Land Rich; Poor in Wealth!

Kia Ora,

In investing there is a situation known as asset rich but cash flow poor.

Well the same could be said of Maori in answer to a question I received on Linkedin.

Many New Zealanders can not understand how there are large payouts for Treaty Settlements & yet most Maori struggle at the poor end of society & that tends to led to a greater proportion been involved in crime.

There are many reasons in particular with regards to what happens with the Treaty Payouts but one reason Maori have tended to inhabit the poor part of our society is Land.

Early on many were deprived of access to land to participate in the new society. Later though many were given land. This land tended to be the worst of any land available.

Now the land was also tied to the early democratic process in New Zealand. Each person who owned land was able to vote until someone realized that meant all Maori could vote(including ghast the females) as everyone had part of the communal ownership. So they did some gerrymandering & created the four Maori seats as otherwise there would of been more Maori voters than settlers. So it is quite funny to hear people today claim the seats are racist & that they should be abolished. They always were but now they hold the balance of power its different.

But that communal ownership has caused more issues. It means that until recently you could not get a loan against the land to develop it & create jobs in the community. Any cash flow from it has to be split amongst all owners some getting a greater share than others since they had a greater percentage of ownership.

Then another issue arose which is becoming more relevant now. Once your percentage has declined to a certain level as it is split over generations, those with a greater percentage of ownership can vote to have those below the thresh hold lose their shares. I am aware of this happening at least once but there was a backlash so they had to re issue shares.

This has led to whanau trusts been formed where it is not diluted, but all payouts go to those of one line of descent that formed that trust which can still be a very meagre amount. Even there some people can be denied access is their is a question over their whakapapa. It is a bit like the education/slavery system set up so only a small percentage of the people to really benefit.
1864 War New Zealand Tauranga Natives Papa Station
This land is placed in a trust usually & a trustee appointed. Many of the trustees are government bureaucrats who use any excuse to not do something & use the language of the poor as they see the wording in the Act as opposed to how an investor might see it. So poor decisions are made. You also have advisory trustees of which I was one & any advice you try to give is ignored as are the locals sometimes with amusing outcomes.

One springs to mind immediately which caused much mirth within our runanga as the issue had been raised & ignored for years.
The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict
In the late 1800's there was still a group who wanted all the land & this led to the situation I alluded too in my previous blog.

A new form of Maori ownership title was created called Maori Freehold. The idea been that if one person or one Whanau could get control of a block of land then it could be converted to Maori Freehold then on sold to an outsider.

But there is another part to this title. If land is converted to Maori Freehold(I believe it still applies) then if beach front title you also gained the foreshore & seabed or beach. If a river is your boundary you gain to the middle of the river.

But this only applies to Maori Freehold land no other land title. Great way to gain a private beach.
Maori And Settler: A Story Of The New Zealand War (1891)
That might seem like excuses but each time Maori have looked to profit the government of the day has changed the rules just like they have with the Foreshore Seabed Act.

Even I can remember a Prime Minister proposing to take all Maori land that wasn't been productively used. Until it was pointed out the reason it wasn't been used was it was unproductive.

For example two of the sections I was advisory trustee for are about four feet deep in swamp at the edge of a rain forest & no amount of draining over the years has made any difference. Then there is the beach we own. It is trust land but the sea has come in, as it does from time to time, & wiped out paddocks of cleared productive land. So technically we own out several hundred metres of seabed which the government wanted to claim as unproductive land. I don't see any cows going out there! Evidence was found where this has happened before so wait a few years we should have our land back as the sea retreats.
Maori and Settler A Story of The New Zealand War
Many Maori in the modern world have shifted to cities, have lost touch or do not even know what Iwi(tribe) they whakapapa too. So they can not access any of the treaty payout benefits or payments from the land they might be entitled too.

They tend to end up in the low paying jobs & some turn to crime.

There are of course other reasons that can be involved such as the education/slavery system & each Iwi has its own set of issues.

Some even say it is not a Maori thing to go after money, but in todays world everyone needs it if they want to be part of that world. As one financial commentator says "Ask anybody who says they are not worried about money to go without it for a week & see them cry & come out with all the excuses why they need some."
The colonial New Zealand wars
Hopefully that little bit will help people understand why they see poor Maori & so many Maori involved in crime, when there are millions going into Treaty Settlements.

We can only hope those settlements can be used properly by the Iwi to build assets to a point where they can make a difference in young Maori lives & to New Zealand in general.

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