Why hasn’t Ngāpuhi settled?

This weekend my whanau travelled down to Tauranga Moana for the interment of our great aunty who passed away at the age of 101 ½, after living a peaceful and frugal life and giving most of her money away to the needy overseas. I carpooled with my sister and niece. On the way home as we were coming over the Brynderwyns, enjoying that majestic view that welcomes us home, the conversation turned to the Ngapuhi settlement. I did my best to explain, from my perspective, why Ngapuhi hasn’t settled.

One of the things with explaining something to a 9 year-old (even a very smart one) is that simplicity has a way of rising to the surface. In the simplest terms, even though the $500-800 million potentially on offer would be handy for our whanau, what the government wants in return isn’t ours to give away. It belongs to our mokopuna and their mokopuna and their mokopuna.

We need to have a hard kōrero about the numbers. The recent reports confirm what we have known in our bones for generations: the forensic economic loss to Ngāpuhi—the actual value of the land and resources stripped from our tūpuna—exceeds $20 billion. That is the debt.

But the political reality? The Crown is offering a settlement likely between $500 million and $800 million. They call this a "realistic range" because of the "Fiscal Envelope" and the relativity clauses with Tainui and Ngāi Tahu. If the Crown pays us what we are owed, it bankrupts the country. So, they offer us cents on the dollar.

This creates a fracture in our iwi. On one side, we have the "Blockers"—hapū in the Hokianga and Whangarei who say, "Keep your money, we never ceded sovereignty". They are standing on the Wai 1040 finding that our rangatira never gave away their authority. On the other side, we have the "Advancers"—hapū in the Bay of Islands and Whangaroa who say, "We need the resources now to feed our people". They are moving ahead to secure assets like Kororipo Pā and leverage the mandate.

A shared signal

I was driving out to Mt Manaia with some whānau the other day, just soaking in the views of our beautiful hills. We were listening to a song by Unity Pacific, and it hit me just how much of our story here in Taitokerau is tied to a land thousands of miles away.

Most people see the red, gold, and green flags at Waitangi or during our festivals and think it is just about the music. But if you look deeper, those colours are not just a fashion choice. They are signals of a deep connection, what we might call an invisible thread, that links our struggle for sovereignty here to a global movement.

Prophets and promises

This connection did not start with reggae music in the 1970s. It goes back much further. In the 1800s, our own prophets like Te Kooti and Ratana were reading the Bible through their own eyes. They did not see a story about a foreign people needing "saving" by the British. They saw themselves.