PULLING OUR PUNCHES

Our 11 year old mokopuna has an axeman’s eye and and has recently taken upon himself the job of splitting our firewood.  Listening this morning I heard the repeated sound of whack-ching! whack-ching! Puzzled, I went out to watch him for the first time.  He  has an awesome swing, starting from above the head and ending on the concrete floor.  After checking the cutting edge and finding no major damage, nor a suitable chopping block, I showed him how to pull his stroke sufficient to split the wood but not hit the concrete below it.  In boxing it’s called pulling your punches.

I have this metaphor in mind as Ngāti Kahu prepares to face off next week in the fight for resumption of all 27b properties stolen by the Crown in the reduced Ngāti Kahu claim area set by the Waitangi Tribunal.

Last week all the interested parties filed most of their evidence with the Tribunal.  Essentially, they come from four quarters; the Crown, hapū within Ngāti Kahu, other iwi, and hapū from outside Ngāti Kahu. 

For the Crown, opposing evidence has been filed from Pat Snedden (Chief Crown Negotiator), Maureen Hickey (Senior Policy Analyst with the Office of Treaty Settlements), Russell Garton (a valuer), Adam Levy, (also from OTS) and Jacqueline Hori- Hoult (from NZTA).  Their common point is to show that Ngāti Kahu are unreasonable and wrong for seeking resumption instead of settling.

From inside Ngāti Kahu opposing evidence has been filed from certain whānau within three of Ngāti Kahu’s fifteen hapū.  For Ngāti Tara there are Raniera Bassett, Chappy Harrison, Robert Gabel and Atihana Johns.  For Te Paatu we have Graham and Tina Latimer.  And from Pēria there is Pereniki Tauhara.  They all have two common points.  First they claim all the other hapū have excluded them from participating and benefitting as part of Ngāti Kahu.  Second, they’re all former or current personnel from Ngāti Kahu Trust Board, the body which lost the fight with Te Runanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu for Ngāti Kahu’s mandate back in the late 1990s, early 2000s.

For other iwi comes opposing evidence from Haami Piripi, Paul White, Malcolm Peri, Hector Busby, Joe Cooper and Manuka Henare for Te Rarawa, Waitai Petera and Hugh Karena for Te Aupōuri, and Rangitane Marsden for Ngāitakoto.  Their main common point is that they do not want the 27b properties they either occupy or own to be resumed for Ngāti Kahu.

Evidence has also been filed by neighbouring hapū from Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Kahu ki Whaingaroa who largely support Ngāti Kahu’s claim for resumption, but record that they also have interests in the Kohumaru station and Ōtangaroa forest.

There is still more evidence to be filed by the Crown and others, so Ngāti Kahu are well and truly up against it.  It will be interesting next week to see if the gloves finally come off, or if they continue to pull their punches.

BULLY FOR THEM

On facebook recently someone called Henk posted a tongue-in-cheek theory that overweight National Party Ministers really, really hate people on benefits.  As examples Henk cites Jenny Shipley who ruthlessly slashed benefits when she held the Social Welfare portfolio in 1990, and Paula Bennett, the current heavy in what is now known as the Social Development portfolio who has been hooking into beneficiaries like only a reformed beneficiary could.  As a reason for their theoretical hatred, Henk reckons that the big lasses are jealous of skinny beneficiaries.  Henk is definitely a fattist, but he isn’t as sexist as he sounds.  “Imagine,” he invites, “what Gerry Brownlee would do!”  Then, after an elliptical pause, he suggests “Probably firing squads.”

Actually I think Henk is on to something here, not about fat people who are no more or less hateful than any other group in my experience, but about how some people in power use their authority to bully those beneath them.

In a classic case of pulling the ladder up behind her, once she became Minister of Social Development, Paula Bennett cancelled a training benefit which she herself had used while on the DPB.  She then later released the private details of a beneficiary who criticised her for doing that.  How did Bennett manage to get access to those details?  What pressure was brought to bear on some underling to open the file, access the information, than pass it on up to her?

Apparently the resultant public backlash against her critic has shocked poor Ms Bennett. But now that Human Rights Commissioner, Rob Hesketh, has investigated the subsequent complaint and found she breached the privacy of that beneficiary, is she repentant?  No she is not.  “I do not believe that I breached privacy,” she said last week before going on to say she might release more details in the future.  Dear me.

Similarly Wayne Brown has been pinged by the Auditor-General for being unwise in blurring the lines between his personal business interests and his Mayoral role.  He used Far North District Council Mayoral letterhead to write to the Far North District Council CEO about his outstanding rates bill with that same council, and got other staff to follow up on the same bill.  I hate to think what it’s been like for those staff, but apparently the Mayor is the victim here.  "I don't get the same crack of the whip as an average man," he complained. "They haven't treated me like a developer - they've treated me like a mayor."  Good grief.

The word to describe these behaviours is bullying, and politicians in and out of parliament seem highly prone to doing it, regardless of their body measurements, gender, race, colour or creed.

Personally, I’m grateful to the Human Rights Commissioner and the Auditor-General for bringing these and other cases to light.  Bully for them, I say.

