Don Brash had admitted that National's "next Tuesday" Treaty claims policy, under which all claims would have to be filed by the end of 2006, and all filed grievances settled by 2010, is unrealistic. I would have added "unjust" and "deliberately designed to rule out claims on administrative grounds", but its good to see him showing some sign of wanting to rejoin the reality-based community on this. Unfortunately, Brash doesn't say what the replacement policy will be, only that it will be discussed at National's post-Waitangi caucus meeting. But almost any policy (other than "next Monday" or ruling out claims altogether) is better than "next Tuesday".
As for what policy in this area should be, I'd suggest "as fast as is compatible with justice". Because that's ultimately what the process is about - justice. Righting the wrongs of the past. Justice delayed is justice denied, but rushing things may mean that there is no justice at all. If we want to solve these historic grievances and make sure the settlement lasts, we need to do it properly. That means a full investigation into the past, and a full accounting of the wrongs done. This takes time, but it is an absolutely vital part of the process. We can't even begin to make things right unless we acknowledge what was wrong in the first place.
If we want to speed up the process, then the first step is to resource the Waitangi Tribunal and Office of Treaty Settlements properly so they can investigate and hear more claims. The second is to commit more funds for settlements - easy given the pittance we currently spend. The third is for the government to ensure that settlement bills are given a high priority on the Parliamentary agenda. There's an obvious way that National and NZFirst can demonstrate their desire for a faster process: by giving (or even asking for) leave for those bills to be pushed up the queue, and helping them progress through the House with all speed. But somehow, I think they'd rather pick the scab for votes than do anything constructive.
2 comments:
Under Labour the process has been awfully slow and seems to be getting slower.
At least under National it seemed that treaty settlements were happening and that historical greviances were going to be resolved in the near future.
Posted by Anonymous : 2/04/2006 09:42:00 PM
If justice is the goal then you might as well give up now or accept that there is no limit and stall the whole process - Besides only a twisted form of justice can be found anyway.
What we have instead is a negotiation where we want various groups to be reasonably happy. the maori tribes want various things and so too do the NZ voters.
amongst the things NZ voters want is to know the size of their liability and to have "peace" with the tribes.
What the tribes want is presumably money and appologies. It should be easy enough to solve via negotiation muedn unless we have a middle east like scenerio where leaders dont want to solve the problems.
Posted by Genius : 2/05/2006 12:27:00 AM
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