a similar pattern of financial collapses followed by taxpayer-funded government bailouts. Here too, credit cards and student loans are replacing home mortgages as the bait for borrowers to take on debt.
And here, as well as in America, the revolving door between politics and finance has never been busier.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS
Until this year I’d never heard of a credit default swap. It’s taken some time for me to get my head around what it is and why it’s so important to what’s happening to the economy today. In essence, a CDS is like an insurance policy on methamphetamine.
Here’s a hypothetical: Mr X borrows $50 from me. I want to get insurance on his debt in case he goes broke, so I go to Miss Y and, for a premium of $4 per year, she insures the debt.
Y is betting that X will pay me back, especially since she did her homework by looking at X’s credit rating and saw it was superb. But instead of writing a standard insurance policy, Y writes me a CDS.
Unfortunately Y then has some problems with her business, and she no longer has $50 to pay me in case X goes broke. The premiums I paid her are long gone.
Credit agencies notice this and kill Y’s credit rating. Now Y is stuffed because she can no longer raise cash at good rates to keep her business open (today’s large businesses need a constant flow of credit to maintain operations). Y goes bankrupt.
Now I’m in trouble. The debt X owes me is now uninsured. The credit agencies look at my books, see I have this exposed debt, and downgrade me. I enter bankruptcy as well. But I’m knee deep in the CDS game too. I wrote a ton of them for my mate Z, insuring debts owed to him by other parties. When I go down it puts pressure on X, Y and Z. Like dominoes we fall.
In the carnage it turns out that the ratings we all used to judge each other’s debt worthiness were bogus from the start. Essentially we all just gambled like we would at a blackjack table, but we did it while drunk. And blind.
In reality, the insurance company AIG wrote $78 billion worth of CDS between 2004 and 2009. Ivy League bright boys with MBAs then turned those CDS into a device which didn’t just insure against debt, but speculated if companies would fail or not. These speculative CDS could be on-sold, and often were. So, when a company went belly-up, whoever the lucky sod was holding the CDS on it at the time made a killing.
The Toxic Asset Relief Programme (TARP) in the US, and other taxpayer funded bailouts New Zealand and other countries, meant the bright boys not only survived, they were guaranteed to make money regardless of what happened to the company. As for the poor souls who had invested in it; for most of them it was a case of, “How sad, too bad, never mind!”
Here’s the bad news: the Bank for International Settlements recently reported that total derivatives trades, including CDS, now exceeds one quadrillion dollars – that’s 1,000 trillion dollars.
How is that figure even possible? The gross domestic product of all the countries in the world is only about 60 trillion dollars.
The answer to that is the real bad news.
Here’s a hypothetical: Mr X borrows $50 from me. I want to get insurance on his debt in case he goes broke, so I go to Miss Y and, for a premium of $4 per year, she insures the debt.
Y is betting that X will pay me back, especially since she did her homework by looking at X’s credit rating and saw it was superb. But instead of writing a standard insurance policy, Y writes me a CDS.
Unfortunately Y then has some problems with her business, and she no longer has $50 to pay me in case X goes broke. The premiums I paid her are long gone.
Credit agencies notice this and kill Y’s credit rating. Now Y is stuffed because she can no longer raise cash at good rates to keep her business open (today’s large businesses need a constant flow of credit to maintain operations). Y goes bankrupt.
Now I’m in trouble. The debt X owes me is now uninsured. The credit agencies look at my books, see I have this exposed debt, and downgrade me. I enter bankruptcy as well. But I’m knee deep in the CDS game too. I wrote a ton of them for my mate Z, insuring debts owed to him by other parties. When I go down it puts pressure on X, Y and Z. Like dominoes we fall.
In the carnage it turns out that the ratings we all used to judge each other’s debt worthiness were bogus from the start. Essentially we all just gambled like we would at a blackjack table, but we did it while drunk. And blind.
In reality, the insurance company AIG wrote $78 billion worth of CDS between 2004 and 2009. Ivy League bright boys with MBAs then turned those CDS into a device which didn’t just insure against debt, but speculated if companies would fail or not. These speculative CDS could be on-sold, and often were. So, when a company went belly-up, whoever the lucky sod was holding the CDS on it at the time made a killing.
