Ihumātao: Crown considers loan for Auckland Council to buy land
Sources have told RNZ the Crown is considering lending money to the council so it can purchase the land from Fletcher Residential, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fletcher Building.
Fletcher is seeking $40 million for the property – more than double the $19m it paid in 2014.
RNZ understands the government is keen to get the controversial land dispute wrapped up by the new year to avoid it overshadowing the annual pilgrimage to Rātana and Waitangi.
There are two issues with Ihumātao, one is a wider existential issue and the other is Realpolitik.
The wider existential issue is that a new generation of Māori and Pakeha activists have rejected the pittance paid to Māori as compensation for Treaty grievances and see that pittance as compounding the historic injustice, not healing it. For us, and I most certainly count myself amongst their number, the Treaty must be honoured, not settled.
The Treaty process has always been unjust, it has always been a chain of slavery used by the coloniser to entrench their immoral gains, not heal them. Overturning that process will make the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind anxious and frightened, but it shouldn’t. No one is demanding the wholesale return of NZ, what they are demanding is real partnership moving forward and an acknowledgement that the process to date has been as unjust as the initial theft and confiscation of land.
This is a cultural maturity and a positive step for us as a people, it will be uncomfortable and at times it will be difficult, but to heal sometimes we need to let go of that toxic legacy of colonialism.
We have nothing to fear but our petty bigotries brothers and sisters.
The second issue is Realpolitik. Labour must get Ihumātao off the political agenda before Christmas for two reasons.
The first is that if this drags into election year, National will use it to spread racist fear mongering. Remember the Foreshore and Seabed fiasco? Gerry Brownlee ran around the country screaming, ‘Da Maaaaaaaaaaaoris want to steal our beaches!!!!!! Da Maaaaaaaaaaaoris want to steal our beaches!!!!!!”, when you consider the way National are intending to play to our worst angels this election, allowing Ihumātao to drag into the election year would be disastrous.
The second Realpolitik reason Labour need to deal with Ihumātao before Christmas is because if they don’t, it gives the Māori Party a chance at resurrection in one of the Māori electorates and with a small Party vote could bring in 2 MPs and hand power to National.
So Labour will cop it from both sides of the Political spectrum if they don’t settle this before Christmas.
Loan Auckland council the money, have Auckland Council buy the land and gift it back to the mana whenua in the form of a public National park that is presided over by the mana whenua and then have Jacinda visit, cue public outpouring of love there on the day, a giant haka for the media and lots of smiling cuddle selfies.
Then, can we bloody well get on with the 2020 election please because we have a second term to desperately try and win so Jacinda can actually try and be transformative this time around.
This should have been sorted months ago.
Ka pai Martyn lets hope this goes to plan cause national are dirt digging. They are looking for any dirt that will stick. As we speak they are trying there very best to do Winstone over they know if they are to succeed they need to take him and his party out.
I cannot understand your thinking. Winston is likely to be the one that blocks any settlement of this dipute and yet you want him in power. The National party do not have to dig deep to find dirt on Winston and his merry men they just need to talk to ex members .
I would rather have Winstone anyday than that national lot and based on the number of Maori votes he gets it looks like others feel the same.
Trevor Sennitt: “Winston is likely to be the one that blocks any settlement of this dipute….”
Winston, being a lawyer, understands the legal issues surrounding the resolution of the Ihumatao dispute. I expect him to step in and prevent the government from interfering further in a private property issue.
The PM has already been foolhardy: we all had better hope that wiser heads – Peters included – prevail.
So Fletchers gets double what they paid for it, and Auckland council’s ratepayers are left with the debt and funny money arrangement with government and the ongoing fight with iwi?
This is a situation which should never have happened if they did not force the SHA & unitary plan through by ACT, NATZ WOKE and stupid lefties telling everyone they were a nimby if they didn’t agree to the housing zoning changes.
Now the Natz plan is in progress, the wokes that shouted everyone down that we urgently needed deregulation on zoning for more houses, have a complete turnaround and Maori are not Nimby’s and the land will not be built on???? So where are the houses coming from?
Auckland council is near broke so their pathetic pro immigration and pro development policies and corruption and stupidity have already rendered themselves nearly broke while making the locals unable to afford to live in Auckland.
So clearly most Auckland inhabitants aint going to be happy at the latest turn of events that the Natz will be braying about all election (aka Maori get special favours) and Auckland ratepayers will think the same if they blow another 40 million on this one.
