Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith meets Ngāpuhi representatives at Whitiora Marae in October. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
The Māori select committee has been given an update on the status of a potential treaty settlement for Ngāpuhi.
Executives from Te Arawhiti - the Office for Māori Crown Relations - appeared before the committee for the organisation's 2023/24 annual review, part of this year's scrutiny week.
Their appearances came the day after the select committee was told of plans to slim the organisation down and transfer some of its functions and workforce to Te Puni Kōkiri, the Ministry for Maori Development.
Answering questions on what progress had been made getting a mandate for settlement in the North, regional director Fern Hyett said up until 2019 the Crown had continued to recognise the Tuhoronuku mandate - one mandate for all of Ngāpuhi - which was rejected by hāpu.
The National government accepted the Tuhoronuku mandate in 2009, initiated by then rūnanga leader Sonny Tau.
Hyett said recently three groups have since formally undertaken mandate work.
"We have Ngāti Hine, Whangaroa and a grouping in the Bay of Islands - Te Whakaitanga."
Other groups were doing some work but were not at the same point in the mandate process, Hyett said.
She said despite Minister Tama Potaka's preference for "larger groupings" of hāpu to form and achieve a mandate, Te Arawhiti would not be forcing anyone to the negotiation table.
"Let me be clear - we're not going back to one large natural group in the North, for Ngāpuhi. I think we've all seen how that didn't reflect dynamics on the ground and the very strong hāpu-centric nature of Ngāpuhi."
She said the cost of the work undertaken to achieve a mandate for Ngāpuhi, including Tuhoronuku, was around $12 million.
Both Labour's Peeni Henare and the Green Party's Steve Abel asked how the Crown would reconcile seeking a mandate with groups who the Crown has acknowledged did not cede sovereignty.
"How can we meaningfully reconcile challenges of Te Tiriti breaches if we are not in our maturity as a Crown, able to acknowledge that Māori never ceded sovereignty on a hāpu level and a country-wide level?" Abel said.
Hyett said those discussions should take place at the negotiation table.
"That's where we want to have that conversation."
"There are some groups who have been equally clear that they require the Crown to accept that before they will commence mandate work and that's their prerogative to do so. Others are comfortable having that conversation when we're in formal negotiations."
Asked by committee chair Dan Bidois if research had been conducted into what factors make iwi and hāpu who are reluctant to go through the process more likely to settle, Hyett said relationships evolved and changed over time.
"There will be moments in those relationships that are flashpoints, and sometimes a treaty settlement or stages of a treaty settlement are those flash points for relationships.
"The 'post settlement space' can be an environment where the Crown's flashpoints are removed from that equation and, therefore, groups can engage in a way that is right for them.
"Sometimes that happens through the settlement processes and sometimes we'll see delays because they're focusing on those internal conversations," Hyett said.
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