The Toxic Asset Relief Programme (TARP) in the US, and other taxpayer funded bailouts New Zealand and other countries, meant the bright boys not only survived, they were guaranteed to make money regardless of what happened to the company. As for the poor souls who had invested in it; for most of them it was a case of, “How sad, too bad, never mind!”
Here’s the bad news: the Bank for International Settlements recently reported that total derivatives trades, including CDS, now exceeds one quadrillion dollars – that’s 1,000 trillion dollars.
How is that figure even possible? The gross domestic product of all the countries in the world is only about 60 trillion dollars.
The answer to that is the real bad news.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
THE TIPPING POINT
Spoilt sportsmen, conniving politicians, dishonest financiers; they all get caught eventually. And yet it often seems that, instead of kicking their sorry butts, we meekly accept their nonsense.
Perhaps that is the price we feel has to be paid for being associated with winners. Perhaps it’s what we feel has to be done to keep the leaky ship of state, sport or enterprise afloat. Hei aha? Whatever the reason, the tipping point always comes and change happens.
Right now we’re seeing it happening with regards to ‘the economy.’ As millions of homeless, jobless, cashless people (and those who are about to join their ranks) wake up to the fact that someone is making a financial killing off their misery, they are taking to the streets in protest.
Waves of civil disobedience are rippling across North America, the Middle East, and Europe against the moneymen who profit at every turn of the screw. The brokers, insurers, bankers and financiers, as well as the princes and politicians who serve their interests; to millions across the world they all deserve to be thrown out on their ear. And who can blame them for feeling that way?
However a word of caution.
It is good to see the rising awareness amongst the middle-class in particular that our nations and economies are not being run well by those in power. But, unless we understand that it is our own attitudes, expectations and practices that feed the problem and support those in power, nothing will change for us.
It does not matter what kind of government it is. Democracy, autocracy, theocracy, and even that strange beast called plutocracy (the rule or power of the wealthy); they are all addicted to an economic system called money upon which all international trading and commerce occurs. In turn we are addicted to it, mainly as borrowers.
As with any addiction, we who suffer from it are all subject to the increasingly centralised control of the money by an increasingly small and powerful group.
So, until enough of us understand how the addiction works and how to recover from it, nothing will change. In fact it will just get a whole lot worse as the cycle of boom and bust recurs on ever-increasing scales.
How do we break the cycle? Well, the people I respect most are all advising the same things. First, stop spending on anything but the necessities and pay your debts down. Second, drop your expectations and ‘use it up or wear it out, make it do or do without.’ Third, grow your own food as much as possible. Fourth, make alliances with likeminded people.
Depending on how much of this advice you take, when the tipping point comes (and it will), you’ll either already be in recovery, in jail, or dead and buried.
Perhaps that is the price we feel has to be paid for being associated with winners. Perhaps it’s what we feel has to be done to keep the leaky ship of state, sport or enterprise afloat. Hei aha? Whatever the reason, the tipping point always comes and change happens.
Right now we’re seeing it happening with regards to ‘the economy.’ As millions of homeless, jobless, cashless people (and those who are about to join their ranks) wake up to the fact that someone is making a financial killing off their misery, they are taking to the streets in protest.
Waves of civil disobedience are rippling across North America, the Middle East, and Europe against the moneymen who profit at every turn of the screw. The brokers, insurers, bankers and financiers, as well as the princes and politicians who serve their interests; to millions across the world they all deserve to be thrown out on their ear. And who can blame them for feeling that way?
However a word of caution.
It is good to see the rising awareness amongst the middle-class in particular that our nations and economies are not being run well by those in power. But, unless we understand that it is our own attitudes, expectations and practices that feed the problem and support those in power, nothing will change for us.
It does not matter what kind of government it is. Democracy, autocracy, theocracy, and even that strange beast called plutocracy (the rule or power of the wealthy); they are all addicted to an economic system called money upon which all international trading and commerce occurs. In turn we are addicted to it, mainly as borrowers.