Nobody will be voting for Labour next year in Auckland for more of the same because Labour fall into every dirty neoliberal trap, they support the unitary plan without bothering to think it through, and then are looking like idiots when they keep buying things back. Then the settlement of the treaty of Waitangi issues to look at!
Everyone is fed up in Auckland in particular with the constant traffic and road works everywhere!!! Beach closures, service cut backs while giving away money for stadiums, Chinese waste management and big business like Fletchers for election bribes!
Read somewhere that they expected NZ to reach 5 million by 2050 not 2019 so never planned the infrastructure or the housing! But in spite of that they still keep bringing people in, making the locals pay for the folly, and another thousand cars hit the road as they close down public transport for 4 years!
The government can wait for carbon neutral 2050 but 300,000 annual cheap workers to make a burger, be a rich income less satellite family here or do a fake degree, permanent residency for relatives of people who die here via other migrant murderers, is urgently needed now!
To be fair to Fletchers, asking for double the money in the current real estate climate isn’t actually that outrageous!
I doubt Fletchers will get any takers with the present situation and it ain’t gonna end anytime soon, even if they do force the near bankrupt Auckland Council to take it on, how much in legal fees to resolve it because Auckland Council loves blowing millions on lawyers it’s their growth market. Nobody is ever going to be happy with the outcome. It’s a lose lose situation. Do nothing and leave Fletchers to resolve it themselves with iwi.
Its not outrageous its greedy they (fletchers) have done well with the monopoly our government gave them.
Well if Aucklanders are fed up with traffic they only have themselves to blame especially if they voted for national who brought in almost 1 million immigrants so if they vote for this crappy party they get what they deserve
@Michelle, Labour has bought even more people in per year, but tries to make everyone feel better because more migrants are on temp permits. Problem is, our relaxed immigration rules can’t seem to get anyone to leave easily, why would you when you can vote after a year in NZ, get free health care straight away in most cases, free education for kids, jobseeker and DPB and assisted living after 2 years, super in 10 years… and your origin country has no welfare and free health and education at all. And no other country will take you because they don’t need people with “essential” skills like being a retail or fast food assistant after a fake degree, like the NZ visa ponzi.
Even when deported they are finding some like https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/man-who-misled-immigration-nz-to-get-residency-deported/ar-BBWPCSq?li=BBSVtLJ come back like a bad penny on a different identity and has the wife and kids, cos we don’t really understand about border control in NZ.
And why have they brought in more people Save NZ who is crying out for more people NZers need to know it is a vicious cycle and how did we get here and who is to blame and how can we stop it
Speaking of wankas! Auckland Council. They coughed up $326m for the AM Cup boat race when they thought 8 teams would show up. Only 4, including TNZ have signed up and paid, kinda. So, halve the funding! $40m from the $126m will leave heaps to spend on local community projects!! $100m was from central government, so we’ll keep that.
@DennyPaoa, shocking waste on money, why don’t they fundraise for billionaire sports that only help a certain group aka hotels to sponsor it , not expect the ratepayers to pay who are mostly inconvenienced by tourists and more people on the harbour!
LOL! The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over with the expectation of different results.
If they get a 2nd term it will be more of the same.
It is also impossible to get Ihumatao off the agenda before xmas. Adern ensured that as soon as she intervened.
If they buy back the land, National will beat them with a stick all the way to election time.
If they dont, the protesters will.
Adern has cleverly maneuvered herself into a no win situation.
Genius!
Well she dug her own grave. She will possibly think twice now before jumping in disputes that didn’t involve her.
“The wider existential issue is that a new generation of Māori and Pakeha activists have rejected the pittance paid to Māori as compensation for Treaty grievances….”
That is no doubt so. But this isn’t a Treaty issue. That iwi has already reached a Treaty settlement.
“Labour must get Ihumātao off the political agenda before Christmas for two reasons.”
The government cannot get further involved. It is only due to the PM’s very unwise actions some months ago that it is in this situation at all.
“The first is that if this drags into election year, National will use it to spread racist fear mongering.”
If this is so, the government has only itself to blame.
“…if they don’t, it gives the Māori Party a chance at resurrection in one of the Māori electorates and with a small Party vote could bring in 2 MPs and hand power to National.”
Again: if this is so, the government has only itself to blame.
That land is privately-owned; if the government attempts to finagle some sort of resolution which involves it paying for the land, either directly or indirectly, it risks the reopening of all Treaty settlements to date. Further, it puts at risk the private property rights of all of us, Maori included.
