Going back two weeks we looked at the theory of comanagement and cogovernance and then at some examples, some ‘tin tacks’. This week we look at more tin tacks, more case examples and conclude this series on co-management and co-governance
Coming back to the foreshore and seabed, in the next case study Ohiwa Harbour is studied. This example is also taken from ‘Co-management: case studies involving local authorities and Maori’, 2007, a Local Government New Zealand publication. Parties involved in the co-management of the Ohiwa Harbour are Environment Bay of Plenty, Opotiki District Council, Whakatane District Council, Whakatohea, Upokorehe, Ngati Awa and Tuhoe.
The co-management area is the Ohiwa Harbour (in the Eastern Bay of Plenty) and catchment- an area of historical and cultural importance to Whakatohea, Upokorehe, Ngati Awa and Tuhoe.
The structures involved in the co-management arrangements involve an integrated management approach. The three local authorities and tangata whenua worked together to develop a strategy that incorporates statutory and non statutory implementation actions.
An iwi planning document has also been produced to support the strategy.
The arrangements for co-management of the Ohiwa Harbour involve multiple iwi. We might ask what is meant by the phrase ‘integrated management approach’ and what might this mean for a co-management arrangement. Does the fact that there are two district councils involved also help to make things complex?
How does the arrangement work with a third party giving advice on environmental matters as happens with Environment Bay of Plenty in the example above? Are there further informative examples of this to be found in the Rotorua Lakes?
Regarding sedimentation and nitrification it might be noted that the area of mangroves increased by 400% between 1943 and 2003.
The example of the Nukuhou River as a major contributor to sedimentation and contamination of the Ohiwa Harbour is important. Tributaries must be managed as effectively as the river itself.
Horizontal integration is extremely important in the example as are, to a lesser extent perhaps, advice to leadership and action plans. The horizontal integration in the Ohiwa case include Landcare Trust, QE11 Trust, Fish and Game, New Zealand Historic Places Trust, Nga Whenua Rahui, Forestry Accord and Federated Farmers. To quote from the Ohiwa Harbour Strategy;
Integrated management seeks to ensure that the individual efforts of all the organisations and agencies are working together in a common direction. To this effect an implementation forum will be set up to oversee the implementation of the various actions in the strategy.
The example shows how complex the statutory environment can be. In the Ohiwa Harbour there are there are ten islands and amongst these islands may be found several kinds of Reserve; a Government Purpose Wildlife Reserve, a Scientific Reserve, a Scenic Reserve and a Maori Reserve.
By contrast Taharoa Domain (Kai Iwi Lakes) seems much more straightforward than the Ohiwa Harbour case study. This example is also taken from ‘Co-management: case studies involving local authorities and Maori’, 2007, a Local Government New Zealand publication. Parties involved are the Kaipara District Council, Te Roroa and Te Kuihi.
The co-management area is the Taharoa Domain which comprises 538 hectares of Crown land which is a recreation reserve and managed by the Kaipara District Council. The domain is taonga to tangata whenua.
The structures involved in the co-management arrangement follow the Taharoa Domain Reserve Management Plan. This has been developed by the iwi and the council under the Reserves Act 1977. It ensures provision for tangata whenua to participate in the management of the domain. A joint committee representing tangata whenua and council manages the reserve in accordance with the Reserve Management Plan.
We might ask how useful, generally speaking, is the 1977 Reserves Act for co-management? Should a management plan be tied to the Reserves Act 1977?
How does the example inform co-management of lakes and tributaries?
This is a reasonably big domain at 538 hectares. Are there different kinds of co-management for differently sized domains?
Are recreational reserves to be managed differently to commercial reserves?
What is the proposed arrangement regarding tourism in any co-management plan?
Action plans are very important in the example as are horizontal integration and advice to leadership.
It is important in examples such as this to check that no other legislation applies as with, say the 1907 Coal Act which might mean that a river bed is owned by the Crown.
Sometimes there is a situation where there has been an act of parliament passed. The next case study is the Okahu Bay/Whenua Rangatira Reserve. This example is also taken from ‘Co-management: case studies involving local authorities and Maori’, 2007, a Local Government New Zealand publication. The parties involved in the Okahu Bay/Whenua Rangatira Reserve include the Auckland City Council and the Okahu Bay/Whenua Rangatira Reserves Board which represents the Ngati Whatua o Orakei Maori Trust Board (‘the Trust Board’).
