Hutt iwi seek Port Nicholson Block Trust changes

SIMON EDWARDS

The Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust stands accused of giving the cold shoulder to local marae, and setting up cultural, social, education and sport ventures in competition with similar programmes already running.

Hutt Valley-based iwi are also pushing for the commercial and management arms of PNBST to be split. They're worried that if current spending and investment trends continue, money from the landmark 2009 Crown redress settlement "could be frittered away within a decade," Waiwhetu Marae chairman Kura Moeahu says. (More, page 40.)

Local Maori leaders who met Hutt News last week described a simmering power struggle that threatens to cause serious division amongst Te Atiawa Wellington people.

The row over the waka Te Raukura last year was another symptom of tensions.

More than 70 people who attended a hui on January 16 had to confine themselves to putting their views on future representation on the PNBST. But now a tribal meeting at Waiwhetu Marae has been called for February 3 and 4 so that iwi can have a say on wider issues.

Hard up against the newspaper's early deadlines because of the anniversary weekend, PNSBT had very limited opportunity to respond. But trust chairman Professor Sir Ngatata Love, through spokesman Chris Wikaira, said on Friday "there's absolutely no strategy or desire to cut anyone out of the loop".

PNSB trustees Teri Puketapu and Neville Baker both have strong links to the Hutt marae.

While all iwi members were entitled to their view, Sir Ngatata said the trust "has to be mindful of the big picture, and all 14,000 beneficiaries".

In September 2009 the Crown signed a settlement with Taranaki Whanui ki Te Upoko of Te Ika - a collective of Taranaki iwi Te Atiawa, Ngati Ruanui and Ngati Tama - whose ancestors migrated to Wellington in the 1820s and '30s.

As well as $25 million in cash, land in Thorndon and the former Wainuiomata College, Intermediate and Waiwhetu School sites were handed over, and the PNBST was given first rights to purchase other land, including the old Petone College site.

PNBST is governed by a board of 11 trustees, voted in by the more than 14,000 registered descendants of tupuna (ancestors) who were living in the Port Nicholson Block rohe in 1840. However, it was agreed that after two years there would be a review of that representation. That's underway now, with independent facilitator Craig Ellison in charge.

Originally, five review hui were planned in Wellington, Auckland, Napier, Palmerston North and New Plymouth - mostly at hotels, and none at marae. Mr Moeahu, Arohanui ki te Tangata (Waiwhetu) Marae workers Peggy Ngaheke-Luke and Konga Reriti, and Te Tatau o te Po (Petone) marae co-chairman John Warren told Hutt News last week this was a breach of tikanga (protocol) and typical of the way marae are being shut out.

They give another example as the scheduling of the last two PNBST annual meetings on the same day as Waiwhetu Marae's 50th and 51st anniversary celebrations, despite the date clash being known. "We sent them invitations," Mrs Ngaheke-Luke says.

Letters pre- and post-settlement sent by the marae asking the PNBST to work with them went unanswered, they say.

At the insistence of marae leaders, extra hui were scheduled for the two Hutt Valley marae.

Despite it being a Monday afternoon during working hours, 73 people attended last week's hui. Mr Moeahu is confident it would have been a "full house" if it had been an evening or weekend gathering.

Speakers put the case for the two Hutt marae, and Pipitea Marae in Thorndon, to each have the right to two trustees on the PNBST. Marae would hold their own elections to decide these. The other five PNBST trustees could continue to be elected at large.

Mr Moeahu says this system of elected marae representation works well in the Waikato. It also works for the local iwi's fisheries group Te Atiawa ki to Upoko o te Ika a Maui Potiki Trust, which he says PNBST also studiously ignores. The four say Potiki is the only body that makes annual returns to the district's marae to help with their running costs.

Mr Moeahu says "marae have always been the social hub of all activities pertaining to things Maori". Although the PNBST's five-year strategy mentions marae in sections dealing with education, sport and social help for iwi, marae aren't even mentioned in a list of stakeholders and he claims that the trust has not once come out to talk to the valley's marae about programmes.

"Our marae have been here for a very long time," Mr Warren says. "We call ourselves ahikaa (keepers of the home fires) because we are the people who have always held a presence here."

For up to 25 years, Waiwhetu in particular has been running education, cultural, sport and other programmes. It has an iwi radio station, a sports academy, health centre, Tamaiti Whangai in schools, kohanga reo and other reo initiatives.

"Port Nicholson are starting up structures against us.

"Everything is in opposition to what has already been set up by [Awakairangi] members of the iwi. So as [other] iwi they're financing themselves against the maraes, against the runanga," Mr Warren says. "That's where I get so annoyed."

Existing programmes have good rapport with the valley's 11 other marae and organisations as diverse as WelTec, Whitireia, the US Embassy and overseas universities. PNBST could make use of these links.

Also in the background is the Wai105 claim. This relates to a large block of land around today's Waiwhetu Marae taken by the Crown. Families living there - including Mr Moeahu's family, and cousins of Mr Warren and Mrs Ngaheke-Luke - were forced out.

This was the subject of a separate and long-running grievance claim but at the urging of the Waitangi Tribunal and Sir Ngatata Love the Wai105 claim was put in with others so that there would be a single approach for settlement.

Mr Warren and Mr Moeahu say Sir Ngatata had said on a number of occasions the Wai105 issues could be debated post- settlement, but claim approaches since to re-open that dialogue have been ignored. At last week's hui, Sir Ngatata said again the trust should sit down with Wai105 claimants: "We've got him recorded saying that and we'll take it up," Mr Moeahu says.

Mr Moeahu says they're frustrated to be described in the media as a "Waiwhetu faction" up against the PNBST.

"We are iwi.

"We want it be acknowledged that we are the mana whenua, not the Port Nicholson Block."

They'd heard last year that Hutt City Council had been told to negotiate with PNBST rather than the Hutt Valley's runanga. "It's ludicrous," Mrs Ngaheke- Luke said.

Sir Ngatata acknowledges some trust members want to be represented in a different way.

"The current process allows them to put their views forward.

"However, trustees have a responsibility to look after all of the 14,000 members, most of whom live out of Wellington."

Mr Moeahu and Mr Warren's retort is that the trust does represent 14,000, "but in terms of their interests in Wellington.

"There's no way anyone in Australia will determine the future of our people here," Mr Moeahu says.

"This is the area, this is where the work is done," Mr Warren says. "The Port Nicholson claim is about here, not where my brother is living over in Queensland."

- Hutt News