Hopes contained as Maniapoto seeks settlement

One of the people working to get the Maniapoto Maori Trust Board the mandate to negotiate the tribe’s treaty claims says what it does with the settlement will be more important that how big it is.

The board has secured a 72 percent vote in support of its moves, with 25 percent of eligible voters taking part.

It came despite some deeply felt opposition, including former board member Rongo Wetere who says the King Country tribe is owed billions of dollars for its losses.

Peter Douglas says the same could be true of any iwi, but compromise is an inevitable part of being in the current settlement process.

"The government can't do as much as it might want to or it does as much as it can and I think we have to be realistic about what we can hope to get and do something with it. The people who settled before us, they got settlements that were a lot less than they muight have hoped for, but they turned them into something, and that is the next stage of our history," he says.

Mr Douglas says the Maniapoto Trust Board wants to use the settlement process to unite the tribe, and that means it needs to be clear about what the future might hold.

PETER DOUGLAS INTERVIEW

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