The co-management area consists of a reserve owned by the Trust Board under the Orakei Act 1991. A separate entity entitled the Reserves Board manages the reserve in accordance with a reserve management plan prepared under the Reserves Act 1977. The Reserves Board contains representatives from Auckland City Council and the Trust Board.
The structures involved in the co-management arrangement under the Orakei Act provides a specific statutory framework for ownership and administration of Okahu Bay/Whenua Rangatira Reserve. Management of the reserve is conducted under another statute- the Reserves Act 1977. The Whenua Rangatira Reserve Management Plan was prepared under the Reserves Act and guides the Reserve Board’s management decisions. The plan outlines the goals, values, activity areas and planning process for the reserve.
This seems to be a complex arrangement. Is there a need for a specific statutory framework for ownership and administration as with the Orakei Act?
What is the relationship envisaged with regard to any specific boards set up to manage reserves?
Horizontal integration and the following of an action plan are the points to be stressed in the example although leadership is also important.
Whatever the statutory environment though it must be recognised. The other side to this coin might be that the need for change must also be recognised.
The next case study is one where a national interests, in this case that of power. Is being served. The Wairau river and proposed canal system as an example of co-governance, negative and positive.
Save the Wairau River Inc, an incorporated society, was founded to advocate for the long term sustainability of this internationally important Marlborough braided river. Some of what follows is taken from http://www.savethewairau.co.nz/.
The objects of the society are to be beneficial to the community by:
• Protecting the Wairau as a River of international, regional and local significance;
• Protecting the natural character, integrity, form, functioning and resilience of the Wairau River system;
• Protecting the ecosystems of the Wairau River;
• Protecting the Wairau River as a cultural, educational and recreational resource for the benefit of the community and for future generations.
• Save the Wairau River Inc, is a society incorporated in New Zealand with charitable status (No. 1645630). Several organizations and individuals had been concerned for some time by continued water applications to abstract surface water from the Wairau and water from the Wairau Aquifer and the application by Trust Power heightened and focused that concern. Save the Wairau River Inc was launched by this group of Marlborough residents in June 2005. The application by Trust Power was considered to be a major threat to the future of the ecosystems and the livelihoods that depend on the river. The newly formed Society could see no alternative but to become involved. To not do so, would have been abrogating responsibility under the Society's own objectives. TrustPower's proposal would divert up to 60% of the rivers flow to a canal to feed six hydroelectric stations.
The group rapidly built up a membership of concerned people, not just in Marlborough and the rest of New Zealand, but also from Australia, North America and Europe. The current Executive Committee of the Society was elected at the Annual General Meeting held in June 2009. The Committee consists of local citizens drawn from a wide range of interests: business, farming, conservation, angling, and medicine.
Where are the tangata whenua in the model outlined above? Where there might be a guiding partnership between tangata whenua and local government there is the capture of the issue by an interest group, well meaning as that group might be.
We might also look at the statutory environment and local policies. What are the policies in any proposed co-management arrangement regarding any dams or blockages of the river? What are the policies in any proposed co-management arrangement regarding any bridges?
Are there any issues to do with the aquifer?
Advice to the leadership of the Save the Wairau group by tangata whenua would seem to be critical in the example. Other than that there does seem to be an action plan and the groups involved seem to be in tune with one another.
What are the external environmental contributors to be considered? What existing policies and plans manage the river and what will the consultative group do regarding change?
We can see several issues like those raised above in the next example, also from the South Island;
Ngai Tahu withdraws from irrigation scheme
By DAVID WILLIAMS - The Press
Last updated 05:00 23/10/2009
Ngai Tahu has quit a North Canterbury irrigation scheme.
The tribe's property company has resigned from the Hurunui Water Project's (HWP) board and put its shares, held by wholly-owned subsidiary Ngai Tahu Forest Estates Ltd, into a trust.
Ngai Tahu's move follows news that the project's resource consent applications with Environment Canterbury have been suspended while its backers try to avoid a court battle with opponents.
Ngai Tahu Property chief executive Tony Sewell said in a statement that the company would like to boost productivity of its Balmoral land holdings, but not at the expense of sustainable use of land and water resources.
"A confrontational approach will not provide the best outcome, and so we are calling on all parties to continue with sound research and to continue to talk with each other to find a sustainable solution."
Sewell would not answer questions from The Press about the move.
