Iwi financial success is a story worth celebrating

Inevitably, there was some scepticism about Crown settlements to iwi when the process began in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Talkback callers and newspaper letter writers weren’t shy about voicing fears that the money would be wasted through financial mismanagement.

Some initial mis-steps by Tainui (buying the Warriors, for example) looked like confirming these biases for a while.

But history has proven the cynics wrong.

None of the eight of the largest iwi groups surveyed, including Tainui, has lost money. In the past six years all have done better than they would have by sticking the money in the bank.

The lowest rate of return on assets since 2013 was 4 per cent, the highest was 15 per cent and the average was 7.6 per cent.

The sharemarket and property booms aided those returns, which with a more clinical investment approach could have been even higher.

But iwi have mostly opted for low levels of risk, with little to no leverage and a preference for concentrating their investments in their local tribal area (rohe).

Iwi groups are open to criticism from both sides.

Financial purists can argue that they don’t fully maximise returns. But the reinvestment in their local communities — where they can create jobs for their own people — is fundamental to the settlement process.

Social activists can, and have, made the case that given the sizeable value of iwi assets — now in excess of $9 billion — more should now be done to assist with the welfare of their people.

What the TDB report shows is most iwi treading a careful middle path, investing long-term to guarantee their people a solid financial base in the coming decades.

It’s a success story that should be celebrated.