POLITICIANS' PROMISES

Chris Finlayson held a meeting in Kaitāia on Saturday to speak with owners of 27b memorialised properties about Ngāti Kahu’s application for resumption of those properties.  There were about fifty 27b owners there, as well as a number of police and several Ngāti Kahu kaumātua who, initially, were told they couldn’t come in.  They went in anyway.

At first Finlayson talked very generally, saying that the Crown would vehemently oppose resumption and that he wanted Ngāti Kahu to settle instead.  He also repeatedly said he wasn’t there to talk about legal matters, but when asked he conceded that 27b memorials on titles clearly warn buyers the land may be resumed to remedy claims and that, if the Tribunal orders it, the Crown has to resume that land under the Public Works Act. 

He also admitted that 27b memorials can only be removed if Ngāti Kahu agrees to settle, which it hasn’t, and that the Waitangi Tribunal would only make resumption orders for a very good reason.  He didn’t explain why settlement hadn’t happened, but he claimed that the 90 day period after any orders were made was when things would be sorted out so that the orders didn’t become final. What he failed to advise was that during that 90 day period there’s no obligation for Ngati Kahu to change any part of those orders if they don’t want to.

He was interrupted very early on by a man who wanted to know why, when the Treaty said the Crown had to look after all people, it was only looking after Māori, and he replied that the Crown’s breaches against Māori had to be addressed.  

Another man, who’d recently been told by the Crown he owned one of three properties that should have had 27b memorials on them, demanded it be removed. Finlayson said it was due to a registering error and promised he’d talk to him after the meeting.  A woman asked if he could remove the 27b off her property and he said yes, after settlement.

A woman asked if he could remove the 27b off her property and he said yes, after settlement. However he made no such promises to a man who said he'd asked former MP John Carter at the time if it was safe to buy 27b land and Carter had assured him it was because resumption would never happen.  He was also silent when another man said market value under the Public Works Act wouldn’t cover what he’d put into his property and he had to be paid out in full.

Ngāti Kahu’s kaumātua reminded everyone that the 27b lands were only a small fraction of more than 230,000 acres stolen from the tribe by the Crown, and had been on-sold to private buyers instead of being returned to Ngāti Kahu.  They also offered to explain the issues further.  There seemed to be genuine interest from a number of the 27b owners in hearing them, but Finlayson said he wasn’t there for that.  

After the 90 minute meeting ended he left them all to ponder his promises.  While they ponder, any 27b owner who wants to know more is welcome to contact me at nkceo@xtra.co.nz  or ring 4083013.

LIKE A FOX

Like a fox guarding the henhouse is a saying that warns against giving a job to someone who will then be in a position to use it for his own benefit.

FNDC has long been pushing for a unitary authority in the Far North which combines the powers and authorities of both Regional and District Councils.  It has also long been trying to get the support of iwi for this proposal. 

To date the hapū who instruct Te Runanga-a-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu have declined to support because neither Regional nor District Councils are Māori let alone Ngāti Kahu structures.  Additionally both councils, but FNDC in particular, have consistently been anti-hapū mana whenua and rangatiratanga.  In fact right now FNDC is appealing to the Supreme Court against Ngāti Kahu’s win last year on behalf of the hapū Te Whānau Moana in the High Court over Te Ana o Taite. 

Since April this year, a group of council and iwi leaders calling themselves the “Better Local Government Working Party” have been promoting a proposal whereby the four councils in Northland (i.e. Whangarei District Council, Kaipara District Council, Far North District Council and Northland Regional Council) are restructured into two unitary councils.  They claim this reduction will bring greater efficiencies and cost savings to ratepayers, increased productivity and improvements for staff, simplified planning processes for developers, effective representation for Māori and better governance all round.  On that logic, wouldn’t it be better to reduce the four to one or less?

Last month they invited community leaders to a meeting on Thursday 26th July.  But on 24th July they sent a special exclusive invitation to iwi leaders to attend a separate hui on the 7th August, instead.  Apparently the change was suggested so that we could feel comfortable with asking questions and providing feedback … pertaining to the draft application developed through the Better Local Government Working Party. I appreciate their concern for my comfort, but suspect that holding an exclusive hui is more about getting their agenda passed than anything else. Hei aha.

By and large Ngāti Kahu don’t care how councils structure themselves because it’s not their structure or number that are problems for us.  Rather, it’s their ignorance of and hostility towards hapū mana whenua. 

Other iwi (presumably at the instruction of their hapū) support the proposed retructure because they’ve been guaranteed a few Māori seats on each council and reckon that will make them hapū-friendly.  The fact that Māori will still be a minority on councils ruled by very hapū-unfriendly laws has either escaped them, or doesn’t worry them.  I’m reminded of a cartoon from my childhood in which a predator meets a rooster who sees nothing but a cute friend, while the predator sees nothing but a juicy roast.  

Whatever happens regarding any local government restructure, the acronym NRC does not mean it’ll become a Nice to Rangatira Council, and FNDC will never mean the Fox Never Dines on Chicken.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXf3QttUPlI