Prime Minister John Key apologised yesterday over a flippant remark he made about his strained relationship with Tuhoe, but he appears to have a long way to go before mending ties.Mr Key outraged Tuhoe leadership and other Maori when he said this week iwi
Prime Minister John Key apologised yesterday over a flippant remark he made about his strained relationship with Tuhoe, but he appears to have a long way to go before mending ties.
Mr Key outraged Tuhoe leadership and other Maori when he said this week iwi would not be given Te Urewera National Park as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement. This was despite iwi understanding a settlement was ready to be signed off after 18 months of negotiations.
At a tourism event in Auckland yesterday Mr Key joked about enjoying a dinner at a Ngati Porou marae on the East Coast of the North Island on Tuesday.
"The good news is that I was having dinner with Ngati Porou, as opposed to their neighbouring iwi which is Tuhoe, in which case I would have been dinner, which wouldn't have been quite so attractive," he said.
The remark caused a stir and some suggested he was making a reference to cannibalism.
Chief Tuhoe negotiator Tamati Kruger said while the comment was not as insulting as had been suggested, it was not a good time for Mr Key to be making jokes on an issue where many iwi felt they had been let down.
"It gives me the sense that whatever we say or do he will never, ever take it seriously," Mr Kruger told NZPA.
He said iwi, along with government officials and some of Mr Key's own colleagues, had until Monday believed a satisfactory settlement had been all but signed off, but that had been "bombed" by the prime minister.
The Presbyterian Church, which has a long-standing relationship with Tuhoe, also supported its plight, saying in a statement the history of the iwi was marked by suffering at the hands of the Crown. It urged the resumption of negotiations.
"Given this troubled history, the past 18 months of negotiations and the emergence of a likely settlement ... constituted a real sign of hope for both the Tuhoe iwi and our nation," the church said.
Mr Key said yesterday afternoon he was joking around when talking about Tuhoe having him for dinner and that he apologised if anyone was offended.
Earlier he told reporters he was still hopeful of a successful conclusion to negotiations with Tuhoe, but "that may take some time".
A 2014 goal of settling all claims was aspirational, but he was not prepared to meet that if it came at too high a cost.
Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell said Mr Key could be humorous when speaking publicly, but that in light of the hurt Tuhoe were feeling over having their hopes dashed, he needed to be more sensitive about what he said.
Mr Key first cracked the joke at the Ngati Porou dinner on Tuesday and a kaumatua from that iwi, Apirana Mahuika, told Radio New Zealand that no one present took offence.
"I don't know whether everybody laughed, but we all smiled because we understood it was a joke and we knew the background of the joke. It was not in any way disparaging to Tuhoe the way that he told it," he said.
