EMail Print Calendar Event Title: Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu - Information Hui When: 06.12.2009 Where: Tumutumu Marae - Te Aroha Category: Governance Description Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu Information Hui Sunday 6th December 2009 2.00pm to 4.00pm Tumutumu Marae Tui Pa Road, Te Aroha Ngā Puke ki Hauraki ka tarehua E mihi ana ki te whenua E tangi ana ki te tāngata E ngā mana, e ngā iwi, e ngā uri o Hauraki, Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa Over the last three years I have regularly kept you informed on progress with our Treaty of Waitangi claims and settlement issues through our newsletters, web site, annual reports and by writing to you personally. As Chairman of the Hauraki Māori Trust Board I have worked along with other key trustees, to settle our fisheries and aquaculture claims. Together these settlements will return about $50 million in assets to be put towards the benefit of all Hauraki Iwi. Looking over the last decade we have grown our marine farm businesses which are valued at $20 million outside of any settlement and created a major primary health care service which now has over 8,000 people accessing its services and is one of the largest employers on the Coromandel. Our work with empowering whānau is where some of our greatest achievements lie. We have worked to have our mokopuna returned successfully into their whanau, provision of budgeting services, parenting support, rangatahi mentoring to name a few. Only two Iwi in the country had developed whanau violence prevention strategies last year and Hauraki was one of them. Over the last year we reached a stage where we could directly invest in our young people’s successes by providing over $100,000 worth of sporting and education grants. We want to see a culturally rich Hauraki Nation and over the last 18 months we have provided over $150,000 to our marae along with establishing a Marae Development Officer position within the Board to support the aspirations of our marae. These are some of the things we have achieved and we want to continue to provide these kind of lasting benefits to a wide range of Iwi members young or old and from whatever Iwi you whakapapa to. This has not always been easy and at times we have had some within our ranks who have challenged us in Court or taken other actions to try and undermine these efforts of your leadership team. We have now reached a stage where we want, as a matter of priority, to settle our land claims in the whole of our traditional Hauraki tribal area. It is imperative that we all move beyond grievance to a new world. The new government is keen to do this as well and has made an initial approach through the facilitation of Sir Douglas Graham. The government is very aware that the actions of a few have bogged things down and muddied the waters about key issues. It is reluctant to step in and negotiate the land claim without a clear expression of opinion from you as to which leadership you trust and endorse to get this big job done. Make no mistake there are those who take the view that "big is best" and want to, fragment things and make a deal for themselves without properly considering all the Iwi members interests and are not concerned with making sure no one is left out in the process of settlement. This weekend some groups within the Iwi are holding hui in Hauraki with the aim of getting you to endorse their leadership. These hui have been publically advertised and are taking place on 28 November. I would encourage you to attend these hui if you are able, and to clearly express your support for the leadership team I represent. I know that you all want to settle these historical Treaty of Waitangi claims especially since so many of you made their claims known and we have all received a very favourable report from the Waitangi Tribunal. In my experience, I know that many of you do not attend hui in Thames, Paeroa, Manaia or Kaiaua for very good reasons. Many live elsewhere and the travel cost is expensive in time and money, quite a few live overseas, others see the hui process as something that is not appealing to young people and some simply have real priorities of jobs and whanau to look after. I have recently written to the Minister of Treaty Settlements to express my concern that a great many of you will be disenfranchised and unable to express your opinion on who you trust to lead things forward to a successful settlement. In the last few years I have seen to it that the Trust Board has a mixture of hui and postal voting so that you can easily and conveniently express your opinion. Many people have told me they like to have their say this way and value being asked for their opinions. A few years ago the Trust Board held several consultation, some decision making hui and a postal vote in respect to the Hauraki Treaty Claims settlement and negotiations. You overwhelmingly supported me and my team to carry out the job of negotiating and getting a settlement just like we have done on fisheries and aquaculture. I want to thank you for this support and vote of confidence and ask for your support again at this very critical time. I think it is important to give you the opportunity to have your say and to this end I have asked our team to convene a series of hui for all iwi members, claimants and interested individuals AND conduct a postal vote. Time is limited to do this before the end of the year but I would like to try early in December and again in mid-January so as to avoid the Christmas period. Attached to this letter you will see the hui program and postal vote planned. I hope you can support me and the team to take this next big step. In the meantime if you want to show your support for the approach we have taken and will continue to take on your behalf I would like to hear from you directly by speaking to me face to face or on the phone or writing me a note, or going on to our web site, through texting or phone calls. These contact details are also attached. As we go through the negotiation and settlement process with the new government I want to bring you up to date regularly and for important decisions I will come out and seek your guidance and direction through hui and postal ballot. But along the way of negotiations I also want to make sure that if you were part of a group that made a specific claim, you are included directly in the negotiations with the Crown. We know also that our marae and Iwi entities have views which we need to hear about and having a voice and a role in negotiations has always been important to me and something to which we have been committed. Maybe I am old-fashioned to think that it is important that we hold-fast to the values of our past leaders who have strived for kotahitanga and that our whanaungatanga ties demand that we make sure everyone is taken care of. Treaty Claims is a difficult process and, with an eye on the lessons that our history has taught us, we should be unifying not fragmenting at such a critical stage of our development. Mehemea i maumahara tātou ki ngā whakaaro o ō tātou kuia koroua kia tū he Poari Māori o Hauraki mo te painga o ngā iwi o Hauraki kātoa me haere kotahi tātou Nāku nā ano Toko Renata Te Taniwha
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 08:53:07 +0000
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