A river of gold

Millions in Treaty money has gone to companies and organisations for Waikato River clean-up projects. Tony Wall asks who is benefiting.

On a Wednesday morning in November, people trickle into the Otorohanga Club for the Annual General Meeting of the Waikato River Authority (WRA).

Its job is to allocate $250 million of Treaty settlement money to clean up the country’s longest river.

The board is headed by one of the most recognisable and polarising figures in Maoridom, former NZ First MP Tukoroirangi Morgan, he of the expensive underpants.

To Morgan’s left is Crown-appointed co-chair John Luxton, a cabinet minister in Jim Bolger’s National government.

To his right sits Roger Pikia, an iwi appointee whose investments as chairman of the Te Arawa River Iwi Trust are the subject of a forensic audit.

After presentations the floor is opened to questions, and a formidable-looking woman takes the microphone.

This is Tania Martin, former Tainui parliament chairwoman who was sacked by the Maori King after questioning tribal spending under Morgan.

Martin wants to know why fees paid to Morgan, Luxton and Pikia, chair of the authority’s investment committee, have jumped ten-fold.

A couple of years ago they were paid between $3762 and $5600 each but the annual report shows that has risen to between $42,500 and $46,000, she says.

And why is there no mention in the annual report of Morgan being a director and shareholder of a company, Tainui Development Authority (TDA), which has been awarded a clean-up contract worth more than $1m?

Chief executive Bob Penter explains that a review found that as chairs, the men are entitled to extra fees they haven’t been claiming. The fees are one-off back payments, he says.

Advice was sought from KPMG and Audit NZ and both confirmed the payments are appropriate.

Morgan’s interests are declared at the start of every board meeting, Penter says, and he removed himself from the meeting when the TDA grant application was considered.

Martin says after the meeting she is not happy with the response to her questions.

She is concerned about a lack of transparency, that some people might be ‘‘clipping the ticket’’ and a lack of consultation with iwi.

Others are concerned that large ‘‘Pakeha’’ organisations appear to be getting most of the money.

The Waikato River Authority fund was established as part of the Crown’s Waikato River Treaty settlement with Tainui and other river tribes. Since 2011, $31m has been distributed to more than 200 projects.

The rest of the money will be given out over 30 years.

Large grants have gone to organisations such as Dairy NZ to help farmers reduce pollution, Niwa for restoration projects and fish studies and the Waikato Regional Council to develop catchment strategies.

Individuals have also received money – former league star Tawera Nikau’s family trust has received more than $500,000 of grants for restoration of a lake – along with a number of iwi trusts.

One of the biggest grants was to TDA, which was awarded $1.2m in the 2013 funding round for a planting and fencing project between Huntly and Rangiriri, in association with the Kanae Kakariki Trust, a small Huntly based operator.

The money is drip-fed as milestones are reached, and the project is about half completed.

TDA is registered as a company, with Morgan and Te Awamutu accountant Peter Rogers as directors and Morgan and his former electorate chair Timi Maipi the shareholders.

Kanae Kakariki has previously won clean-up contracts, including $300,000 in 2011, but now comes under TDA’s ‘‘umbrella’’.

It was established by the late Dick Green, a respected kaumatua who was passionate about the river, but is being de-registered by the Charities Commission for failing to provide annual returns.

Green’s daughter Te Winika Nikau, whose husband Victor is the project manager for Kanae Kakariki, says after her father’s death about four years ago the paperwork lapsed. They are looking at re-registering.

She says the trust is now subcontracting out river clean-up work.

It joined TDA so it can focus on planting work and TDA can take care of things such as scoping and feasibility studies.

Besides some delays in receiving payment because of the extra level of management, the structure works well, Nikau says.

Brian Cornish, a consultant agronomist who put together the trust’s project plan for its first funding application, is surprised to hear about the new structure.

Cornish says he volunteered his time to the trust and had hoped to have an on-going role.

‘‘The original concept plan that I wrote was that Kanae Kakariki would manage its own affairs. ‘‘It had experience with bringing young people through for practical skills training. I was not aware of any other entity that was hovering on the outside of that.’’

Cornish says he has yet to see much progress.

‘‘I’ve not noticed any significant difference when I drive alongside the Waikato River and I guess that’s a telling point.’’

Labour MP and Tainui member Nanaia Mahuta questions why Kanae Kakariki joined TDA when it has already established its own credibility with funders.

‘‘They were doing a lot more around training and turning young people’s lives around,’’ she says.

It surprised many when TDA won the contract, Mahuta says.

‘‘Everyone raised eyebrows when it happened because they all say ‘well hang on, isn’t that a conflict?’’

Morgan arrives at the AGM in a black-four wheel drive and dark sunglasses and is happy to answer a reporter’s questions.

