JOURNEY INTO OUR FUTURE

The New Zealand Colonial Government is preparing its process of recognizing and accepting its mistreatment of the Indigenous hapu and whanau groups. It has no precedent in its actions to be taken and it has elected to do a settlement with the most southerly remnants of the many hapu of New Zealand living in the South Island. There are many hapu who have lived many generations here in the South Island of New Zealand, some hapu like Waitaha, Te Aitanga o Te Rapuwai, Te Waiariki, Hawea predate the arrival of the Ngai Tahu hapu, and it is therefore left to a solitary Trust Board of Ngai Tahu to decide who are the hapu to be consulted with. This immediately starts the contesting across the board. The tragedies of William Shakespeare have nothing on the resulting competitive elements.

The resulting chaos has shown that there is significant weight in the recognizing of Waitaha, Ngati Mamoe and the later arrivals Ngai Tahu. A subsequent private members bill in Parliament and strident but calculated calls to friends in high places; cements the fictitious hapu relationships from a hapu recently located into the South Island as having the bloodlines and other recognized protocols for the National Party Government to create new hereditary rulers in situ. This resulting in the Ngai Tahu Bill of Settlement. The first of its kind ever to be enacted in our histories.

So that where our Government of well-meaning intent set about trying to settle grievances with the hereditary rulers of these lands they are creating other grievances that will never go away. It does not matter for how long this Bill of Settlement lasts, the grievances are still present in the people and in the lands.