Sunday, May 07, 2006

Maori Party disquiet over Treaty settlement process

The Maori Party are considering calling a halt to the treaty claims process because of problems it lists in a letter posted on their website.

# Government said the country could only afford $1 billion for treaty settlements.
# That proposal has already been rejected by iwi at the Hirangi hui in 1992.
# The 2005 Budget listed a surplus of $7 billion.
# Clearly, government's settlement offer of $1.3 billion is insultingly low.

* The Crown is settling at about 2% of the real value of claims.
* Maori are being forced to accept far less than their claims are worth.

It is not our intention to oppose Treaty settlements at this point, but to signal our very clear disquiet with the process, the terms, the quantum, and the agency managing Treaty settlements.

It is because of the seriousness and the breadth of those concerns, that the Maori Party is considering a call :

"That all Treaty settlements be suspended until there has been a full review of the Treaty Settlement process".

Their "disquiet with .... the quantum" must be extreme. By my calculations the Maori Party believes the government should pay $65 billion in treaty settlements.

4 comments:

sagenz said...

its about keeping the gravy train going and signalling that full & final settlements will be just like the full & final of the seventies.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

..and the full and final of previous decades.

Unknown said...

Why don't Tribes that have settled with the Crown, e.g. Ngati Whatua, Ngai Tahu who have previously decimated other tribes, (e.g. Ngati none-left, Kaipara, South Island, Moriori)have to pay compensation for their genocide?
Seriously, why is that?

Unknown said...

Oh, my bad, that's alright then.
So nothing going after the Treaty because we are all subject to Crown law?