Q+A: Shane Taurima Interviews Mark Solomon
Q+A: Shane Taurima Interviews Mark
Solomon
Powerful iwi boss refuses to back
Maori Council legal action over partial asset sales –
“All it does is give the lawyers the new Mercedes every
year.” Would prefer “negotiated
agreement”.
Disagrees with Waitangi Tribunal’s
ruling that pressing ahead with partial asset sales is a
“breach” of the Treaty, saying the Crown has
acknowledged Maori rights to water.
Personally,
Solomon is “leery” and “a bit uncomfortable” with
selling shares in state assets.
Maori have
proprietary rights to water as “first people” of New
Zealand and deserve input into its governance and
allocation. He’s told the PM that
“consistently”.
But Maori don’t own water by
“title”. “That is a Pakeha concept. When I look at the
concept of ownership within a Maori paradigm, I believe
it’s about you have a right of use to use the
fruits…”
“We cannot stand up and ask the
government to recognise our rights and interests in water by
advocating the taking away of rights and interests of other
people.”
Sell-down of Mighty River Power and
other assets will not undermine Ngai Tahu’s water
rights.
Ngai Tahu has redistributed nearly $230m
since its Treaty settlement, but the message from iwi
members is that money should be spent on “a hand up, not a
hand out”.
“We cannot cure the social ills of
Maori overnight, ”but people who criticise iwi for not
doing enough about Maori poverty are
“ill-informed”.
Iwi should not have to become
“brown welfare”. “We are taxpayers, and we have the
same right to access to Crown funding for social delivery as
every other sector of society.”
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Q+A
SHANE
TAURIMA INTERVIEWS MARK
SOLOMON
SHANE
TAURIMA
Tena koe, Mark Solomon. Thank you for joining
us.
MARK SOLOMON - Ngai Tahu
Chairman
Tena koe, e hoa.
SHANE
I’d like to begin with the subject that you’ve
been talking about quite a bit recently: state-asset sales
and why you support the government’s plan to sell state
assets.
MARK
I don’t think I’ve ever said that in any forum
whatsoever that I support
it.
SHANE Do
you support
it?
MARK
No, what I’ve consistently said in the public
forum is until all the information is put on the table so we
could do a full due diligence, until then, it’s nothing
but a concept. I’ve no doubt that when all the data is put
on the table, our holdings corporation will do a due
diligence. And if the mixed-ownership model gives a return
that’s within the hurdle rates that we expect them to get,
then they will make a decision of whether to invest or
not.
SHANE Do
you like the
concept?
MARK
On a personal level, I’m a bit leery of selling
down parts of our state-owned enterprises. The reality is
why, at this stage, it might say that we’re only selling
49%. No current government can buy into future
government.
SHANE
So are you concerned at the prospect of Mighty
River Power, as an example, on the block come next
year?
MARK
Oh, on a personal level, I’m a bit comfortable,
but our holdings corporation will do a due diligence if it
stacks up. Maybe they will
invest.
SHANE
So for Ngai Tahu, it comes back to the
return.
MARK
Of course it does. We have a fiduciary
responsibility on behalf of the Ngai Tahu families to manage
the assets well and to get a good return. That’s our
responsibility.
SHANE
The Waitangi Tribunal said, and let me quote,
‘The Crown will be in breach of Treaty principles if it
proceeds to sell shares without first providing Maori with a
remedy or rights recognition or at least its ability to do
so.’ Isn’t it a breach of the
Treaty?
MARK
I don’t actually see it that way. Um, the
government has publicly acknowledged and the Tribunal backed
it up that the sell-down of 49% does not prevent the
government from addressing the rights and the interests of
Maori.
SHANE
But it also did say it would be a clear breach of
the Treaty if it wasn’t to recognise or at least first
provide Maori with a remedy to be able to recognise their
rights.
MARK
Again, I don’t know whether I’d agree with
that. The Crown has acknowledged publicly that they
acknowledge that Maori have rights and interests to water.
And there is a process underway. We’ve been an active
participant in the Land and Water Forum, as have a number of
other tribes. First and foremost for Ngai Tahu is the
protection of the waterways. That’s the big issue for us,
and what we’re after, to be blunt, is we want an input
into the management and the protection of the waterways
within the Ngai Tahu
takiwa.
SHANE
Do you believe Maori have rights to water by dint
of being the first
peoples?
MARK
I do believe that we have proprietary rights to
water. Yes, I do.
SHANE
Have you told that to John
Key?
MARK
Consistently.
SHANE
And his
response?
