Mapp Wayne: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
Mapp Wayne: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:618;Page:14406] 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I want to report on the Maori Affairs Committee report on the progress of treaty negotiations. In this year’s report we note two things. Page 4 states: “Some of us remain concerned at the suitability of staff to conduct negotiations with senior tribal leaders. In particular we note that OTS does not regularly engage lead negotiators who have equivalent community standing.” The Minister may well think that it is only the National Party that says that. I can tell her that that sentiment is shared by her colleagues the Maori members who represent the various Maori seats that Labour holds. It is a widespread concern. The trouble is that we have a Minister who thinks that treaty negotiations are best conducted by a policy of benign neglect—that she can leave it to the Office of Treaty Settlements and occasionally helicopter in to sign a document or deliver an apology. Well that does not work. What is required is an intensive ongoing effort by the Government with a Minister actively seized of the negotiating process. 
We know that the Minister prefers the area of labour relations. We know that she prefers—although perhaps not this week—issues to do with the Supreme Court. The one area of her responsibilities that is perhaps more important for the future of the country than any other is concluding the treaty settlement process. The reason we say “concluding” is that it is about actually unifying and healing the nation. Whilst we remain a nation in the middle of the treaty settlement process we will to a large extent remain divided. We have only to look at the example of NgaiTahu in particular—but there are others as well—to see that once the settlement process is complete there is a bringing together of communities. That is what is required and it is what the Government has simply failed to understand. That is why Dr Brash at Orewa talked about the need to complete the settlement process. 
We have made an undertaking that we will complete the settlement process in 5 years. That means a new way of thinking. It means new and fresh approaches to dealing with the process. Some of that does involve getting high-powered highly qualified well-respected people—senior people whom iwi negotiators will respect and whom they will understand and be able to deal with—to speed the process. That is what occurred in the 1990s. It also involves the Minister taking a keen interest and being closely involved in the process. For instance back in 1999 the then Minister Sir Douglas Graham was able to complete five heads of agreement with five Taranaki iwi. We are 5 years down the track and not all of those are yet even into legislation. Last month I issued a press release in which I said that in the space of 5 years Parliament had passed only four Treaty of Waitangi settlement Acts. The Minister clearly did not read that release accurately because she claimed that I was wrong and that the Government had many other things in train as well. I guess it does have things in train but she could not say that in terms of the legislation—the final event that actually creates the settlement itself—there were any more than four settlements. I know that the Minister says—and I would like her to take a call—that she has legislation afoot to put to Parliament to settle some Taranaki iwi claims and we will support that because we have been waiting a long long time for it to occur. 
We on the Opposition side of the Chamber are concerned to see the relatively low level of the vote for treaty settlements over previous years ranging from a high of $60 million. It is noteworthy that that was in 1999-2000. Since then it has been down to $27 million $31 million and so forth. That represents the slow pace and low number of settlements. The fact that the vote has collapsed to such an extent shows how woefully behind the pace the Government is. The Government has said that it believes the process can be completed in 15 years’ time. We have asked that question of the Office of Treaty Settlements—and indeed of the Minister when she appeared before the select committee—numerous times. Each time the answer has been that it would require 15 years give or take a few years. Fifteen years has been the consistent answer. 
Well that answer has been given now for 5 years. What that means of course is that in the Government’s mind its framework has already been extended out to 2020. I recall—and the Minister herself should recall—a time when she and the Office of Treaty Settlements were talking about 2012-15. That is what she said in 2001. But today we are talking about 2020—effectively 15 years down the track. So it was not surprising that when the chief executive of the Office of Treaty Settlements was challenged on the slow pace of the settlements he started talking about time frames and the need to put in some shape. One got the fundamental impression of a degree of frustration creeping into the office because it has a Minister who simply does not care and does not take the focused effort that is necessary to expedite the process. 
It is for the benefit of the country to conclude these settlements. I say it is for the benefit of the country but perhaps more significantly—and the Minister of Maori Affairs certainly knows this—it is for the benefit of Maori themselves. Part of concluding the settlement process is not just the restoration of particular assets or sums of money. It is the sense of restoration of the iwi—the sense of iwi pride—that is an important part of people’s development. Those of us—and I presume this includes the Minister—who have gone to various iwi that have completed settlements and have moved into looking at the opportunities for the future can see the advantages that have resulted from those settlements. We can see that those iwi have been able to provide funds for students to attend universities and polytechnics and to provide a whole range of services and facilities for the members of the iwi. The process and completion of the settlement is an inherent part of building capability and capacity within the Maori people. The money itself is not the critical issue because in reality it will never be enough to give individuals a real opportunity to close the gaps. But what it does do is to heal the spirit. Once that is done the development of people can be advanced. That is precisely where the Government has failed to seize the opportunity. 
There will come an opportunity in 12 months’ time when the public will get to choose which party it prefers to do the real business of concluding settlements that are to the benefit of this country. I would have to say that based on the Government’s lackadaisical and lazy progress to date Labour will not be the preferred choice.