In her own ambulance

TWOiwi have quietly been paid huge top-ups, totalling $370 million, to supposed ‘‘full and final’’ Treaty of Waitangi settlements.

Waikato-Tainui received $190m and the South Island’s Nga¯i Tahu $180m – more than they originally settled for in 1995 and 1998, respectively.

The Government made the payments on December 15 without any public announcement, but they were confirmed by the Office of Treaty Settlements this week.

Nga¯i Tahu this week also released information about the payout to its 58,000 iwi members, who hadn’t been told about it. The payments were made because of ‘‘relativity’’ clauses the tribes negotiated during the ‘‘fiscal envelope’’ settlement process in the mid-1990s.

It meant that once total Treaty settlement spending throughout the country reached $1 billion, the two iwi were entitled to a percentage of all other tribes’ settlements. For Tainui, the figure was 17 per cent, valued in 1994 dollars, and for Nga¯i Tahu, 16 per cent.

Nga¯i Tahu Board chairwoman Lisa Tumahai said the relativity clause was an agreement between the Crown and Ngai Tahu that ‘‘ensures that as one of the first iwi to settle, our economic redress continues to remain relative with all future claims settled by other iwi’’.

Since 2012, when Tainui was paid $70m and Nga¯i Tahu $68.5m, there have been more than two dozen settlements and more large top-ups are likely, with one of the country’s biggest claims, by Nga¯puhi in Northland, among the 47 negotiations still under way. Total Treaty settlement spending sits at $2.2 billion.

Both Tainui and Nga¯i Tahu were paid $170m in their original settlements – but have now received $260m and $248m, respectively, in additional payments.