The Ngai Tahu runanga's submission to the HWP asked for the applications to be put on hold, despite the property company's shareholding. Consents affected an area of "immense cultural significance", the submission said, and information provided in the application was "entirely inadequate".
Ngai Tahu hapu Ngai Tuahuriri and Ngati Kuri supported a water conservation order for the Hurunui River.
The scheme would include a 75-metre-high dam on the Hurunui's south branch and raise the level of Lake Sumner through a weir to irrigate about 42,000 hectares of farmland.
HWP project manager Amanda Loeffen said she was not surprised the company resigned at last month's board meeting.
Ngai Tahu wanted to take time to decide its freshwater strategy, she said.
"They've had a lot of internal conflict because the property division has been supporting the project," she said. "In my understanding, it's just for the relatively short term while we try to establish something through the Canterbury Water Management Strategy."
The strategy is an attempt by the Canterbury Mayoral Forum to resolve the region's contentious water-allocation problems.
Loeffen said the applications were on hold "for a few weeks" while a water conservation order was discussed with opposition groups and the area was considered as a pilot for the water management strategy.
"It's a big opportunity to save money.
"Instead of spending money in law courts, we could spend it on research and consultation over the next 12 months," she said.
Strategy chairman and Ashburton Mayor Bede O'Malley said Lake Coleridge was the frontrunner for a pilot scheme, but the Hurunui was also being considered.
Murray Rodgers, chairman of the Water Rights Trust, which supports opposition group Dambusters, said he did not understand HWP's financial arrangements well enough to discern the impact of Ngai Tahu's withdrawal. "But it must surely weaken the position of Hurunui Water," he said.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the pullout was good news for guardians of the river.
"It's highly significant because it shows that one of the key players in terms of environmental management and commercial development in the whole of Canterbury region has realised the environmental folly of this
To look at another approach to river management we might turn to the Wairarapa and look at the model and definition of health used for the Ruamahanga river project. The following are emphasised;
Te taha wairua-spiritual wellbeing
Te taha hinengaro- emotional and mental health
Te taha tinana- physical
Te taha whaanau- family sustenance and support
Te Ao Tuuroa the environment –tiakitanga, well being of te ao (the
environment) linked to mana Maori
Te Reo Rangatira- importance of language as a taonga, expresses the
values and beliefs, focus of identity for Maori
From Mills (2002)
The awa hauora work done by Mills on the Ruamahanga River in the Wairarapa might be a useful model.
What are the policies regarding Te Reo Rangatira in various parts of the foreshore and seabed?
What is being proposed regarding spiritual health in any co-management arrangements? Are there times of the year and sites set aside for karakia and the observance of tikanga?
Environmental education to be incorporated
What are the health statistics, physical and mental for people living alongside the river or at the foreshore or the river mouth?
What is the focus of identity for people living nearby? To what extent is that focus informed by tangata whenua?
Te reo me ona ahuatanga need to be seriously considered at all levels, leadership, horizontal integration and action plans.
What are the statutory requirements in the example? After 1984, the Waitangi Tribunal began to consider submissions on te reo Maori. The tribunal released its report on the language claim in 1986. It recommended five ways forward. The first was to pass laws allowing te reo Maori to be used in courts and dealings with local and central government. There were also recommendations to establish a statutory body to 'supervise and foster the use of the Maori language', examine the teaching of te reo Maori and 'ensure that all children who wish to learn Maori should be able to do so', recognise and protect te reo in broadcasting and ensure that speaking both Maori and English be a necessary or desirable requirement for certain public service positions.
This meant that there was an across-the-board approach. The language was to be used in all or most circumstances and with this came a attitude to consider Maori isues in a spirit of positive problem solving. Te reo may have been a trigger for the political will that Moon sees after 1984.
Kristiansen, Harwood and Giles (1991) point to three things in language support and development, the social status of language, institutional support and demographic support. With Maori becoming an official language in 1987 there was a movement forward in the first matter and with the Tribunal's call for increased use of the language in the five areas set out above there was progress in the second area as well.
The foreshore and seabed may be considered as a system of signs, a set of distinctive named signposts that convey and transmit a culture. There is a need to safeguard and promote the language and culture involved.
There is another form of co-governance planned for Lake Horowhenua. In the Lake Horowhenua and Hokio Stream Catchment Management Strategy there is an Action Plan. (cf http://www.horizons.govt.nz/assets/publications/managing-our-environment/publications-plans-and-strategies/Lake-Horo-and-Hokio-stream-and-catchment-management-strategy.pdf).
