Hmmm... Treaty Settlements. For those of you remember the heady days of 1996, when student loans were ascending out of control, benefits were few and hard to come by, and country was being run by ideologues, I was still an angry [and comparatively] young man.
Now, being an angry young man I was determined to do what most blokes of my ilk like to do, and that's 'stick it to the man'. And no, don't go jumping to any conclusions. Instead, realise that like all well-meaning do-gooders I took up someone else's fight and was going to change the world.
The fashionable target in those days was the Fiscal Envelope, that magnificent imposition on the tangata whenua by patronising, arrogant bureaucrats in Te Waha o Te Ika o Māui, and I took to dismantling it with a gusto becoming the true cracker I am.
You can imagine my bewilderment when I discovered it wasn't really all that bad.
There's no point trying to flesh out all the details of the Crown's settlement ambitions, but by the time I investigated the motivations of the overall policy, the historical facts that lead to the policy becoming necessary, and saw that the policy was flawed, at times ad hoc, a little ramshackle, and probably the best New Zealand could do in the circumstances, I mellowed considerably.
In fact, I consider the first realisation one of the moments in which I came to terms with the world (i.e. set out down the road to becoming an old fart...)
I've tracked the development of the settlement policy since then, and eventually argued during the course of the Australian study that it is something of a best-practice model for other former-Colonial liberal democracies. How times have changed, it seems.
And now here we all are, on the cusp of the beginning of the end. And probably none too soon in my estimation. In all likelihood, this sudden willingness to place a time limit on the lodging of historical claims to the Waitangi Tribunal is somewhere between a sop to the rednecks and cooption of the more abrupt versions of this same policy proclaimed by the far right, but is doubtless past due.
The current Government being what it is, there's every likelihood they won't take an extremist line in the whole 'deadline' thingy. After all, if there are extenuating circumstances preventing a Māori group from lodging a claim, circumstances that can be proven to provide reasonable justification for a moderately late submission, then I can't really see the Crown from preventing it.
After all, the entire reason for the settlement process was justice.
The main thing to consider is that the bulk of the really big and hairy settlements are completed, especially the raupatu issue (bar Tauranga Moana), and the remainder seem to mostly be complicated by multiple and overlapping claims and 'difficult' political situations.
The majority of the information about the work that needs to be done appears in be in the public domain at sites like the Office of Treaty Settlements and the Waitangi Tribunal. I thought about reading some and giving you a little run down, but, well, I'm a bit over the whole thing and can't be stuffed.
To be honest there's just not very much to be excited about in this particular area of New Zealand politics. Really, the 'gravy train' people like Peters et al like to splutter about is just a series of negotiations between local stakeholders and the Crown. And negotiations being what they are, you have to make sure you do them properly and thereby ensure that the two main issues in the settlements policy are adhered to. That the settlements are full, final and equitable.
So why screw them up just for political expediency? Peters and Hide haven't left any kind of legacy for people in 2050 to remember them by, so how the heck are we going to be able to blame these guys if a rushed settlement falls through?
All this having been said, sources inform me that a few of the local stakeholders do need to get a bit of a wiggle on. I know for certain that local politics isn't always a cut and dry affair, and can be every bit as complicated as the personality politics that dominate Wellington. But, while resolving our history the proper way is important, the settlement process was never really intended to be the panacea Māori truly need.
As much as the phrase 'all getting on with it' evokes an entirely inappropriate picture, the many stakeholders involved in the settlement process do need to reach some kind of resolution, if not only so the extraneous Crown resources invested in this area can be moved to more important activities like economic development, or reform of the more patronising legislative frameworks around Māori collective assets.
So on a final note, even though this policy seems to me to be Helen doing what Little Johnnie did to Pauline, maybe what will become of it is a more robust, deeper, Twenty-First Century Māori society of many and varied groups.