Here’s my response to your opinion piece on Ture Whenua.

Kia Ora Komrad Bomber,

Here’s my response to your opinion piece on Ture Whenua.

Why amend? It’s pretty simple really: there are over 27,000 blocks of Māori land under Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993 Act, that’s 1.4 million hectares or about five percent of the total land in Aotearoa. Owners, are shackled by antiquated policy preventing them from developing their lands hence the amendment to the act.

While I wouldn’t (god forbid) presume to speak for the Minister of Treaty Settlements Christopher Finlayson, what I do know after working alongside him as a (former) National Party List MP, is that he consults and takes advice from a broad sector of Maori – predominantly Iwi affiliated. He has confidantes and access to tribal goings-on that the Labour Party Maori caucus is denied and therefore envies. Much of this is due to the 95 Treaty Settlements signed under his six year watch compared to Labours six in nine years. Ngai Tuhoe Settlement is a classic example of Finlayson honouring personal commitments to tribes and individuals. Te Urewera Legislation an international first establishes the area as its own entity, a directive of Ngai Tuhoe. Tribal Leader Tamati Kruger doubts a Treaty Settlement under Labour, let alone Te Urewera Legislation would have been had, due in large part to the Party’s sanctioning of 2007 Tuhoe Raids.

Like Treaty Settlements, the Amendment to Te Ture Whenua is giving rangatiratanga to Maori and their lands. And yes, it’s with a view to providing owners the opportunity to earn hundreds of millions of dollars, to develop lands denied them under old legislation.

Who Benefits? I wouldn’t call myself, my whanau or Tai Tokerau and Tai Rawhiti hapu, corporate Iwi greedster-elites, quick-flick land developers. But some of the whanau are kaitiaki and guardians of our whenua, it will be to them we look, for recommendations on developmental sustainability while maintaining preservation for our mokopuna. This is the grit-in-the-eye for some Lefties; Maori making money becoming economically focused, rising above the masses. An environmental guardian and money-maker; that’s a nonsense an oxymoron – a socialists’ nightmare. But political ideologists need to be reminded Maori are neither left nor right, socialist nor capitalist nor anything in between. These constructs aren’t ours they’re colonialist. What we are is Maori, indigenous, native.

Crap Consultation? Understandably however, amendment consultation with owners has been criticised. It’s difficult to judge the effectiveness of consultation, for some it was robust, informative for others confusing and bureaucratic. In 2014 I attended about a dozen hui from Te Waipounamu and up to Heretaunga. The hui were well attended by owners who brought perplexing issues and challenging questions to the table. But the feeling at all the hui was; ‘fatè accompli’ bar a few technical refinements. The ‘legal’ legalese around the amendment mind-numbing rightfully fuelling consultation criticism.

Without getting jingle-istic about the amendment, it is aspirational and can very well empower Maori owners to do what they will with their whenua – that includes nothing. Some lands are small parcels not large enough for farming or forestry but big enough for specialist horticultural expansions particularly hydroponics. Some owners in Bay of Plenty are already supplying domestic markets with gourmet greens including watercress. Others around the motu have invested in worm farming even specialist honey productions. Maori are innovative enough to think outside or inside constraints to make it work for them. There will be further constraints to progress. Research from someone you may like! Here’s a blog that raises the role of Local Council restrictions to Maori enacting development on their land. Local Council has a grip too tight, case in point is the Far North with Maori economic suffocation while opening doors on foreign investment at Karikari Peninsula. Karikari is not part of the amendment lands but you can see what owners are in for and up against with Local Councils.

The Amendment to Te Ture Whenua offers a great deal. It’s up to Maori owners to progress it. Could consultation have been better with over 100 hui in two years, it’s not about the number of hui held but the old adage what we do now and in the future for the future that will reveal the quality of consultation. But let it be Maori reminding, making recommendations, offering solutions to Maori and not the political ideologists.

So Komrad, one last thought for you to ponder. Maori is not a class-system dreamt up by some old white male in Eastern, Western, Central Europe or where-ever-the-prussian Marx came from. We are tangatawhenua, mana whenua, native. We are capable of determining our own socio-political paradigms – so to all the socialist-marxists come join the native revolution, but Komrads……try resisting the urge to take it over.

Yours in Unity not Class

Claudette Hauiti

Copyright © 2016, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com

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