The Lake Horowhenua and Hokio Stream Catchment Management Strategy was developed by a Strategy Working Party. This included representatives from the the Manawatu-Wanganui Regional Council, Horowhenua Lake Trystees, Horowhenua District Council and the Department of Conservation (Wellington Conservancy).
Part Three of the Strategy involved an Action Plan with the following objectives and actions;
1 To determine by November 2002 the extent of water quality and life supporting capacity improvement possible in the lake and the stream.
2 Avoid the adverse effects on water quality from discharges of contaminants to land or water in the catchment.
3 Encourage the public to take responsibility for the effects of their activities in the catchment on te water quality in the lake and the stream.
4 Review the Strategy to identify necessary amendments by 2003.
Beyond contractual obligations and a sense of history the goals and strategies set out by the parties comprise a living document that is recognised by Maoridom. The example indicates that communication is needed in any action plan.
What kind of time frames might be involved in the question above? What are the arrangements envisaged in the co-management plan of to avoid the adverse effects on water quality from discharges of contaminants to land or water?
What are the arrangements envisaged in the co-management plan to encourage the public to take responsibility for the effects of their activities in the catchment on the water quality? What does the co-management role mean to the public? Are deliberations of the management group advertised to the public?
What are the review strategies envisaged in the co-management scheme and what are the time frames involved?
The example shows the importance of action plans and there would seem to be clear leadership and strong horizontal integration.
One matter that might occur in any of the regions so far discussed is that of co-governance of research including scientific research. This is seen in the next example;
Ngai Tahu alarmed at plans
by MATTHEW LITTLEWOOD - The Timaru Herald
Last updated 05:00 20/01/2010
Ngai Tahu says the science in support of widescale irrigation proposals in the Upper Waitaki is "patchy".
Hearings considering more than 126 consent applications to take water in the Mackenzie Basin and Upper Waitaki, covering more than 27,000 hectares of land, will resume in Christchurch from January 25 until March 9.
Legal adviser Paul Horgan's submission documents released yesterday said Ngai Tahu was "alarmed" by the scale and intensity of the Southdown Holdings, Five Rivers, Killermont Stations, Simons Hill, Simons Pass and the two Rosehip applications.
"Ngai Tahu considers that the science presented in support of the proposals is patchy and that there is a raft of uncertainties surrounding the actual and potential effects, especially those upon cultural values," he said.
"Unfortunately, we are led to the view that what the applicants are seeking is that a suck-it-and-see approach be adopted.
"For Ngai Tahu, its enduring relationship with the Upper Waitaki is too sacred for such a cavalier approach to be justified."
Ngai Tahu will speak at the hearings on January 25, but it is understood that the submission will provide the bulk of its evidence.
Mr Horgan's submission said although many of the smaller consents would not pose significant environmental or cultural risk to the area, it felt many of the larger applicants had failed to properly assess the science.
He claimed that the applicants have only measured water quality in the two arms of Lake Benmore, once in January 2008 and again in April 2008. He was also concerned about the accuracy of the sampling.
Ngai Tahu cultural adviser Mandy Waaka-Home's submission said she was not convinced the larger consent holders would be able to operate in a "benign manner".
"We do not believe we should have to suffer the indignity of gathering and eating food from an environment that is knowingly polluted. There is no dignity in that."
The applicants will get the opportunity to respond to Ngai Tahu's evidence at the hearings.
Many applicants have argued the consents are the only way they can remain economically sustainable and that their plans are environmentally sound.
Several submitters against the proposals have already spoken at the hearings last year, including Fish and Game, Department of Conservation, and the New Zealand Tourism Board.
Meanwhile, Environment Minister Nick Smith is yet to make his decision on whether to "call in" a contentious series of cubicle dairying proposals in the Upper Waitaki.
Three companies: Five Rivers Ltd, Southdown Holdings Ltd and Williamson Holdings Ltd have lodged consents applications with Environment Canterbury to allow 17,850 dairy cows to be housed in large sheds around the clock from March to October and for 12 hours a day for the rest of the year.
A spokesman for Dr Smith said the minister intended to consult with interested parties and expected to make his decision in the first week of February.
Waitaki District Council gave the proposals land use consent without public notification, but ECan has received more than 4000 submissions against them.
The consents are due to be heard from March, but Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Jan Wright recommended Dr Smith use his power to call in the decision on discharge consents. She said the combined effluent of the operations would be similar in quantity to that produced by a city the size of Christchurch.
