Ngāpuhi hapū leader calls for $8 billion Treaty redress during Govt visit

Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith (third left) and his entourage, including to his right Northland MP Grant McCallum, walks on the Whitiora Marae in the Bay of Islands. Photo / Susan Botting
A Ngāpuhi hapū leader today told Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith the country’s biggest iwi should get an $8.43 billion redress for generations of losses.
Te Whiu chairman TeRau Allen-Arena’s call came as Goldsmith met formally with Ngāpuhi hapū for the first time at Whitiora Marae in Te Tii on Te Puna Inlet in the Bay of Islands.
Goldsmith visited Te Tii for Te Kotahitanga o ngā hapū Ngāpuhi’s October meeting, amid efforts to get Ngāpuhi hapū together to work towards a Treaty settlement.
Allen-Arena said the Government had managed to find $1.6b to pay out 35,000 investors in failed South Canterbury Finance. He said that amounted to a payout of $45,700 per investor.
Using those calculations showed an equivalent payment of $8.43b was justifiable for Ngāpuhi, New Zealand’s largest iwi with 184,470 people.
The finance company had been for an emergency payment for a business. But the money due to Ngāpuhi was for a much broader and more fundamental context.
Goldsmith told those present the Government had ideas about how a settlement might happen. But his purpose at the hui was to listen.
The visit was his first with wider Ngāpuhi hapū.
About 200 people packed the Whitiora Marae hui hosted by Ngāti Rēhia.
Te Kotahitanga o ngā hapū Ngāpuhi chair Pita Tipene said it was important the minister came to hear from Ngāpuhi hapū.
It was about the Government listening and not telling Ngāpuhi what was going to happen.
“Te Kotahitanga continues to have a goal to be a forum where the hapū of Ngāpuhi can come together and configure themselves for Treaty negotiations,” Tipene said.
But this would be done on their terms. They would configure themselves for negotiations as they wanted to, not as the Government or anybody else might wish.
Goldsmith said the Government would like to see Ngāpuhi’s Treaty of Waitangi claims settled. He believed this would be a huge opportunity for the iwi.
But the Government wanted to hear from the iwi rather than being prescriptive.
Tipene said Ngapūhi hapū were looking to the future to find a positive way forward, rather than fighting among themselves.
He hoped the minister would be open to processing Ngāpuhi claims in a way that aligned with that of Te Kotahitanga o ngā hapū Ngāpuhi.
A range of hapū spoke at today’s hui including from the mid-north and Whangārei.
Tipene said the Waitangi Tribunal had ruled Ngāpuhi had not ceded sovereignty when signing Te Tiriti of Waitangi or He Whakapuntanga.
He told Goldsmith that was Te Kotahitanga o ngā hapū Ngāpuhi’s firm position.
He was clear that the movement forward to a Treaty claims solution was firmly happening in this context.
This was in spite of the Prime Minister recently indicating the Government’s position to be otherwise.
Ngāti Hine leader Waihoroi Shortland said those working for a Ngāpuhi solution had faced years of successive changes in those holding the Ministerial Treaty Negotiations portfolio.
Hui speaker Roseanna Henare-Solomona told the minister Ngāpuhi in Australia should not be lost sight of in terms of redress. Henare-Solomona splits her time between Northland and Australia.
Another hui speaker, Lee Harris, representing Hokianga hapū, said working with conflicting views of who spoke for an area’s hapū was part of the process of moving forward.
■ LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.