Government gambles on high-risk Treaty plan

By EUGENE BINGHAM, PHIL TAYLOR and CATHERINE MASTERS

A new high-risk strategy for Treaty of Waitangi settlements could settle all claims within 10 years - or send the country back to square one.

The Government is embarking on what has been described as a high-wire act to pull off a deal with central North Island claimants.

The settlement is worth up to $500 million and covers a third of Maoridom.

If it works within the expected two-year timeframe, it will increase the likelihood of all outstanding claims being finalised before the Government's target year of 2015 - and give Labour a political fillip just before the next election.

But it has considerable risks, including that too much will be paid, causing tribes that have already settled to come back for more.

Another risk is that the central North Island iwi will splinter under the pressure of the fast-track approach, making other claimants wary of entering talks.

The foreshore cases dealing with customary rights - a legal argument separate from the historical grievances dealt with by the Waitangi Tribunal - also threaten to sour relationships with Maori.

Taranaki iwi Ngati Maru last night stepped up the pressure by claiming the seabed all the way to the Maori ancestral home of Hawaiiki.

Treaty Negotiations Minister Margaret Wilson is at a national hui in Taupo, where the foreshore and seabed issue will be discussed tonight.

She has been contacting Maori leaders to smooth relationships.

"The message came back very strongly that iwi want to keep talking - failure is not an attractive option to anyone," Ms Wilson said.

The settlement process, begun in the 1990s, has been building momentum.

About 70 per cent of the 1050 claims lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal have been completed or are being processed.

On average, the Office of Treaty Settlements strikes a deal every six months. At that rate, the 40 remaining settlements, each involving a multitude of claims, would not be finished for 20 years.

The fast-tracked central North Island deal, involving about 160 claims, must succeed if historical grievances are to be settled more quickly than that.

On the horizon are some controversial claims including gold and minerals, gas and petrol reserves, flora and fauna, and those covering large tracts of the Far North, Wellington and Auckland.

Auckland and Wellington iwi are seeking compensation for unfair sales depriving them of land now worth billions of dollars.

In Auckland, this amounts to prime real estate valued today at $75 billion, but private land is not sought.

Ms Wilson said this week that she was buoyed by progress in the central North Island. "Six months ago, we were nowhere near the negotiating table, now iwi are looking to establish mandates," she said.

Former Labour minister and fix-it man David Caygill was brought in to get the claimants talking.

The parties have agreed to follow what is being called the "new, new approach", in which a truncated Waitangi Tribunal inquiry will be done in parallel with negotiations.

In the past, parties waited up to 10 years for tribunal reports to be issued before starting negotiations.

This way, the parties will move away from an adversarial approach and start negotiating before the tribunal makes a final determination.

It will require the Crown to concede more, and all parties to be more co-operative.

"Parties have ambushed each other with their golden finds from the archives," said one treaty insider. "The Crown Law Office is going to have to go through a major cultural change."

The Waitangi Tribunal's acting chairman, Chief Maori Land Court Judge Joe Williams, sees the tribunal's role as the glue holding the parties together.

Success in such a high-stakes, complex claim as the central North Island would make the rest flow.

Karen Waterreus, chief executive of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust which is holding seven huge central North Island forests until the claim over them is settled, said that if a deal was secured, it would accelerate the process for others.

"It will give significant confidence in the process - central North Island is big assets, big issues, big tribes. Others will think, 'If they can do it, we can'."

Central North Island Maori leader Stephen Asher said a lot of work was still to be done, but iwi were excited by the prospect of settling the claim.

"Maori will become major players and major partners with central and local government and with business," said Mr Asher.

"The settlement of the claims just in respect of the seven central North Island forests will mean the land ownership will pass to the iwi and hapu so they will become land owners and landlords and be faced with the responsibility for managing those assets and resources."

Former treaty negotiations minister Sir Douglas Graham said getting the central North Island deal right was vital. If the Government was too generous because of the value of the forests, it could unravel done deals.