The LAWF consists of 58 organisations reducing to a Small Group of 21 and a Plenary. In 2010 the LAWF produced a report and the next step is greater public engagement.
The LAWF does seem to be introducing a new regime for freshwater. There is a call for a national strategy with a guiding document to be known as the National Policy Statement. A non-statutory body a National Land and Water Commission is to be set up on a co-governance basis.
The critical thing is the strategy. Following the Report the strategy will involve more planning on a national basis with a dismantling of a first past the post process for water rights, a transfer system for water rights in accordance with market mechanisms.
The 2010 LAWF is written in a naĆÆf style. Things that are blindingly obvious are considered with a childlike wonder. How could we possibly be going without water? And some of the thinking does seem to be naĆÆve as with the discussion of trading water permits in the Executive Summary. The chance of background deals that do not involve a direct cash payment would seem to be high especially in areas like Canterbury where the water resource is limited and competition for such permits would be fierce. Iwi would be in the middle, so to speak of such competition.
Regarding iwi the LAWF report says in the Executive summary;
We have recognized that the relationship between iwi and freshwater is founded in whakapapa, that freshwater is recognized by iwi as a taonga of paramount importance and that kaitiakitanga-the obligation of iwi to be responsible for the wellbeing of the landscape including water and waterways- is intergenerational in nature and has been and may be expressed and even given effect to in many different ways.
This again is naĆÆve. Bisley accepts the equation of Maori with locale blissfully unaware of the writings of Veronica Tawhai discussed above. Later in the Executive summary the LAWF Report says;
Iwi, who have a Treaty relationship with the Crown, have no clear path to engage as a partner with Councils.
In fact AlistairBisley’s Report, for such the LAWF Report actually is, can be seen a as a search for clear pathways of engagement for iwi with Councils and/or other parties interested in water. The Report is calling for early collaboration and this includes iwi. Bisley is very conscious that iwi are working things out with the Crown as changes are being made to water allocations and limits at the regional council level. In the Executive summary he takes pains to note that one process should not lose sight of the other.
But Bisley’s Report might best be considered for what it is mostly about. Two main features are limits and allocation of water usage and rights. Bisley says in the Executive summary;
Central government has not used national instruments to provide direction though two are now in preparation. Few regional councils have had the consistent and coherent policy frameworks to put the necessary management regimes in place. In the nature of things it is difficult to get agreements about what limits should be, how quickly they should be achieved and who should bear the cost- but stakeholders and iwi have not always been fruitfully engaged, either at the national or the regional levels. Monitoring and enforcement of rules, consents and their conditions has also been variable.
It is astonishing that things are so poorly worked out. Bisley is describing a ramshackle arrangement that is effectively without governance and asking iwi to find a way into a mess. It is one thing to ask whether iwi have been ‘fruitfully engaged’ it is another to ask, ‘engaged with what?’ At no stage does Bisley state what is obvious in the extreme; there are no effective limits on water in Aotearoa/New Zealand. It has been regarded by local and national government as an infinite resource when clearly this has not been the case for a long time.
There is a lot peeping through the walls of Bisley’s Report. He is suggesting in the Executive summary that;
…regional councils and consent holders should be able to withhold water where the environmental conditions of the consent are not met.
Bisley is referring to a culture of occupation which has had no idea of limit, where water, like space was seen as infinite. In the Canterbury situation the sense of riding a limit with water comes and goes in a disconcerting way; there is not a consistent attitude of guardianship.
Margaret Mutu’s anger at the way developers treat the North is a response to a similar attitude to the coastal environment.
The situation in December at Taipa is a case in point. Something was suggested with a whiff of a promise by the Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal. At first it seems that Mutu is grasping at straws in apparently supporting the protest at Taipa but where else is a line to be drawn. It might be said the Waitangi Tribunal has opened up space. It might also be said that it has closed off space. At vthe end of the day it could well come to ownership of mind and drawing up a course of action. Elsewhere lies cultural madness.
As the examples above show there ae ways to so things and ways not to. Margaret Mutu provides some important examples of the latter from the far north. These include discussions of devekiopment at Rangaanu Harbour, Waikakri, Karikari, Waikura and Merita, Perehipe, Tokerau, Taipa, Waipapa, Koekoea and Mangonui. Without exception there is a failure or a breakdown between the iwi and the council with developers trying the patience of the iwi in almost all examples.