MARK
Well, they seem to get the statement that we have
proprietary rights mixed up that we’re saying it’s about
ownership. We were the first people here. We managed our
river systems. What we’re saying is we want input into the
governance, into the management of the water systems. We do
believe that we have a right to an allocation of water. But
we do not - and this is a Ngai Tahu perspective: we cannot
stand up and ask the government to recognise our rights and
interests in water by advocating the taking away of rights
and interests of other people. Ngai Tahu was part signatory
to the Treaty of Waitangi, to which we believe is a
partnership. We believe that there is a win-win model that
gives Maori access to water alongside the rest of the nation
so that we can be part of the economy of New
Zealand.
SHANE
So before any sales or any share offers, for that
matter, don’t you want recognition of Maori water rights
first?
MARK
I believe we have recognition. I believe that the
government has consistently stated they accept that Maori
have rights and interests to
water.
SHANE
So you have no problem whatsoever with Mighty
River, the first one on the block to be sold? [MARK SHAKES
HIS HEAD]
MARK
Other than my own personal opinion about the
sell-down of state-owned assets, um, but, personally, I do
not believe that the sell-down of parts of Meridian will
affect Ngai Tahu’s rights and interests to
water.
SHANE
Let’s talk about the government’s share offer
that they’ve offered 65 iwi yet to settle their Treaty
claims. It’s something that the Iwi Leaders Group has been
working with the government on. And you’re quite
supportive of the
idea.
MARK
I was the chairman of the group. The discussion
started around about March, and at the iwi chairs’ meeting
in Heretaunga in May, an Iwi Leaders Group was set up to see
if we could get an option for the unsettled iwi that, if
they wished, to use part of their forthcoming settlement to
be used to purchase shares in the mixed-ownership model.
We’ve got that option for them. It is now entirely up to
the individual iwi of whether they wish to exercise
that.
SHANE
Some, though - Winston Peters as an example - have
described it as, let me quote, ‘Divide and rule
tactics.’ Is he
right?
MARK
How? I don’t understand how he comes to that
conclusion. How does that buy them off? It’s an offer.
They have an option. They can say yes or no. There is no
buy-off. If they wish to buy in, then they will expend some
of the their future settlement monies in purchasing those
shares. If they don’t, then they will get the cash from
their settlement, and they’ll invest it in some other
asset within New
Zealand.
SHANE
Do you think water can be
owned?
MARK
I do not believe that you can separate water from
the waterbed. Do I believe that Maori have an ownership in
the sense of a fee simple title? No, I don’t. That is a
Pakeha concept. Um, when I look at the concept of ownership
within a Maori paradigm, I believe it’s about you have a
right of use to use the fruits, or in a Pakeha term, the
usufructuary rights, but I think you have a reciprocal
obligation of kaitiaki. How you define that to a Pakeha word
of ownership, I’m not quite
sure.
SHANE Go
back to Winston Peters, because on the issue of water,
he’s raised the race relations issues. No big surprise
there. But does he have a point? He says that when Maori
talk about owning water or their rights in water, it’s bad
for race
relations.
MARK
Why is it bad for race relations? When a Pakeha
farmer gets a water right and then has the right to sell
that right, is that bad for race relations? What is the
difference? I think his argument is flawed, and I think
he’s politicking.
SHANE The
Maori Council are taking High Court action, you may have
heard. Do you support
that?
MARK
Ngai Tahu’s stance and the members of the Iwi
Leaders Group, our position is we would far prefer a
negotiated agreement than court. Court, to us, has always
got to be the last option, not the first. All it does is
give the lawyers the new Mercedes every
year.
SHANE
Have we reached that point, in your
opinion?
MARK
No.
SHANE
So what should, do you think, be happening instead
of going to
court?
MARK
We can’t speak on behalf of all Maori. There is a
big group of us that have a view that we need to be coming
to a negotiated agreement. We will go along our path. We
cannot stop any other group from taking legal action, and
that is their right if that is the path that they wish to
take.
SHANE
But you won’t be supporting this action being
taken by the
council?
MARK
Not at this stage. No, we will
not.
SHANE
Tainui and the Maori King have pledged their
support for the council; you won’t. So, going back, I
suppose, to the Winston Peter’s quote, isn’t he right
when he says the government is
dividing?
MARK
There are 500,000, close to 600,000, Maori in New
Zealand. I’ve never known any sector or community to have
a unanimous view. We are like any other people. We will have
varied views, and that is all of our
right.
SHANE
What odds do you put on that council actually
winning?
MARK
I think any decision in court is limited to what
they can do.
SHANE
Ngai Tahu reported an operating profit of $55
million for the year to the end of June. You’ve grown your
asset base from $170 million to more than $800 million.
Congratulations.
