Ngāpuhi's struggle: 'People can't even agree what damn day it is'

Friday, 3 August 2018

There are two camps in Kaikohe: the have-somes, and the have-nots. There is no-one here that has it all.

On Broadway, the main drag in Kaikohe, Timoti – a descendant of Ngāpuhi – is having a piece of fried chicken and a few hot chips at the local Bakehouse Cafe.

He doesn't want to give his hapū, or his full name. He won't be in a photo. He has no faith or trust in the Government.

He wants to live out his days in his beloved Far North but says jobs are scarce, so he sells 'weed' on the side to keep the cupboards topped up. It's not a lucrative business, he reckons.

'Bloody meth is the drug of choice these days.'

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Timoti says he would like to get out of this line of business; it's not making him rich, but it is keeping his kids fed and he can't afford Country Soft butter.

'It's kinda simple really. If I can open my fridge and see that butter in it, I'll know I've cracked it.'

Butter aside, Timoti knows his history. When it comes to the Treaty of Waitangi, like many Ngāpuhi in the Far North, Timoti has been immersed in its history from the cradle. The painful stories of his tupuna (ancestors) have been retold down the whānau line.

He lives 30 minutes west of Waitangi. The place where 's… went down,' he says.

'If you're asking me about the Treaty, I'm glad it's there. I'm glad because we have a contract to hold those crazy baldheads to account,' he says, quoting a Bob Marley song.

Timoti doesn't mince his words, when asked if Ngāpuhi could and should sign a settlement. 'We as a people cannot continue to depend on the Government to do what is right by our people because they don't and they won't.'

He knows about the issues that have prevented his iwi from reaching redress.

'People think about Ngāpuhi as one people. We aren't. Think about all the waka that came onto the shores in this rohe – there were many. The Government are telling us to get on the same waka and sign another document. We can't because before I am Ngāpuhi I am my hapū first, then everything else after that.

'We should sign and get the pūtea [money] for our people, but we need to do it for each hapū not as one group, eh. That's what my nan keeps saying anyway.

'What we need is a great rangatira [chief] to lead the way. We don't have that any more. We are too busy fighting with each other while our people suffer. We're our own worst enemy.'

A DECADE FOR NOUGHT

Ngāpuhi, the largest iwi in New Zealand, is yet to sign a settlement, and it is unlikely to do so any time soon.

Intertribal disagreements on leadership, hapū representation, as well as a ruling from the Waitangi Tribunal, have formed some of the obstacles that continue to divide the Iwi.

Two groups have formed within the tribe: Tuhoronuku, led by Sonny Tau and Hone Saddler, and Te Kotahitanga, led by Pita Tipene and Rudy Taylor.

Tuhoronuku is the entity that holds the mandate for negotiating with the Crown on behalf of Ngāpuhi. Te Kotahitanga is a breakaway group, fighting Tuhoronuku's mandate.

However, another layer involves the hapū within the iwi, of which 110 have been formally recognised, that have quarrelled about recognition on the negotiation table.

Intertribal factions have continued to hamper any redress and were the main issue that stopped negotiations progressing, former Treaty negotiations minister Christopher Finlayson says.

Leadership is the heart of the problem in the iwi, Finlayson believes. 'The reality of the matter is there are deep personality issues that have got in the way, and basically I look at so many of the players and say they lack leadership.'

Treaty negotiations started in 2009, but it was not until 2014, before the Crown recognised a mandate for Tuhoronuku, that a board was set up to settle claims.

In September 2015, the Waitangi Tribunal upheld an appeal that Tuhoronuku's mandate undermined the right of hapū to choose who spoke for them. There are 65 hapū representatives of the 110 hapū formally recognised.

The Maranga Mai report was born out of the tribunal decision, which proposed a new entity to settle claims.

While Tuhoronuku agreed to hand over the mandate to a new board, it has since back-pedalled.

'There is an issue of principle which has arisen,' Finlayson says. 'And that is: should Ngāpuhi be ruled from the centre, with an all-powerful … politburo, or should there be a more devolved model of leadership. That's at the heart of it.'

Dealing with Ngāpuhi leadership was frustrating, he says.

'You feel like the former [British] secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Willie Whitelaw. He used to turn up to a meeting with Catholics and Protestants and he'd say 'Gentlemen, can we agree what day it is?' And that's the way I used to feel when dealing with these guys. If one lot said it was black, the other lot would say it was white.'