As with any addiction, we who suffer from it are all subject to the increasingly centralised control of the money by an increasingly small and powerful group.
So, until enough of us understand how the addiction works and how to recover from it, nothing will change. In fact it will just get a whole lot worse as the cycle of boom and bust recurs on ever-increasing scales.
How do we break the cycle? Well, the people I respect most are all advising the same things. First, stop spending on anything but the necessities and pay your debts down. Second, drop your expectations and ‘use it up or wear it out, make it do or do without.’ Third, grow your own food as much as possible. Fourth, make alliances with likeminded people.
Depending on how much of this advice you take, when the tipping point comes (and it will), you’ll either already be in recovery, in jail, or dead and buried.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
GO FLY A KITE
For some time now Chris Finlayson has been flying kites for the crown amongst the iwi of Te Hiku o Te Ika, gauging how much he can get away with and who will support him against Ngāti Kahu.
In August he wrote instructing Ngāti Kahu to comply with Crown deadlines about providing information relating to the settlement of the other four iwi. Last month he wrote again saying he has now decided how to extinguish (not settle) Ngāti Kahu’s claims.
He intends to vest a lot of Ngāti Kahu lands in other iwi; Rangiāniwaniwa (kura kaupapa and airport), Te Make (the Sweetwater farm), Te Hiku forest lands as far north as Hukatere, and several properties in Kaitāia and Takahue. On top of that, he has withdrawn more than 60 other properties altogether that were in the Ngāti Kahu and Te Rarawa agreements in principle, saying the Crown wants to keep them (presumably to sell). In any event they have disappeared off the ever-shortening list of lands the crown is willing to transfer to the other iwi.
With regard to Rangiāniwaniwa, Finlayson instructs that the land will be transferred in a 50:50 split to Ngāi Takoto and Ngāti Kahu. But, until Ngāti Kahu behave like good Mowries, the crown will hang on to the Ngāti Kahu share. And if Ngāti Kahu are still being bad Mowries 36 months later, then the crown will transfer the Ngāti Kahu share to Ngāi Takoto. So, if Ngāi Takoto waits long enough, they can swoop in and take all of Rangiāniwaniwa. Never mind that the two whānau from whom it was taken during WW2 are still living right next to Rangiāniwaniwa; the Erstich and Pōpata whānau of Ngāti Kahu. Fortunately we can rely on the rank and file Ngāi Takoto not to fly that kite.
But wait, there’s more. Finlayson has also decided he must protect Far North District Council’s $1 per annum lease on more than half of Rangiāniwaniwa. Never mind that the lease doesn’t expire until 2013 or that he has no title on the land. Never mind that it still belongs to Patukōraha and Ngāi Tohianga hapū of Ngāti Kahu and Ngāi Takoto. And never mind that the council is lead by a man who, when told in 2008 that the land was going back to Ngāti Kahu and Ngāi Takoto, said there was no way Mowry could ever own an airport.
The legal owners of Rangiāniwaniwa met last Thursday and reaffirmed that they are happy for both the airport and the kura kaupapa to remain on their land. But it is they who will determine the terms of the renewed leases.
As for crown and council, they will get their answers in the Waitangi Tribunal soon enough. Until then, they are invited to take their racist whim, will and purported authority over all iwi including Ngāti Kahu, and go fly a kite.
In August he wrote instructing Ngāti Kahu to comply with Crown deadlines about providing information relating to the settlement of the other four iwi. Last month he wrote again saying he has now decided how to extinguish (not settle) Ngāti Kahu’s claims.
He intends to vest a lot of Ngāti Kahu lands in other iwi; Rangiāniwaniwa (kura kaupapa and airport), Te Make (the Sweetwater farm), Te Hiku forest lands as far north as Hukatere, and several properties in Kaitāia and Takahue. On top of that, he has withdrawn more than 60 other properties altogether that were in the Ngāti Kahu and Te Rarawa agreements in principle, saying the Crown wants to keep them (presumably to sell). In any event they have disappeared off the ever-shortening list of lands the crown is willing to transfer to the other iwi.
