Ministerial Statement South Canterbury Finance - Wednesday 8th Sept 2010 - Te Ururoa Flavell

Kia ora tātau e te Whare. Kua tū ake hei waha kōrero mō te Pāti Māori i tēnei ahiahi.
[Greetings to us, the House. I rise as spokesperson for the Māori Party this afternoon.]

When talking about South Canterbury Finance the Māori Party has been trying to put the payout into some sort of context. As other speakers have alluded to, just over a week ago around 30,000 investors received a taxpayer handout to the effect of $1.6 billion to tide them over after the collapse of Mr and Mrs Allan Hubbard’s finance company, South Canterbury Finance.

Māori have been comparing this unexpected bonus for this one group of investors with the irony of the fiscal envelope offered 15 years ago as part of the grand plan to settle Treaty claims.

The fiscal envelope limited the Crown to a total of $1 billion for the settlement of all claims over a period of 10 years. The $1 billion cap to settle all claims for the Māori population, which at the last census totalled 643,977 people, compares miserably with the $1.6 billion payable by the Crown to settle a few unhappy investors.

Māori ask why when “Ma” and “Pa” Hubbard go to the cupboard and find nothing there, they will suddenly be bailed out by the Crown, yet when Māori go to the larder it is so much harder and the best they will end up with is approximately 2 percent of the real value of their claims.

Professor Margaret Mutu worked out a formula using the 1995 deal in which a Pākehā landowner, Allan Titford, received $3.25 million in compensation for the 94 acres of far north farmland that was taken off him and returned to Māori. Based on that formula, she said that the settlement paid out to date would equal 0.06 percent of what the claims were actually worth. Ngāi Tahu’s $170 million was 0.01 percent of the $1,192 billion that they would have received under Professor Mutu’s formula, and Tainui’s $170 million equated to 0.4 percent.

We have no argument with the investors. On the contrary, we think the South Canterbury Finance experience provides a benchmark from which to assess the financial compensation due to Māori from Treaty settlements. Let us put it all in context: just over $1 billion to Māori, of whom there are just over 650,000; $1.6 billion to 30,000 investors; and $2 billion to Christchurch and the Canterbury area, which they will definitely need. The figures here are seriously out of kilter. Tēnā tātou.

ENDS

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