Finlayson says there was doubt that Tūhoe would settle with the Crown but, due to good leadership, they were able to. 

'I think of Tūhoe, everyone said to me: Oh you know Tūhoe would be the hardest people to settle with, but you had this extraordinarily gifted man, Tāmati Kruger, and a very gifted co-leader in Kirsty Luke.

'They had to deal with a myriad of issues, but the quality of the leadership and the commitment and their eye-on-the-ball approach came through.

'The iwi that really get ahead are where you have strong leaders like Tipene O'Regan, Bob Mahuta. They put their own interests at the back and the iwi interests at the front, and you are just not getting that here. You've got people who can't even agree what damn day it is.'

​Ngāpuhi Treaty lawyer Moana Tuwhare agrees leadership and hapū recognition are at the heart of the iwi's problems.

'We are a confederation of hapū, we have never identified as a single iwi.

'People argue that hāpu don't have capacity or don't have capability, but we know there are people on the ground that have great capability but they won't get involved in this process because it is so toxic and pointless and lacks leadership, transparency. You name it, we've got it in terms of all the bad ways to govern.'

Tuwhare believes Tau needs to go. In 2016, Tau was fined and sentenced to community detention and community service for killing and possessing protected kererū and for perverting the course of justice. But he has been able to continue in his role.

'Under the Charities Act you are not allowed to have any dishonesty offence, and the dishonesty offences are defined in the Crimes Act and they are a very specific category like fraud,' Tuwhare says.

'Perverting the course of justice is in a separate category altogether. It's not considered dishonesty in the Crimes Act.'

Neither Tau nor Saddler from Tuhoronuku would be interviewed.

But Tuwhare says the issues are not only Ngāpuhi's. 'The Crown has been complicit in all of this in where we sit at the moment,' she says.

'For a start, deciding on one large natural grouping for the iwi, then it decided on supporting and funding one organisation (Tuhoronuku) to negotiate the mandate for the whole iwi, and then it was intent on backing that particular horse as far as it could.

'To not only recognise the mandate but to continue to recognise the group even though it was obvious that Tuhoronuku did not have the support of the large number of the hapu within Ngāpuhi, and now with the change of Government, we have a minister who has carried on that position, which the National Government left us in.'

MISSING OUT

Treaty Negotiations Minister Andrew Little has held hui with the divided factions and believes a deal can be struck in this political term.

Little says it is Ngāpuhi that decides who he deals with and, until Ngāpuhi decides to change the leadership, he has to deal with what he is given.

'Look, I'm confident Ngāpuhi will get a settlement, but it's going to take effort and it's going to depend on the support of hapū.

'I think one of the critical issues that we are trying to make sure we provide for is the involvement of hapū. The Waitangi Tribunal was very clear there needs to be greater recognition and involvement of hapū.'

A working party involving the Crown, Saddler, Tau, Tipene and Taylor has been thrashing out what a future model could look like, Little says.

'What I accept above all else is that we don't move forward, and Ngāpuhi don't get a chance to move forward, until we get an agreement on the way the negotiations are going to be structured and the results on what that might look like in terms of how hapū are involved and represented.'

Low employment, education and health issues plaguing Northland should not fall solely on iwi – it is a Crown issue too, Little says.

'But the Treaty settlement actually allows you to have a relationship with the Crown. A strong and enduring relationship with an iwi so that the iwi and the Crown can meet as equals.

'The negotiating of redress is about restoring the relationship and the mana of the Crown to, in this case, Ngāpuhi and Tai Tokerau [Northland as a whole] so that we can get on and together talk about solutions for those major problems that we know that that region is facing.'

Little will not put a figure on a Ngāpuhi settlement yet. For now, he says the overwhelming response from the people of Ngāpuhi is to get on with it.

'It has been 20 years since the last big settlement with Ngāi  Tahu and Tainui. Can we just get on with it so we can just start thinking about the future together? That's what drives me.'

But until Ngāpuhi can come together, their descendants go another generation without scholarships, grants and whenua development with many having to leave their ancestral land for better opportunities in other areas.

Timoti says the dream of opening up the fridge and seeing the buttery gold is not in his immediate future. He is already planning to leave his beloved Far North community for job opportunities. 

He doesn't want his kids to know only poverty. 'Gotta try and get that Country Soft, eh sis.'