Claims Update 20 February 2007
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Since the end of last year the negotiation process with the Office of Treaty Settlements (OTS) has moved up a few gears. We have had negotiation meetings in late December, our Lead Negotiator Toko Kapea has met with them in late January, and the negotiation team has met with OTS for a further three days in February so far. The stated schedule for meetings until late June is for approximately a further fourteen meetings. This does not include all the preparation and analysis work that occurs in between all these meetings.
A pivotal meeting is on February 21 where the negotiation team will make a presentation to the Hon. Mark Burton the Minister of Treaty Settlements. This is our opportunity to not only make him aware of the nature of our claim and the breaches of the treaty committed by the Crown in regard to Ngati Apa, but also to illustrate to him clearly that Te Runanga o Ngati Apa is a robust and well mandated organisation with the required skill base and commitment to our people whereby he will have confidence in us to look after our settlement resources into the future.
So the negotiation process is in top gear and all are very busy. We will also be looking to work with hapu in regard to all the work streams in the upcoming months as there will be many decisions to make regarding cultural, commercial and historical redress.
The historical account is at a stage where the negotiation team ready to recommend to the Runanga to sign off based upon their own work and advice from our historians. The team has pushed hard for inclusion of the nature of the 1849 transaction and has gained a great deal more content than when we first started. The implications for Crown in terms of dealing with the concept of these transactions means that they are only willing to acknowledge the special nature of the transaction in that it was not just a fee simple transaction, but not to go as far as acknowledging it as anything more.
Once the historical account is agreed then the Crown will formulate their acknowledgements of breaches of the treaty and then its apology. Parts of this process can seem lame but we will follow it through and attempt to gain a meaningful outcome for our settlement.
After extensive discussions with our hapu in regard to the potential sites for cultural redress we have now presented OTS with a comprehensive listing of sites. Since then we have taken the new OTS team on a tour around half of the sites whereby they were able to see and learn about these sites for themselves. The issue of the lack of papakainga has been a feature with more innovative means of meeting this need being discussed.
Presentations have also been made to us by the Ministry for Arts & Culture, Ministry for the Environment, and the Ministry of Fisheries regarding the protocols they have used in previous settlements.
We have also done some analysis work on the Buller Collection which has many Ngati Apa taonga in it. Much of this material is held at Te Papa.
OTS have provided more material to us regarding SOE (State Owned Enterprises) and CRI (Crown Research Institute) interests in our rohe. The role that these lands can play in our settlement appear initially to be limited. However the team is working hard on ways in which this resource can play a significant part in our settlement.
We still have many registrations coming in with our number now over the 5,500 mark. People who have registered under the Tuhono scheme are being followed up and in many cases more registrations are being forwarded from their entire whanau.
Thanks must go to Gaylene Nepia , Albert Thompson and all the registration officers for the growth in our database to date. This work of course will continue on as we further strengthen our communication and mandate strategies.
This work stream has been relatively quiet in part due to the holiday period where many people are away. We have been in contact with representatives of Whanganui Iwi and a meeting with them is no doubt imminent.
It has been identified that contact with Rangitane will need to be followed up soon. We would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the passing of Ruth Harris the former CEO of Tanenuiarangi Inc. Of course Ruth is an Aunty of Ngati Maero, Ngati Tauira hapu from the Papawhenua rohe and her passing is a great loss to us all.