MARK
Thank
you.
SHANE Let
me ask you a question that I’m sure you’ve been asked
before. It’s based on some of the feedback we get most
often on Q+A whenever we talk about poverty or welfare, and
that’s why aren’t iwi using settlement money to get
Maori out of
poverty?
MARK
Who says we
aren’t?
SHANE
Is it fair
criticism?
MARK
I think it’s absolutely ill-informed people
making statements about things that they know absolutely
nothing about. Last financial year, we gave out 981 grants
and scholarships at the tertiary level. We gave out 360, I
think it is, places in the Kip McGrath or in tutorial
services. We fund a number of organisations in running
tutorial services. We
funded-
SHANE
Before you continue, because I suspect you’re
going to tell me every grant and every scholarship that Ngai
Tahu has put in over the last few years, you believe you are
making a
difference?
MARK
Yes, I do. We’ve gone now, we’ve lifted the
numbers of our people that have a tertiary degree to 11%,
and that’s about a 3% increase to when we first got
settlement. Is it enough? Of course it’s not enough, but
we have 49,900 members. If I take up until the 1st of July
last year, we had distributed, since settlement, around
$227.9 million. If I divide that by the tribal population
and then divide that by the years since settlement, it
equates to $351 per person. So just giving out a $351 a year
is not going to be of huge benefit to the individual whanau.
So we have to look at initiatives that give us the best bang
for our buck, if I can put it that way, that help to give
our people a hand up. We were specifically told at every hui
that we held with the people in 1999 we were not allowed to
become the brown social welfare. Our job was to give the
people a hand up, not a hand
out.
SHANE Do
you believe that is iwi’s role, to become the brown social
welfare?
MARK
No, I do not. I do not believe that at all. Iwi,
Maori, like all other citizens of this country. We are
taxpayers, and we have the same right to access to Crown
funding for social delivery as every other sector of
society. But it is our responsibility as the tribal
groupings to try to give that hand up where we can. But,
again, it has to be kept in perspective. Ngai Tahu has close
to 50,000 members. A little paper exercise done the other
day: just to give each of our members $1000, is $50 million.
It needs to be put in perspective. We, like all other
organisations, have to work by budgets. As a representative
of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu, as a trustee of the Ngai Tahu
Charitable Trust, I have a fiduciary duty not just for the
living generation, but also the future generations. So we
have to do what we can. You do it one step at a time. We
cannot cure the social ills of Maori overnight. We cannot
create employment for all Maori overnight. We have to take
it in incremental
steps.
SHANE
Finally, I’d like to talk about the relativity
clause.
MARK
Yes.
SHANE
It was mentioned in your annual report, and let me
quote: ‘Based on discussions with the Crown, it’s
expected to be triggered within the next financial year.’
How much do you expect to
get?
MARK
Um, I don’t know. It’s a mathematical formula.
Um, Ngai Tahu gets, for every dollar theoretically, over $1
billion. We’re entitled to 16.3 cents in the dollar
discounted back to 1994 values. Every year around about
October, the government puts out a statement on what they
have paid out in settlements. It would be fair to say that
Ngai Tahu has challenged that figure every year since it
started. What will happen is we’ll have to go into a
process of facilitation, mediation, whatever, to come to a
quantum.
SHANE
Your bookkeepers must be doing the math. What are
they telling
you?
MARK
To be honest, they’re not telling us much as this
stage because we have not yet received all the information
that we’ve requested through the
government.
SHANE
There are predictions out there, forecasts, saying
both you and Tainui could be receiving a payout of up to $80
million.
MARK
I won’t discuss the figure, but no, we don’t
accept that figure at
all.
SHANE So
you’re expecting
more?
MARK
I didn’t say that. I said we don’t accept the
figure that’s been bandied about in the public
forum.
SHANE
We spoke earlier too about asset sales and the fact
that the government is using that because it’s
cash-strapped. So I wonder whether or not it will be looking
at a similar offer like what they’ve come up with the 65
iwi, the share offer, for you as Ngai
Tahu.
MARK
No. The government has been quite explicit on that.
No iwi will have any other different- no settled iwi will
have any other rights of access to the shares than the
general public. If Ngai Tahu or any other tribe that is
settled wishes to purchase shares in the mixed-ownership
model, they have to go through exactly the same process as
everybody else.
SHANE
So you expect to receive cash
back?
MARK
Yes.
SHANE
No form of
shares.
MARK
No form of
shares.
SHANE
When do you expect to receive
that?
MARK
Again, it will probably be a disputed process. How
long’s a piece of
string?
SHANE
Thank you very much for your time. Tena
koe.
ENDS