Te Kotahitanga o Ngā Hapū Ngāpuhi co-chairs Lee Harris and Pita Tipene at Ngāraratunua Marae, near Whangārei. Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf
A hapū hui in Whangārei has sent a clear message that sovereignty is a "red line" in any future Ngāpuhi settlement.
The vexed issue of sovereignty hit the headlines again recently when Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith said settlement talks with Bay of Plenty iwi Te Whānau-ā-Apanui had been put on hold over a controversial "agree to disagree" clause.
The clause, added during the previous government in 2023, spells out the iwi's claim it is a sovereign nation - while at the same time allowing the Crown to maintain it has sovereignty over New Zealand.
A landmark Waitangi Tribunal report in 2014 sided with iwi by ruling that Ngāpuhi chiefs did not cede sovereignty when they signed Te Tiriti in 1840.
Wednesday's hui at Ngāraratunua Marae was to have been a routine gathering of Te Kotahitanga o Ngā Hapū Ngāpuhi.
Instead, much of the agenda was consumed by discussions of sovereignty and NZ First Minister Shane Jones' member's bill which aims to impose a single settlement on Ngāpuhi, instead of the multiple smaller settlements sought by some hapū.
Te Kotahitanga co-chair Pita Tipene said he would not enter any discussions with the Crown if there was no acknowledgement of hapū sovereignty.
"It's a red line for me, a bottom line … it would mean everything that we've been fighting for, prosecuting through the Waitangi Tribunal that we have never ceded our sovereignty, will be signed away by a couple of signatures on a piece of paper," he said.
Anyone willing to sign such a settlement was "giving up their soul for pieces of silver and gold".
However, Tipene said he was still willing to meet Goldsmith if he travelled to Northland in coming weeks, as indicated by the minister in an interview last week.
"We're always willing to meet with the minister. He's responsible for the government in terms of our Tiriti o Waitangi claims so it's only right that we sit down and talk with him instead of talking with him through the media."
Tipene was also dismissive of Jones' member's bill, which he described as a distraction.
"We will not be corralled into a single settlement. If hapū want to come together, they will do it because they want to, not because they have to."
Tipene said East Coast iwi Ngāti Kahungunu had proven it was possible to split the settlement for a large and complex iwi into smaller agreements based on taiwhenua, or regional hapū groupings.
With Ngāpuhi, however, Tipene said successive governments seemed to consider settlement as a kind of trophy, with politicians like big game hunters hoping to be photographed with a gun in hand and a foot on the head of the biggest lion.
While he didn't agree with Jones on Treaty matters, Tipene said he respected him and valued his role in stirring up debate.
"One must admire him for agitating. By agitating, it gets people thinking and moving and having conversations that they may not ordinarily have."
'We do not want a single commercial settlement' - Tipene
Tipene said the message from Wednesday's hui was clear.
"We do not want a single commercial settlement. We will be adhering strongly to our own rangatiratanga or sovereignty, and we won't be signing anything that may undermine that."
Earlier, Jones said multiple smaller settlements risked turning Ngāpuhi - which had some of the worst socio-economic statistics in the country - into "economic confetti".
He told RNZ his bill would bring clarity as to how the claim could be settled.
"Then people can consult on the member's bill, and I accept it will take some time, but they will have a clear target, because at the moment, it's like a flock of ducks quacking loudly, flying in all different directions, and sadly, that's what the Ngāpuhi claim has turned into," Jones said.
Te Kotahitanga co-chair Lee Harris, who also co-chairs the Hokianga Taiwhenua, said a meeting in Rāwene a day earlier came to the same conclusions as the Whangārei hui.
"The position of the hapū that attended was complete opposition to Shane Jones' proposal. We do not accept one settlement for Ngāpuhi. In regard to Minister Goldsmith's kōrero about the removal of any possible clause acknowledging sovereignty, well, we don't agree with that either, especially in light of the stage one Te Paparahi o Te Raki report [that found Ngāpuhi did not cede sovereignty]," she said.
Harris also rejected the argument that a single settlement was needed so work could begin quickly on turning around Northland's dire poverty statistics.
"In Hokianga, we're pretty sick and tired of people using our existing very poor standards of living against us as a weapon by trying to push a settlement over the top of us. Paparahi o Te Raki [The Waitangi Tribunal's Northland inquiry] addressed historical grievances. Therefore, any settlement is to pay for the wrongs of yesterday that happened to our tūpuna. It's not to be used to tidy up the contemporary mess of the poor living conditions in which we live in today. That is a separate issue, and that is solely on the Crown."
Not all at the hui, however, considered sovereignty a sticking point.
Kaumatua Waihoroi "Wassie" Shortland said Crown sovereignty was the only way the nation could operate collectively, even if history was littered with examples of governments exercising that sovereignty badly.
However, if the Crown maintained Ngāpuhi had lost its sovereignty, that came at a cost that needed to be factored into any future settlement.
Like Tipene, Shortland said he was ready to talk to Goldsmith, because he did not have to agree with people to engage with them.
Shortland believed settlement would come when Ngāpuhi, which made up one in five Māori and one in 25 New Zealanders, learnt to use the strength of its numbers.
About 120 people attended Wednesday's hui.
Te Kotahitanga o Ngā Hapū Ngāpuhi is an informal group initially set up by Tipene and the late Rudy Taylor to oppose Tuhoronuku, an earlier attempt to set up a mandated iwi authority to negotiate a single Ngāpuhi settlement.
Tuhoronuku was recognised by the government in 2014 but abandoned in late 2018.
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