With regard to Rangiāniwaniwa, Finlayson instructs that the land will be transferred in a 50:50 split to Ngāi Takoto and Ngāti Kahu. But, until Ngāti Kahu behave like good Mowries, the crown will hang on to the Ngāti Kahu share. And if Ngāti Kahu are still being bad Mowries 36 months later, then the crown will transfer the Ngāti Kahu share to Ngāi Takoto. So, if Ngāi Takoto waits long enough, they can swoop in and take all of Rangiāniwaniwa. Never mind that the two whānau from whom it was taken during WW2 are still living right next to Rangiāniwaniwa; the Erstich and Pōpata whānau of Ngāti Kahu. Fortunately we can rely on the rank and file Ngāi Takoto not to fly that kite.
But wait, there’s more. Finlayson has also decided he must protect Far North District Council’s $1 per annum lease on more than half of Rangiāniwaniwa. Never mind that the lease doesn’t expire until 2013 or that he has no title on the land. Never mind that it still belongs to Patukōraha and Ngāi Tohianga hapū of Ngāti Kahu and Ngāi Takoto. And never mind that the council is lead by a man who, when told in 2008 that the land was going back to Ngāti Kahu and Ngāi Takoto, said there was no way Mowry could ever own an airport.
The legal owners of Rangiāniwaniwa met last Thursday and reaffirmed that they are happy for both the airport and the kura kaupapa to remain on their land. But it is they who will determine the terms of the renewed leases.
As for crown and council, they will get their answers in the Waitangi Tribunal soon enough. Until then, they are invited to take their racist whim, will and purported authority over all iwi including Ngāti Kahu, and go fly a kite.
UP IN SMOKE
On 12th November 1996 the first MMP general election in New Zealand was held. Just five months earlier, on the morning of 17th June, Ruapehu had erupted spectacularly, spewing 7 million tonnes of ash into the air.
Both these events impacted hugely on the land claims of Ngāti Kuri, Te Aupōuri, Ngāitakoto, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Kahu. But of the two, the Ruapehu eruption had the most immediate impact.
How so? Because, apart from contaminating the drinking water for miles around, damaging buildings, vehicles and the Rangipo Power Station, the ash and smoke also brought air travel between Auckland and Wellington to a halt for several days.
That meant a scheduled meeting between then Minister of Treaty Negotiations, Doug Graham, and Te Rūnanga o Muriwhenua didn’t happen. Partly as a result of that missed meeting, the Crown’s plans to quickly settle the five iwi claims before the general election of 1996, and before the Tribunal released its 1997 report on those claims, went up in smoke.
In the fifteen years since, there have been four more general elections, countless meetings between Crown and Iwi negotiators, and Ruapehu has erupted twice.
In 1996, those who supported settling on the Crown’s terms had two catch-cries; “Land the whale first, then cut it up,” and “Settle now, or miss the bus.”
I never beleived either catchcry. Instead I insisted on knowing how fresh the whale was, where the bus was going and who was driving it. I’ve always been picky that way.
In 1996 the whale was said to be worth $120 million. Where that figure came from and what it was based on, is not known. In the end it didn’t matter because both it and the bus it rode into town on were chimera. The original chimera was a monster in Greek mythology with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a snake’s tail. The word now means a vain or idle fancy.
For hapū rangatira, unless settlement is based on extinguishing the Crown’s false claims to their lands, and until the Crown relinquishes its grip on those lands, the whale will prove to have been a chimera. And if settlement is done under the Crown’s current terms of extinguishing Te Tiriti and Te Whakaputanga, the bus will have delivered them into its hands.
Fast forward to 2011. On November 26th, another general election happens. Before then, in the week of October 10th – 15th, the Crown plans to sign deeds of settlement with four iwi other than Ngāti Kahu. Those deeds will include the gains that Ngāti Kahu won off the Crown. They will also include lands that Ngāti Kahu, through Te Paatu, has a strong interest in; Kaitāia, the airport, the forests, Te Oneroa-a-Tohe, Te Make (Sweetwater), Kaimaumau and Maungataniwha.
