Big cheque on the way by air mail

The man responsible for handing a $284 million cheque tomorrow to eight iwi who signed the biggest Treaty settlement in history is wondering how he'll get it on the plane.

The Crown Forestry Rental Trust has been holding on to forestry assets set aside for Maori since 1990, but now that the Kaingaroa Forest deal, also known as Treelords, has been settled, those assets pass to the iwi in the Central North Island Collective.

Those groups will be formally celebrating the handover of assets worth about $500 million in Turangi.

Cash has been landing in settlement accounts since Wednesday, but a 1.8m cheque has been made up to hand over to iwi as part of the celebrations.

Trust chief executive Ben Dalton said that given the size of it, he wasn't sure he wanted to be the one holding on to it. Security might be a bit of a problem, he joked.

Distributions to constituent hapu of some iwi have already started.

The 11 iwi and hapu who comprise Te Pumautanga o Te Arawa Trust - a grouping which is part of the CNI collective - distributed $11 million to members yesterday.

The group's total settlement package is worth $85 million, the bulk of which will be centrally administered by Te Arawa Group Holdings, the trust's commercial arm.

Te Pumautanga chief executive Rawiri Te Whare said it was important his group's members, who represent 24,000 Maori, were able to manage part of the asset in a way they saw fit.

That was about hapu expressing their "tino rangatiratanga". Te Pumautanga were a crucial part of ensuring the Treelords deal occurred because they scrapped their original settlement and joined the CNI collective.