2020 election: Maori Party announces treaty settlement program including new parliament

The Maori Party has announced its Treaty plans, including a demand for an independent Maori Parliament to control annual “self-managed” spending of $ 20 billion.

The 25-year policy plan would send a chill down the spine of the Maori and Pakehā, for different reasons, wresting power and money from the hands of what co-leader John Tamihere called “failed” dominant leadership.

Other plans include a review of the Treaty settlement program, such as ending the settlement boundary, abolishing full and permanent settlements, and buying back land for whānau, hapū, and iwi.

The party would aim to entrench Maori electorates and facilitate the shift to Maori electorates for Maori at any time. The Maori Party would also eliminate referenda on Maori districts in local government, where the public can currently vote against a new Maori district.

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Tamihere said that the new Maori Parliament, with 15 to 17 seats, could function in the same vein as those established in Scotland and Wales in the UK. It could be done more easily if New Zealand were a republic, he said.

“Ultimately, it must land like the Scots and like the Irish and like the Welsh have landed, in an autonomous right to self-government.”

The widespread control of Maori things had been an “abject failure,” he said after the country was colonized by consent, not conquest, through the Treaty.

Fixing things would require “transferring the money from control and non-Maori hands, and directly into Maori hands.”

“In this year’s budget it would be $ 20 billion per year … which should be self-managed by the Maori.”

The announcement is the latest in a campaign that aims to draw attention to the brand of the Maori Party in its attempt to return to Parliament after being removed in 2017.

This month, the party announced plans to return the place names to te reo Māori in New Zealand.

A Māori Television-Curia Research voting poll of votes in the Te Tai Hauāuru Maori electorate, released Monday night, placed Labor’s Adrian Rurawhe far ahead of Maori party candidate Debbie Ngarewa-Packer.

However, the poll showed that nearly a third of those polled were still undecided about how they would vote in the electorate, seen as the biggest chance for a party seat.

Tamihere said the Crown could discuss with private owners about land “damaged by theft and confiscation”, buying it back for the Maori. They would put a dollar value on the table and say “are you a willing seller?” Said Tamihere.

“Someone made a rule, not the Maori, that local government lands were off the table, and someone made a rule that if the Crown sold the lands to Pākehā after confiscating them, they were off the table. What was that for? Who said that?”

Even if the odds of finding a political partner willing to push for changes were low, Tamihere said it was a long-term plan. Other changes that have been made over the years, such as the kura kaupapa, kōhanga reo, and Maori television schools, seemed equally unlikely at the time.

“Like all political parties and movements, we are not going to leave.”

The 25-year Treaty plan

The program announced by the Maori Party would also include plans to:

• Insert relativity clauses in all settlements, to ensure that all iwi have parity with Ngāi Tahu and Waikato-Tainui.
• Abolish complete and permanent settlements and the large natural groupings approach to recognize mana whenua groups
• Return the earth to whānau, hapū and iwi.
• Introduce a policy of first right of refusal for mana whenua when private land of historical importance is put up for sale.