Ngāti Kahu has not agreed to any of its lands being included, and will not be present.
Hei aha. Regardless of what Ruapehu might do, someone’s plans are about to go up in smoke.
Both these events impacted hugely on the land claims of Ngāti Kuri, Te Aupōuri, Ngāitakoto, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Kahu. But of the two, the Ruapehu eruption had the most immediate impact.
How so? Because, apart from contaminating the drinking water for miles around, damaging buildings, vehicles and the Rangipo Power Station, the ash and smoke also brought air travel between Auckland and Wellington to a halt for several days.
That meant a scheduled meeting between then Minister of Treaty Negotiations, Doug Graham, and Te Rūnanga o Muriwhenua didn’t happen. Partly as a result of that missed meeting, the Crown’s plans to quickly settle the five iwi claims before the general election of 1996, and before the Tribunal released its 1997 report on those claims, went up in smoke.
In the fifteen years since, there have been four more general elections, countless meetings between Crown and Iwi negotiators, and Ruapehu has erupted twice.
In 1996, those who supported settling on the Crown’s terms had two catch-cries; “Land the whale first, then cut it up,” and “Settle now, or miss the bus.”
I never beleived either catchcry. Instead I insisted on knowing how fresh the whale was, where the bus was going and who was driving it. I’ve always been picky that way.
In 1996 the whale was said to be worth $120 million. Where that figure came from and what it was based on, is not known. In the end it didn’t matter because both it and the bus it rode into town on were chimera. The original chimera was a monster in Greek mythology with a lion’s head, a goat’s body and a snake’s tail. The word now means a vain or idle fancy.
For hapū rangatira, unless settlement is based on extinguishing the Crown’s false claims to their lands, and until the Crown relinquishes its grip on those lands, the whale will prove to have been a chimera. And if settlement is done under the Crown’s current terms of extinguishing Te Tiriti and Te Whakaputanga, the bus will have delivered them into its hands.
Fast forward to 2011. On November 26th, another general election happens. Before then, in the week of October 10th – 15th, the Crown plans to sign deeds of settlement with four iwi other than Ngāti Kahu. Those deeds will include the gains that Ngāti Kahu won off the Crown. They will also include lands that Ngāti Kahu, through Te Paatu, has a strong interest in; Kaitāia, the airport, the forests, Te Oneroa-a-Tohe, Te Make (Sweetwater), Kaimaumau and Maungataniwha.
Ngāti Kahu has not agreed to any of its lands being included, and will not be present.
Hei aha. Regardless of what Ruapehu might do, someone’s plans are about to go up in smoke.
WAITANGI TRIBUNAL MEMORANDUM AND DIRECTIONS
Thanks to Ngāti Kahu the Muriwhenua Land Claim before the Waitangi Tribunal is alive again.
Last week (12th September), the Tribunal’s Chief Judge released a two page memorandum of directions on Ngāti Kahu’s application for binding recommendations asking that the Crown be ordered to return all State-owned Enterprise and Crown Forest Lands in the Ngāti Kahu rohe, plus pay compensation to Ngāti Kahu. Following is the substance of that memo.
1. On 5 July 2011 the Tribunal received a memorandum of counsel for Ngāti Kahu seeking to revive the application for remedies filed in October 2007 and amended in November 2007.
2. In accordance with my memorandum-directions of 19 July 2011 and 19 August 2011 the Waitangi Tribunal’s Registrar has completed a review of the record of inquiry for the Muriwhenua Land Claim and concluded that despite some inconsistencies in the record there is a reasonable level of docmentation available, both physical and electronic, to enable a new peresiding officer to be appointed.
