ngai tuhoe: money, land, self-rule, nation

21Apr10

From maorinews:

The Government is on the verge of offering the Tūhoe tribe a treaty settlement that could be as groundbreaking as it is controversial. Tūhoe is hoping it will mean total control of the Urewera National Park, and start the tribe on the way to self-rule and becoming a separate nation. But the Government is sensitive about just how far it will go.

From nzherald:

A Treaty deal for Ngai Tuhoe could happen only if its land confiscation is recognised on a par with Tainui and Ngai Tahu’s $170 million settlements – the tribe couldn’t live with anything less.

[…]

A Waitangi Tribunal report last year said 24,147ha of land was confiscated during the 19th century – an act the Crown has accepted was unjust and excessive.

Money, then land, then autonomous government, then separate nation status. The Ngai Tuhoe plan resembles that of other Maori groups in recent decades, which is interesting; but what makes it more interesting is that it also resembles the process of founding collectives according to an age old settler colonial model, established centuries earlier. So in New Zealand, to a greater than any of the other settler states, treaty settlements resemble the process of European settlements.