No deadline on Treaty claims – National

Written By: - Date published: 4:18 pm, March 5th, 2008 - 4 comments
Categories: flip-flop, john key - Tags: ,

treaty.jpgMr Key announced new National policy this morning. After a morning TV interview National now have no date to settle historic Treaty Claims:

Presenter: National used to have a date, didn’t they?

John Key: No, what they said was they wanted the claims lodged, and they’d like to see them cleared up by a certain time, but that’s not necessarily guaranteed, I mean, no one can guarantee that, including the current Government, and the reason is that you have to go through a process, and you need durability in that process. (TVNZ’s Breakfast, 5 March 2008)

Funnily though, I think others in his caucus are pretty clear there was a timeline:

Presenter: National MP Georgina te Heuheu is confident a five-year timeframe for settling the country’s Treaty settlements is achievable. It comes after the National Caucus recently reassessed its Treaty settlements process, among other issues, in Taupo. Miss te Heuheu says the party believes if it wins the next election then all claims will be settled by 2013.

Georgina te Heuheu: Our policy going into the election last year had us setting the date for settlement of claims in 2010. We didn’t make it into government so, from a very practical point of view, we’ve got to review that. So what we’ve said is that we’ll set the time for settling claims five years after taking office. (RNZ, 9 Feb 2006)

Or was it that Ms te Heuheu was mistaken? Well not according to (then) National party leader Dr Brash:

Dr Brash:…in the election campaign we said look we want all claims lodged by the end of 2006; all claims paid out fully, fairly and finally by 2010. And that seemed to us to be highly desirable to accelerate that whole process and get it finished. Now of course we didn’t win the election and the question is, well given that we may well not become government until 2008 is 2010 still a realistic deadline.

Presenter: It makes sense that you can’t do anything about Treaty settlement time frames unless you’re in power

Brash: Well we don’t know when it will be. So instead of saying five years beyond 2008 we said five years from when we become government, and that could be later this year or next year. (Radio Live, 9 February 2006)

But then we have seen other examples of policy on the hoof where his caucus was not included – repeal of clause 59 springs to mind! And as with that example I’m not sure his colleagues will feel entirely comfortable defending their new party position.

4 comments on “No deadline on Treaty claims – National ”

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  1. Benodic 1
    5 March 2008 at 4:26 pm

    I’m glad they’re doing a u-turn on this one as it could have caused a lot of tension and divided Kiwis against each other.

    I just wish Key didn’t release these things in a way that makes it look like he’s just telling you what you want to hear.

  2. Dancer 2
    5 March 2008 at 4:31 pm

    yes – i wondered if he was (unconsciously?) trying to smooth the way for future talks with the Maori party. With Pita making the pro National comments so recently maybe Key thought it was his turn?

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