3. Notwithstanding this conclusion, the review identified missing documents that may be of relevance to the current application, and may be in the possession of the Crown. These documents are as follows:
a) Topographical display map with overlays.
b) J Williams, Claimant Submission in support of Kaimaumau recommendation (22 Oct 91);
c) Submission from Te Runanga o Muriwhenua, “Outline of Te Runanga o Muriwhenua to this and subsequent Tribunal processes”;
d) Letter from Juken Nissho Ltd to OTS, 2 Apr 98, which is attached to Crown submission re pre-remedies hearing, 31 Mar 98; and
e) Submissions of Te Runanga-a-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu, 5 Apr 98
4. If the Crown is in possession of these documents it is to file these documents with the Tribunal no later than midday, Monday 19 September 2011. Alternatively, the Crown should notify the Tribunal if these documents are not available.
5. However, having regard to the report I have received from the Registrar, I am satisfied that there is an adequate record of inquiry that is in a condition to enable a new presiding officer to review and familiarise himself or herself with the relevant documents.
6. Accordingly, pusuant to clause 5AA(1) of the Second Schedule to the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, I now appoint Judge S J Clark, a judge of the Maori Land Court, as the replacement presiding officer of the Muriwhenua Land Claim inquiry.
For the bush lawyers amongst us, that means the Crown had until yesterday to respond as directed.
Interestingly prior to releasing this memo, the Tribunal had released a much lengthier one on 26th August with regard to the Turanganui a Kiwa inquiry; that’s the consolidated claim which includes Stephen Haronga, the man whose success in the Supreme Court reopened remedies as an option for Ngāti Kahu. In that memo the Tribunal has decided to hold hearings. Its decision to do so is based on a number of determinations it had made in 1998 about binding recommendations in Muriwhenua.
The Crown should be worried.
Last week (12th September), the Tribunal’s Chief Judge released a two page memorandum of directions on Ngāti Kahu’s application for binding recommendations asking that the Crown be ordered to return all State-owned Enterprise and Crown Forest Lands in the Ngāti Kahu rohe, plus pay compensation to Ngāti Kahu. Following is the substance of that memo.
1. On 5 July 2011 the Tribunal received a memorandum of counsel for Ngāti Kahu seeking to revive the application for remedies filed in October 2007 and amended in November 2007.
2. In accordance with my memorandum-directions of 19 July 2011 and 19 August 2011 the Waitangi Tribunal’s Registrar has completed a review of the record of inquiry for the Muriwhenua Land Claim and concluded that despite some inconsistencies in the record there is a reasonable level of docmentation available, both physical and electronic, to enable a new peresiding officer to be appointed.
3. Notwithstanding this conclusion, the review identified missing documents that may be of relevance to the current application, and may be in the possession of the Crown. These documents are as follows:
a) Topographical display map with overlays.
b) J Williams, Claimant Submission in support of Kaimaumau recommendation (22 Oct 91);
c) Submission from Te Runanga o Muriwhenua, “Outline of Te Runanga o Muriwhenua to this and subsequent Tribunal processes”;
d) Letter from Juken Nissho Ltd to OTS, 2 Apr 98, which is attached to Crown submission re pre-remedies hearing, 31 Mar 98; and
e) Submissions of Te Runanga-a-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu, 5 Apr 98
4. If the Crown is in possession of these documents it is to file these documents with the Tribunal no later than midday, Monday 19 September 2011. Alternatively, the Crown should notify the Tribunal if these documents are not available.
5. However, having regard to the report I have received from the Registrar, I am satisfied that there is an adequate record of inquiry that is in a condition to enable a new presiding officer to review and familiarise himself or herself with the relevant documents.
6. Accordingly, pusuant to clause 5AA(1) of the Second Schedule to the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975, I now appoint Judge S J Clark, a judge of the Maori Land Court, as the replacement presiding officer of the Muriwhenua Land Claim inquiry.
For the bush lawyers amongst us, that means the Crown had until yesterday to respond as directed.
Interestingly prior to releasing this memo, the Tribunal had released a much lengthier one on 26th August with regard to the Turanganui a Kiwa inquiry; that’s the consolidated claim which includes Stephen Haronga, the man whose success in the Supreme Court reopened remedies as an option for Ngāti Kahu. In that memo the Tribunal has decided to hold hearings. Its decision to do so is based on a number of determinations it had made in 1998 about binding recommendations in Muriwhenua.
The Crown should be worried.
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