Government reins in new co-governance while Tainui settlement rights remain

Summarised by Centrist

Tainui chair Tuku Morgan had a furious response to the government’s decision to pause key Waikato River regulations until 2032. 

The government is preserving Waikato-Tainui’s existing Treaty settlement rights while simultaneously narrowing the ability of iwi and councils to create new power-sharing arrangements under the RMA’s replacement.

Plan Change 1 was designed partly to give practical effect to Te Ture Whaimana, the Waikato River vision established through Treaty settlement legislation. 

Morgan called its suspension a “complete and total betrayal”, while Shane Jones responded that Parliament’s “supreme law-making power” supersedes “any Treaty of Waitangi settlement”.

The wider RMA reforms nevertheless preserve settlement redress. The Planning Bill requires the Crown to seek arrangements giving existing settlement rights the same or equivalent effect where possible. 

What is changing is the ability to expand similar arrangements elsewhere.

Under the existing RMA, councils and iwi can establish joint-management and Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements. Under the replacement regime, the select committee noted there would be “no ability” to establish new iwi-council transfers of power or joint-management agreements once the RMA transition ends. 

The government has gone further by deciding existing Mana Whakahono arrangements will not automatically carry across. Chris Bishop says councils will instead be able to negotiate “narrowly scoped” iwi participation agreements, after a “rapid increase” in councils and iwi establishing agreements before the old system disappears. 

Critics are also questioning the political-donation context. Wairakei Pastoral, which owns more than 25,000 hectares in the upper Waikato River catchment fought PC1, its owners gave nearly $1m to the three coalition parties, the Environment Court finally reached its final decision in June, and two months later the government moved to suspend key requirements. 

There is no evidence the donations influenced that decision, but critics have pointed to the overlap between major agribusiness interests, political donations and the policy outcome. 

Read more at the NZ Herald

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