Margaret Mutu in her essay in Kaitiaki (Selby, Moore and Mulholland 2010: 13-36) gives another perspective from the north and this may be an expression of anxiety as anger. This anger comes through in her article with such references as those to ‘the American’.
Mutu says that while the role of kaitiaki might be respected and protected under the 1991 Resource Management Act it is severely challenged and threatened on many occasions. The strength of this article is the close attention to detail in several examples from the far north which show again and again the flaunting of sense by the Far North District Council and developers and a disregard for the rights of Ngati Kahu, the iwi involved. Mutu talks about white supremacy.
Margaret Mutu notes that 80% of the Ngati Kahu population live outside the tribal area, mostly in cities. There is an important set of references to to Maori Marsden and McCully Matiu. The latter is quoted to show an identification of Maori with the environment as kaitiaki. This could be cross referenced to the work of Flavell (2010) about the house and the people in it, and, of course to the work of Goldsmith (2009) and Brown (2003).
This is seen in a quote from McCully Matiu in the report and recommendations of the board of inquiry into the New Zealand coastal policy statement in 1994;
In Maori cultural terms, all cultural and physical elements of the world are related to each other and each is controlled and directed by the numerous spiritual assistants of the gods. These spiritual assistants often manifest themselves in physical forms such as fish, animals, trees or reptiles. Each is imbued with mana, a form of power and authority derived directly from the gods. Man being descended from the gods is likewise imbued with mana although this mana can be removed or violated if it is abused. There are many forms and aspects of mana of which one is the power to sustain life. Maoridom is very careful to preserve the many forms of mana it holds and in particular is very careful to ensure that the mana of kaitiaki is preserved. In this respect Maori become one and the same as kaitiaki (who are, after all, their relations) becoming the minders for their relations, that is the physical elements of the world.
Mutu cites a comprehensive array of law protecting the role of Maori as kaitiaki.
In her examples there are a range of violations of the environment particularly regarding discharge of water comparable to those cited by Selby and Moore in the Hokio area.
Muti shares with Kawharu and other writers the notion of owning/ownership of guardianship. Mana whenua own kaitiakitanga. This of coursr is an axiom that Tawhai holds to with her concept of rawaho, people living in an area in which they do not have mana whenua and are outside the immediate loop of environmental responsibility.
In her conclusion Mutu suggests that ’cultural misunderstanding’ is a euphemism for racism’ and again talks about the White Supremacy shown by the council.
In her anger-and it has to be said that this is an rage with real cause- Mutu shows the ‘disconnect’ that Kawharu and Tapsell talk about. Or rather the disconnect is shown by mainstream commentators talking about Mutu. As well as changes in physical space there is there is constriction or collapsing of the space to argue, the space to talk, the very room, so to speak, to breathe. The exchange below between Fran O’Sullivan and Margaret Mutu is worth examining in these respects.
O’Sullivan started things with a headline in the Saturday Herald- August 28 2010 saying 'Maori have duty to fund their own.' ‘Mute response to Minister’s call for iwi to support abused kids grates, given growing level of tribal wealth’, says the sub heading.
Fran O’Sullivan works off a stock of iwi bashing questions and rounds up the usual suspects but the mere fact that her article is given serious space in the New Zealand Herald shows that it has some editorial support.
O’Sullivan sets out the distinction between iwi and state in her opening paragraph. Along with this is the inversion not emphasized by Fran O’Sullivan; Paula Bennett is, like Winston Peters before her, a Maori advocate for the state. A Maori Minister of the Crown is berating leaders of Maori tribes, some Maori wear the iwi hat and some like Bennett and Peters in his day wear the state hat.
O’Sullivan gets alongside Bennett. In her next paragraph she takes iwi leaders to task for being tardy or indolent.
Then it is a matter of establishing that the iwi owe the government money. Are Treaty Settlements ‘found money’ or are there strings attached?
Next the Key government is accused of being craven and the claim by Maori for the foreshore and seabed as corrupt.
Then it is the Maori professor, Margaret Mutu as space cadet. O’Sullivan says that Mutu is ‘disturbingly remote’. This calls into question the scholarship of Treaty claims and the general sociology and anthropology of race relations. The idea is that these academics live in a one dimensional world and this is usually hard anyway but in a small society like New Zealand it is very difficult.
