Mike's Minute: We need leadership on the Ngāpuhi settlement

The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Is Shane Jones showing the Minister for Treaty Negotiations Paul Goldsmith how to run his own portfolio?

In response to Jones and his Member's bill on the never ending Ngāpuhi drama, Goldsmith says the process can't go on forever.

Which is the same as saying nothing, because clearly it is, and Goldsmith clearly has no plan.

The Jones bill is clever because my sense of it is there is so much infighting in the north of the country, they will, out of bloody mindedness, never strike a deal.

All the logic we heard yesterday about tribes that have cut deals and invested billions and seen the endless benefits will have missed their mark in Northland, given a lot of Ngāpuhi aren't interested in a deal. They thrive on dissent and division and permanent anger and grievance.

Jim Bolger, who I note in the past few weeks as he celebrated his 90th is still prone to the odd piece of public commentary, might like to have pondered his own role in this many, many years ago when they started to put up a few road markers around timeframes.

The idea was they would set a date to file your claim, remembering even in Bolger's day the Waitangi Tribunal had been going since the 70's, and once you filed, they would impose another deadline to get it all wrapped up.

Good idea, but it went nowhere because Bolger and Co. got sucked into the idea that this was unfair, it was rushed, and it was history. What wasn’t said out loud was this was a gravy train that could go literally forever, and people were going to make a living off it.

As Jones revealed yesterday, we've spent $20 million for Ngāpuhi alone, just for lunch and chats and airfares.

You have to remember 1975 was a goodwill gesture. The tribunal and the settlement of grievances was entered into not because anyone had to, but because it was the right thing to do. It was driven by goodwill.

I would have thought it was fairly obvious in the vast array of deals to be done and apologies to be made, like life, that some would embrace it and run with it and some would be unable to get out of their own way.

What was needed but was missing, and still is (Jones aside), was leadership. We needed boundaries set and an explanation of the rules and expectations.

And because that was missing, so is $20 million on lunch, and still no deal.

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