Ever since he went on a clothes shopping spree with Aotearoa TV Network money in 1996 – an $89 pair of boxer shorts the purchase that most titillated reporters – he has had to fend off questions around expenditure.

Recently appointed president of the Maori Party, he says the questions about his involvement with TDA are a Labour plot.

Morgan says TDA is run as a charity and acts as a ‘‘post office’’, receiving money which then goes to Kanae Kakariki to carry out the work.

‘‘They get all the money, they are the ones doing the clean-up.’’

Great work is being done he says, with more than 10,000 plants established.

He says he acts as a ‘‘bare trustee’’ and has never received any fees.

He later issues a statement clarifying that he and another trustee were paid $12,000 each in 2013 to cover expenses such as mileage. There will be no such fees in the future.

He also clarifies that not all of the money has gone to Kanae Kakariki – TDA has also paid thousands of dollars to various environmental consultants who provide technical expertise.

‘‘TDA was set up to assist provider trusts with contracting and financial accountability. They did not have the infrastructure or skill to do this on their own.’’

Morgan points out that other board members have declared conflicts of interest – Luxton is former chair of Dairy NZ which has received more than $4m in funding.

Meanwhile, the other shareholder of TDA, Timi Maipi, has stepped down.

Maipi says TDA tried to help Kanae Kakariki because it lacks the ‘‘infrastructure’’ needed for such a big contract, but TDA probably hasn’t given the trust as much support as it needs.

His advice now is for Kanae Kakariki to go it alone.

Maipi says Morgan might have a conflict, but he is only trying to help create opportunities for his people.

‘‘The majority of people cleaning this river are Pakeha. There’s a lot of Pakehas because they got the big dollars and strong infrastructure.

‘‘It’s our river, we wanted to provide an opportunity for our unemployed to be creative and be part of the river clean-up.’’

Susan Cullen was TDA’s volunteer executive officer until she moved to Southland. Cullen says Morgan’s vision is to provide a bridge between funding organisations like the WRA and grassroots organisations.

There is a ‘‘humungous’’ amount of compliance work involved in river clean-up projects, she says.

Cullen dedicated 10 hours a week for three years to TDA work and even put in almost $100,000 of her own money to get the river

They get all the money, they are the ones doing the clean-up, we don’t get any money, never have. Tuku Morgan

project up and running, before WRA funding kicked in.

She says Maori groups are expected to volunteer their time, while ‘‘bureaucrats’’ on the river authority and regional council are paid for doing the same work.

‘‘Compliance rules mean only local authorities can meet requirements to get money to do a job, so the money gets circulated back to government,’’ she says.

‘‘And there are these huge Pakeha consultants who are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their advice.

‘‘There’s something wrong with the system.

‘‘Tuku is trying his best to navigate the system and provide opportunities for our people, but he’s as tied up as the rest of us.’’

Auckland University anthropologist Marama MuruLanning, whose book Tapuna Awa explores issues around governance of the Waikato River, is skeptical about the amount of money on offer.

‘‘One of the ways that people can make claim to the river now is by saying they are going to clean it up, ’’ she told the Waikato Times.

‘‘There is a lot of the talk around ‘let’s clean up the river’. And there is a lot of money passing hands.’’

She believes the WRA has alienated communities.

‘‘For years, they were the kaitiaki (guardian) of their patch.

‘‘Now you’ve got this layer of bureaucracy and you’ve got these leaders wanting to direct them.’’

Penter, the authority’s chief executive, rejects any suggestion Maori groups have missed out.

Any group is able to apply for money, he says.

In 2016, $1.93m was awarded to projects by iwi or marae-based organisations, from a total allocation of $4.4m.

While training and development of Maori is not an explicit purpose, the trust places an emphasis on projects that will contribute to ‘‘capacity building’’ within iwi.

Penter says most of the projects the Waikato Regional Council has received money for have been on behalf of iwi, community groups or private landowners.

In some cases these groups can’t do the project management so the council applies on their behalf and also contributes up to 35 per cent of the cost.

As for TDA, Penter says its purpose is to apply for funding and oversee projects.

‘‘The authority has encouraged groups to collaborate in order to best respond to the size of the restoration task ahead.

‘‘This approach has the potential to generate efficiencies with one application lodged rather than multiple applications carrying similar overheads.’’

Mahuta says Penter and the board see themselves at arms’s length from iwi, whereas iwi see it differently.

‘‘There are questions, definitely within the iwi, about the extent to which the River Authority helps to support iwi aspirations for the clean up.’’

She hopes Morgan will be more open in future.

‘‘People are concerned he is conflicted, and he doesn’t do enough to make it clear.. he’s keeping everything fairly secret.’’