PRESS RELEASE 1 JULY 2008

The Central North Island settlement is a wake up call to other Iwi groups

The Central North Island settlement is a wake up call to other Iwi groups who are currently engaged in the settlement process according to three prominent Northland leaders.

Raniera (Sonny) Tau, Erima Henare and Naida Glavish will be seeking support from their iwi organisations to emulate the process that CNI utilised in having the commercial aspects of their collective grievances recognised and signed off with the Crown.

They all agree the Treaty settlements process is a tiring exercise and say “if there is room to advance the commercial aspects of our collective constituent organisations claims, then we should take advantage of that opportunity.”

“We have all waited long enough and its time to display clear leadership so that we can start building a future for our children and mokopuna.”

“We have noted the messages that have come out of the CNI pan tribal settlement which have been modelled around taking a cooperative internal approach and moving forward.”

”If a seven CNI iwi alliance can come together along with a wide range of peripheral claimant groups then surely Ngapuhi, Ngati Hine and Ngati Whatua, who all have close whakapapa links can come together to thrash out a commercial deal with the Crown.”

They say CNI proved things can be done if there is leadership, willingness and compromise, “we believe our groups have all of those attributes and we are more than willing to begin discussions with the Crown on that basis.”

Hapu historical cultural claims must be allowed to be settled by hapu and whanau at their own pace. This proposed deal is purely an economic opportunity involving assets owned exclusively by the Crown. “We must not allow progress to become hijacked by individuals with clouded agendas because time is of the essence.

“We have an economy that is slowing as shown by today’s announcement from Statistics New Zealand. Effectively we are heading toward a technical recession and we all know what that means for our people and are therefore keen to start talking to the government to address the commercial aspects of our collective claims.”

ENDS

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