Treaty Claims Deadline

Don Brash will have scored a huge victory if Labour reverse its long standing policy and establishes a deadline for historical treaty claims.

They don’t want to do it, and in fact just a few months ago voted against Rodney Hide’s bill seeking to do the same (and more), even being considered by a select committee.

I’ve yet to see a convincing case to be made to allow so called contemporary claims to be made until the end of time. In fact I believe these co called contemporary claims are what causes all the resentment. There is in fact a lot of suport for settling historical claims.

Take a case in point. The Maori Party complained to the Waitangi Tribunal over the number of polling booths in the recent by-election. Now this has nothing at all to do with the Treaty, yet it got a hearing and in fact support from the Tribunal.

Now non Maori who think a particular by-election should have more polling booths do not have the ability to lodge a treaty claim. So hence you get resentment over the double standard.