The notion of ‘disturbingly remote’ runs into the idea of psychological problems touching on pathology as Fran O’Sullivan goes on to accuse Mutu of showing ‘learned helplessness’ and suggests that she is elitist. The underlying idea in the elitist suggestion is that Treaty Settlement money goes into education which promotes an the children of an elite but does nothing for people at risk.
Then O’Sullivan sets out the idea of a game, a double game where Maori tribal leaders are trying to get a privileged position as far as the ownership of assets now vested in the state are concerned while they have their own assets through Treaty of Waitangi settlements. They are, Fran O’Sullivan seems to be suggesting, playing poor when it comes to state assets while in fact Maori are collectively rich.
The uneasy suggestion, uneasy that is to O’Sullivan, is that Maori are building their way into the state.
Fran O’Sullivan seems to not want to overstate things here. In fact there is something of a ‘negative sovereignty’ happening where Maori are in the majority in prisons and elsewhere in the justice system.
Fran O’Sullivan goes on to talk about or at least hint at entrenchment. This is when Maori have automatic first cut at something as a given or entrenched right.
The play with long and short or immediate term is a significant part of this analysis.
In her last paragraph Fran O’Sullivan seems to be querying the very leadership of the tribal leaders group. The accusation seems to be that these leaders are not acting responsibly with regard to their own communities. If Maori are as rich or richer collectively speaking than others in the population of New Zealand then action by them to help people in their own communities ought to be forthcoming.
Is Fran O’Sullivan just stumping up indignation in the right wing corner or does she represent a deeper undercurrent of feeling and analysis? Is she foreshadowing the way Treasury thinks and might act?
In order for there not to be a reaction like that of O’Sullivan there needs to be sufficient social capital shared between the groups involved.
O’Sullivan’s views might lead one to think that Treaty Settlements are really Clayton’s settlements. Or actually they are loans or like loans that iwi take up at the risk of having to use the settlement for social welfare purposes rather than as the iwi sees fit.
There would seem to be a need for shared social capital also known as trust, a history of co-management of welfare that could be turned to at times like this. While this seems to exist in such fields as education, health and local government there is the need to so this perhaps in corrections and social welfare.
Taking O’Sullivan’s idea of Mutu as being remote as a starting point, closeness and remoteness are significant in any discussion of space. O’Sullivan seems to resent the academic space in which Mutu finds herself. This calls to mind the struggle for academic space described by Tania Ka’ai (cf Ka’ai 2008).
Mutu seems, in December 2010 to live in the fire of public rage. This includes people from her own iwi. Hec Busby and David Rankin have given their departures from her position in such programmes as Marae Investigates and Te Karere regarding protests at Taipa an area discussed by Mutu in her article in Kaitiaki. The people protesting at Taipa are faced with a bill that will make their foreshore a commons, a set of recommendations from the Waitangi Tribunal that seem so far to have been without effect and the history of the Far North District Council and other bodies at Taipa as described by Mutu in her article. To compound matters at Taipa the Attorney General came out in November 2010 and told the protesters to ‘go to hell.’
It seems wrong to blame Mutu. The locale is fraught with many difficulties, historical, legislative and other. With 80 percent of the Ngati Kahu living outside the iwi locale a lot of the thinking about the area is done from without, at a remove. To blame or even to focus on an individual may not be productive.
The fire that surrounds Margaret Mutu is an indication of how the co-governance or co-management of the coast in the Far North may easily spin into attacks, put-downs and general animosity.
Regarding the examples above it is important that such texts as Jacinta Ruru’s literature review of the legal voice of Maori on freshwater Governance (Ruru 2009) are consulted. Sometimes examples look to be good for both parties in co-governance. Sometimes both parties are happy with arrangements made and a lot of the time there is a mixture of responses from both sides.
The theoretical background for co-governance and co-management and the case studies considered have two main bearings on the foreshore and seabed. In the first place they show how complex things can be in this area. Secondly they show what can be done. It may be something practical or it may be an attempt at the sublime but Maui, in his stowing away in a canoe or snaring the sun, may have provided example or activity that is daring and practical at the same time.
(Readers are referred back to the Bibliography given at the end of Environment Aotearoa Nine for further reading)
March 17 Thursday Te ao toi
Kaupapa korero mo te ra nei
Nga whare taonga o Papaioea
Rangahau
He aha nga whakaaturanga pai i nga whare taonga o Papaioea?
Subject of the day
The art galleries of Palmerston North
Analysis
What are the best exhibitions in the art galleries in Palmerston North?
www.finearts.co.nz/