In my view, the PM was either badly-advised or she didn’t fully understand the implications of what she was doing with regard to Ihumatao. If she acted on official advice, I’ve wondered whether officials believed that her political stocks were so high after March that she could pull this one off without consequences for the government. Or for the rest of us. Well: that’s turned out to be wrong, hasn’t it!
“We have nothing to fear but our petty bigotries brothers and sisters.”
This is both patronising and inaccurate. Anent bigotries: speak for yourself. On the other hand, there’s plenty to fear: a foollhardy government, potentially opening the floodgates on already-completed Treaty settlements, putting at risk the private property rights of its citizens – many of them potential voters – and using taxpayer money in a vain attempt to right a wrong for which none of us now alive is responsible.
I’ll be damned if I’ll carry the can for the sins of somebody else’s fathers 150-odd years ago!
“Then, can we bloody well get on with the 2020 election please because we have a second term to desperately try and win so Jacinda can actually try and be transformative this time around.”
Gawd…You don’t really believe this, do you? Transformative my foot: what you see is what we’ll get if this lot gets re-elected. Read the comments on this blogsite: a small number of people, to be sure, but we reflect what we hear from other people in our neighbourhoods and social circles.
It’ll be a bloody miracle if the current government is re-elected; and if by some alchemy it were, we’ll just get more of the same, with the possibility of a side dish of private property rights having been put at risk. Just what we don’t need.
The PM had to front about Ihumatao her party has all our Maori seats and if she does not do something many of our people will look for another party. And that party wont be national they shit on us too much we only have to look at what happened in the 9 years they were in power and we all know who national rule for, the rich and business people and themselves of course.
Michelle: “The PM had to front about Ihumatao…”
No. She didn’t. And she should not have: it was a private matter and none of the government’s business. Many people pointed that out at the time.
Do you still not understand? The tragedy of confiscation cannot be fixed by expropriation. The government ought not to be giving any hope to those Maori wanting land returned that this is a strategy that could ever be considered. It cannot, without creating further injustices. And – as we’ve seen elsewhere in the world – that is a really bad idea. If Maori want the land back, they have no option but to pay for it, in a willing buyer-willing seller scenario. Tainui claims to be wealthy: let it make an offer to Fletcher Residential.
“…our people will look for another party”
What is this “our people”? As if Maori had no connections with the rest of us. Please desist with the segregation schtick: we’re all in this together, you know.
And you’re in the same situation as everybody else; you’re stuck with the current lot, unless another party with real “chops” pops up between now and the election, and which can go into coalition with whoever else wins seats in Parliament. Under MMP, no party has been able to govern alone. The Natz aren’t called “no-mates Natz” for nothing: at present, they have no viable coalition partner, unless enough of us vote ACT. Don’t tempt me….
Yes she did have to front D estere ‘we are all in this together’ bullshit who are we? And you want Tainui to pay for land confiscated you need to get real why would they do this another bad precedent. I can say, our people I am Tainui are you ? and I know my whakapapa. Jacinda was asked to intervene in this she was receiving emails and being lobbied heavily by our rangatahi. You sound like Hobson.
“Yes she did have to front D estere….”
No, Michelle, she did not. And if she had a better grasp on the history and the politics, she would have known not to go anywhere near it.
“we are all in this together’ bullshit who are we?”
All of us citizens, whatever our ethnic provenance. This is a representative democracy, remember, not a clan-based feudal system. We have the rule of law: it applies to all of us equally, for all that you might claim that it doesn’t.
“….you want Tainui to pay for land confiscated…”
Do you still not understand? What I may or may not want is irrelevant; it doesn’t come into it. Because that land is privately-owned, Maori must pay to get it back. This may seem unjust to you, but that’s the way the world is. Private property can only change hands by way of private sale. Were the government to step in, that would be theft by the government; confiscation from the current lawful owner, in other words. If compensation is paid, it could be argued that it’s expropriation, though that’s drawing a bit of a long bow in the circumstances.
“I can say, our people I am Tainui are you ? and I know my whakapapa.”
As it happens, so do I. But what on earth has this to do with anything? We’re all citizens, remember. What are you after here: ethno-nationalism? Aside from the fact that we’re a modern representative democracy now, ethno-nationalism is a tenet of fascism. I’m sure that is a road down which you do not mean to go.
“Jacinda was asked to intervene in this she was receiving emails and being lobbied heavily by our rangatahi. You sound like Hobson.”
