Tauranga Iwi Thank Ministers For Their Actions and Suspend Protest Action For The Time Being

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News Release

For immediate release

August 8 2017

Tauranga Iwi Thank Ministers For Their Actions and Suspend Protest Action For The Time Being

Protest action in Tauranga by local iwi will be temporarily suspended following undertakings given by Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson in Parliament last week that he would not sign a deal with the Hauraki Collective until all issues have been worked out.

Ngai Te Rangi Iwi chairman Charlie Tawhiao said that both Minister Finlayson and Minister of Maori Development Te Ururoa Flavell have heard the concerns of Tauranga iwi after initially trying to push through the Hauraki settlement against the wishes of Tauranga iwi and residents.

During Question Time in Parliament on July 26, MP Nanaia Mahuta asked Minister Finlayson: “Will the minister support the position of the Minister of Maori Development to not sign the Hauraki settlement until all issues currently in dispute with Tauranga Moana iwi are resolved?”

Minister Finlayson responded: “Yes I will because I think these are difficult issues and the last thing I want to do through a treaty settlement, or rushing through a treaty settlement, is to create further grievances. These matters need to be handled sensitively and the Minister for Maori Development is doing an excellent job in assisting me in that regard.”

Mr Tawhiao said his iwi will continue to pay close attention to the developments of this process with a level of openness and positivity.

“I believe the Minister is an honourable man and will be wanting a lasting outcome, so while others in the iwi have voiced their concerns to me about the reliability of the undertaking to not sign, I personally am not too concerned. He will honour his word.”

Mr Tawhiao said Ngai Te Rangi has been pushing for a tikanga or culturally-driven process to seek to resolve the issues and during Question Time Minister Finlayson agreed that was a desirable pathway. Therefore the focus was now on initiating discussions about how the tikanga process between Tauranga iwi and individual Hauraki iwi will proceed.

“To create a lasting settlement that does not have the potential to blow up in the future, we have to spend time now getting things right.

“I have instructed our team to move forward but to make sure we create a process that will be effective.”

Charlie Tawhiao said one of the outcomes he had been particularly encouraged by was the contact he and others had had from local non-Maori residents of Tauranga expressing their support and agreement with our cause.

“Maori and non-Maori have a lot at stake here and I think people have realised that.”

Mr Tawhiao said the issue still has some way to go to get to resolution but he believed a tikanga process was the right way to advance discussion along cultural lines. He is happy that with the support of the Minister of Maori Development a process of engaging iwi-to-iwi and rangatira to rangatira is being formulated. The tikanga process will begin this week with meetings to identify the broad outline for wider iwi to iwi hui.

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