No deal with Maori on Treaty forests as introduction deadline looms

Thursday 17th September 2009

The Government still has no deal with Maori on Treaty settlement forests affected by the Emissions Trading Scheme, despite being only two working days out from introducing an amended ETS Bill, next Tuesday.

Environment Minister Nick Smith told Parliament during Question Time today that the Bill would require clauses that included treatment of Treaty of Waitangi settlement assets - mainly forests - affected by the imposition of an ETS.

"Details like a Treaty clause" are subject to work by the Crown Law Office and consultations with the Maori Party, said Smith. The only other areas of the 13 point agreement with the Maori Party requiring a law change are the move to making only half of the transport fuel and electricity emissions subject to a carbon charge until January 2013, and the imposition of a cap of $25 per tonne for carbon until that date, along with the 90% free allocationi special deal for fisheries industry fuel.

All are transitional measures. While portrayed as a win for the Maori Party, papers released by the Labour climate change spokesman, Charles Chauvel, include two drafts of a Memorandum of Understanding between Labour and National which included the fisheries 90% deal.

National and Labour had been meeting regularly on a Tuesday at 5pm for negotiations on a cross-parliamentary approach to the amended ETS, which stopped abruptly just before the select committee reviewing Labour's ETS reported back to Parliament earlier this month.

The first resumption of those meetings between Labour and National was on Tuesday last week, and another Tuesday meeting was expected this week. Labour was caught unawares and angered by the Cabinet's decision on Monday to announce a deal with its minority partner, the Maori Party.

The Maori Party is declining to comment on the progress of its negotiations on the economically sensitive issue of revaluing and compensating Ngai Tahu and possibly other iwi for lost value as a result of the ETS changes to the treatment of forestry.

Ngai Tahu gained forests in a settlement in 1998 for so-called "pre-1989" forests. These were valued against their much greater economic potential if converted to dairying. Ngai Tahu are therefore first in line for compensation under the political deal stitched together earlier this week.

Less clear, however, is the fate of iwi who have more recently gained central North Island forests, where the likelihoodf of a carbon price and the development of new rules for plantation forests meant the issues were well-known and built into settlement value calculations.

Businesswire.co.nz

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