I don’t care who asked her to intervene; it could’ve been the Queen, for all the good it would have done. The PM should have stayed out of it; now she and the government are realising that.
Ha! That Hobson: he knew a thing or two, didn’t he?
hobson knew shit like you d estere you are not us we are different people and when you talk about us having to buy our own land that is the clear difference between us. You are a typical pakeha and so are many of your views especially when you talk about Tainui having heaps of money so they can buy their own land back. This is a typical pakeha view and one not shared by many of our people. Tainui lost the most land and our land was private too but it didn’t stop the government from stealing it and confiscating it.
Michelle: “….you are not us we are different people and when you talk about us having to buy our own land that is the clear difference between us.”
It’d be helpful if you read my comments properly and responded to them, rather than to some narrative of your own.
I didn’t say that we are all the same; neither did Hobson. He said “one people”: an entirely different thing. This is a representative democracy, and we’re all citizens of it, regardless of our ethnic provenance. So: we’re different folk, from differing backgrounds, but we’re all citizens.
As to having to buy back your own land: that’s the way the concept of private property rights actually works. Regardless of our origins, we the citizens all have the entitlement to quiet enjoyment of our private property. All of us: Maori included. You may well have cause to be thankful for that.
“….Tainui having heaps of money so they can buy their own land back.”
I believe that it’s Tainui which has claimed to have become wealthy. If that’s not so, what’s happened to all that settlement money? I remember when Tainui settled with the government: I was among the many pakeha who were pleased that the settlement had been reached. Now that Tainui has by its own account grown that money, it can buy back the land in south Auckland. Or – given its asset base – it can borrow the money.
Whether or not you like it, that’s the situation regarding all privately-owned land in NZ. There’s no other course of action that doesn’t involve another confiscation: theft, in other words. And while the original theft was wrong, it cannot be made right by a modern-day theft.
hobson knew shit like you d estere you are not us we are different people and when you talk about us having to buy our own land that is the clear difference between us. You are a typical pakeha and so are many of your views especially when you talk about Tainui having heaps of money so they can buy their own land back. This is a typical pakeha view and one not shared by many of our people. Tainui lost the most land and our land was private too but it didn’t stop the government from stealing it and confiscating it.
The law does not apply to us equally d estere this is where you fall down and you sound like a typical pakeha with your views about Tainui having plenty of money to buy their own land back you also sound jealous that they have lots money which is non of or business cause you ain’t Tainui. We don’t have any d estere in our whakapapa and don’t lump us all in the same basket either.
Michelle: “The law does not apply to us equally…”
Yes. It does. Except for the Maori seats, of course, which – as I’ve pointed out to you previously – meet the test of structural racism.
Otherwise, the law applies equally to all of us. If Maori are disproportionately in prison, that’s because they disproportionately commit crime. That doesn’t mean that all Maori commit crime, or that they have an inherent criminal tendency; plenty of Maori are perfectly law-abiding. Those in my extended family, for example.
Ditto for Oranga Tamariki. It takes babies and children of any ethnicity, if their home environment is dangerous, or potentially dangerous. If the children uplifted are disproportionately Maori, that’ll be because of the aforementioned crime: drugs, gangs, violence. I’m sure that I don’t need to elaborate.
The same applies to education and healthcare. Access to services and – in the case of education – success, is largely due to class, in this country defined for the most part by income levels. Skin colour is an extrinsic characteristic only and is irrelevant. We’ve seen many, many non-white immigrants to NZ, whose children by and large do very well in our education system.
However. While skin colour is irrelevant, culture is not. Some cultures are more than others likely to value education; that’s also the way the world is. My Scottish ancestors were very cognisant of the importance of education; my Irish ancestors not to quite the same extent, though they certainly enthusiastically availed themselves of the educational opportunities available to them here in NZ.
“…you sound like a typical pakeha….”
More ad hom from you, I see. How about addressing my arguments instead? Refuting them, even. If you can….
“….you also sound jealous that they have lots money…”
Aha! So they do have plenty of money. Thought so: it’d be strange indeed, were they crying poverty, given the size of that settlement all those years ago. And: given that Tainui does indeed have the wherewithal to stump up the money for that land, it should just get on and buy it. Or borrow against assets, just like the rest of us have to do. Any strategy other than private sale and purchase will be another theft. Do not expect the citizens now alive to pay for a theft that occurred long before any of us was born. Not our responsibility.
What a racist pig saying we have an inherent criminal tendency
Michelle: “What a racist pig saying we have an inherent criminal tendency.”
