Maori up for $2b payout if law passes

The Government faces a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to Maori if its controversial emissions trading scheme (ETS) passes into law.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has received an assessment of the impact of the Government's flagship climate-change policy on the value of land handed to iwi under Treaty of Waitangi settlements.

Officials are refusing to divulge the monetary figure placed on the estimated loss in value contained in the assessment by senior Christchurch-based valuer Donn Armstrong, of Forest Land Consultants.

However, Maori say they could be owed as much as $2 billion in compensation, because land currently in forests will not be able to be converted to other potentially more profitable uses.

A copy of Armstrong's report, obtained by The Press under the Official Information Act, had large sections blacked out. Minister of Forestry Jim Anderton cited privacy and commercial sensitivity reasons for withholding the information.

"The report was prepared as part of a large information-gathering exercise around the Government's work on an ETS," he said. "(It) has parts withheld because they discuss commercially sensitive information that Ngai Tahu and others do not wish to be in the public arena."

The nine-page report is dated February 18 and reveals that the Government requested an urgent breakdown of the amount of land in forestry each tribe had received as part of its treaty settlement.

It also requested an indication of its value at the time, its likely value today without the ETS and the impact of the ETS on that value.

The source who tipped off The Press to the existence of Armstrong's report said it contained a figure of $350 million for the value of carbon credits attached to Maori-owned forests.

That figure could not be verified from the censored version released.

Messages left on Armstrong's home phone and cellphone have also not been returned.

However, under the ETS as it is currently drafted, carbon credits would be the property of the Crown, an issue that has attracted protest from forest owners who have demanded compensation.

Forest owners have expressed concern that under the ETS, forest planted before 1990 would be locked up as forest forever because of a planned levy per hectare on land converted to other uses, like dairying and viticulture. That penalty is expected to be punitive, making felling and conversion uneconomic.

Maori forest owners say the new rules would be a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi as the Crown would effectively be legislating how Maori can use their land.

In a submission this year to Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee, the Federation of Maori Authorities called for Maori land to be exempt. It argued that locking iwi land into the regime would be comparable to the actions of the Crown in the 1880s, where legislation "converted Maori land to perpetual leases and Maori to an entitlement of peppercorn rentals".

Federation chief executive Paul Morgan said yesterday that he was now aware of the existence of the Armstrong report and was "not surprised" an assessment had been made. It indicated the Government may be considering compensation, which he estimated would need to be in the order of $2b.

"There are no claims or legal suits about it at the moment, but they have been warned about it terribly. They've probably done this work to assess the risk of Maori basically suing them."

Morgan said about 700,000ha of New Zealand's total pre-1990 forestry estate of 1.2 million hectares was Maori-owned. "It wouldn't be a bad idea to flush them out, so this report can see the light of day."

The Government has parked its ETS legislation while it tries to gather the numbers to pass it into law.

The National Party is opposed to rushing the legislation through, and the Maori Party has expressed strong reservations.

The Government is relying on the support of the Greens and New Zealand First, both of which want significant changes made.

- © Fairfax NZ News