If that’s addressed to me, how DARE you accuse me of something I haven’t said! Free speech, my foot: this is just seriously offensive. I’m surprised that the moderator allowed that comment through.
And I haven’t said it: read my comment PROPERLY! I don’t think that, have never thought it: I know far too much about human biology and patterns of human social behaviour to think or say something so utterly without foundation or evidence.
Humans worldwide are broadly similar; that’s because we are all of the same species. We’re groupish, so we generally behave in ways that benefit our group. People who don’t do that we call anti-social. But there is no human group anywhere which has an inherent criminal tendency.
If you’re having trouble with comprehension – and it seems that you are – it’d be best if you refrained from either commenting, or responding to comments.
Kia ora Michelle
The person who calls himself D’Esterre – a false name by the way, used by a person who deals in false facts – is not a “typical Pakeha”. He is disingenuous, fraudulent and deceitful.
His claim that a willing seller/willing buyer deal between the Crown and Fletchers would amount to “confiscation” of land – is simply ludicrous, and a gratuitous insult to those of us who have suffered real confiscations by the Crown.
Most Pakeha on the other hand are pretty decent people. Unlike D’Esterre they do not pretend that the colonial system (which he presumes to call “modern representative democracy”) gives us the best of all possible worlds. Unlike D’Esterre Pakeha do not gratuitously insult us by ignorantly declaring rangatiratanga to be the “oldest and worst system of government”.
D’Esterre is a disgrace. Not only untypical of Pakeha, but completely unworthy to stand in their midst.
Geoff Fischer: “The person who calls himself D’Esterre – a false name by the way, used by a person who deals in false facts – is not a “typical Pakeha”. He is disingenuous, fraudulent and deceitful.”
I say the same to you as I said to Michelle: how dare you respond to arguments with invective and insults? Is that the best you can do?
D’Esterre is my nom de guerre; it’s also a family name. I don’t give a good goddamn if you can’t find it on google; your bad luck. Though you’ll notice that it crops up quite a lot if you do a search.
I’d add that, if you know the history of Captain James Cook, you’ll be aware that Thomas Skottowe, who was lord of the manor at Great Ayton and the employer of Cook’s father, is believed to have paid for the prodigiously clever young James’s education. That name – Skottowe – is also a family name.
“His claim that a willing seller/willing buyer deal between the Crown and Fletchers would amount to “confiscation” of land – is simply ludicrous, and a gratuitous insult to those of us who have suffered real confiscations by the Crown.”
Are you really so ignorant of the legal arrangements here, that you can make a claim of this sort? This is beginning to feel like endless repetition. The government cannot get involved: it’s privately-owned land. I’m sure that you know this full well, but you don’t want to acknowledge it, because it’s an inconvenient truth.
Do not look to modern-day citizens’ property in the hope of fixing the injustices of the past; it cannot be done. If the government pays for that land, no matter what sleight of hand it attempts to use, that’s modern-day theft. You cannot fix one confiscation by bringing about another.
At the time when there was the publicity surrounding Ihumatao, either the Maori Council or the Iwi Leaders’ Forum (forget which) released a statement saying that, if the government paid for the land, that would reopen all previous Treaty settlements. Do not be disingenuous about this: these are smart people and they are fully cognisant of the implications. Take note.
“….they do not pretend that the colonial system (which he presumes to call “modern representative democracy”) gives us the best of all possible worlds.”
Again: putting words in my mouth. How dare you? Do not misrepresent my views: read my comments properly: spare us all your own little narrative.
I have never said that democracy is the best of all possible worlds, because I don’t think that way.
Rather, I subscribe to the opinion attributed to Churchill: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” There is no perfect form of government.
However, in NZ we have a modern representative democracy.
“… ignorantly declaring rangatiratanga to be the “oldest and worst system of government”.”
I have not so described it: enough with attributing to me things that I haven’t said! It reflects very poorly on your ability to read and comprehend.
However, what prevailed here in NZ prior to colonisation was tribalism: clan-based feudalism, in other words. The British had shucked off feudalism by about the 15th century; as a system of government, it is utterly unsuited to a modern society such as NZ now is. Just think about what tribalism entails: nobody – Maori included – would countenance it.
“Most Pakeha on the other hand are pretty decent people.”
Very patronising of you, I must say. I hate to disappoint you, but most pakeha either share my views, or would do so if they knew what you think. They’d – rightly – view it as bizarre.
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