CROWN FORESTRY RENTAL TRUST AND EDDIE DURIE

ON HIS CONFLICT OF INTERESTS

WHY THE GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO LOOK FURTHER

Former judge Sir Edward Durie wants John Tamihere to take his place on the Crown Forestry Rental Trust when he has a conflict of interest. . Eddie is also on the Ngati Raukawa committee and cannot sit on two funding commitees by the sounds of things. Peter Charlton was veted to sit on the CFRT but Eddie and the Maori Council, who are taking the case to court, say Mr Charlton is more aligned to the Federation of Maori Authorities, than the Maori Council, which Eddie co-chairs. Normally the chairwoman choses a person from the appointed alternates. Two people are available to fill in but the Trustees want to have their own fill in's. That figures as then they won't be shunted aside. But when you see this Maori Council what in the world have they ever done for us Maori? . Justice Williams said the Maori Council wanted John Tamihere, a member of the council executive, to sit instead of Sir Edward but Mr Tamihere is not one of the appointed alternates.

Eddie and the council say the court should interpret the trust deed to mean that each trustee has a designated alternate to stand in their stead which seems OK but noone seems to agree. Crown Forestry Rental Trust wil linstead pay out funds to cover trustee costs on both sides, but not the Maori Council's.

Justice Durie has been criticised before for failing to declare possible conflicts of interest mainly in connection to his lawyer wife the one and only Donna Hall. In 1995 he took part in a confidential $150,000 review of the Crown Forestry Rental Trust carried out by his lawyer wife, Donna Hall, and Professors Margaret Wilson (now Speaker of Parliament), Whatarangi Winiata and Alan Ward. 

In a National Business Review report in July 1999 Eddie Durie had made contributions to the 1995 trust review, processed through, you guessed it his beloved wife Donna Hall . Questions were being raised about the working relationship of Eddie and Donna as far back as 1992. Those questions lead to a confidential inquiry conducted by Retired High Court Judge, Sir Peter Quilliam. In1994 a High Court case against the Maori Land Court and West Coast dissidents, the defendant Rudolph Cecil Lousich (Alliance MP Sandra Lee's uncle) was represented by Justice Durie's wife Donna. In this case, Justice Tipping sort the case be heard in the High Court rather than before Eddie the Judge Durie who was at that time the Chief Maori Court Judge. Eddie wasn't happy with the conflict of interest and rightfully so as he probably didn't know it was a conflict? So Eddie tried unsuccessfully to get the solicitor-generals office to remove it. Well if its not one thing its another & Donna as gracious as she is has been in the spotlight stage not once but a few times--lucky her.

So what does that make our Judge Eddie Durie look like? you are not really allowed to say. Talks continue within the trust over whether Sir Edward Taihakurei Durie should step aside as a trustee over a claim of a conflict of interest but then Eddie could cry foul and say what about those other Sirs doind the same thing ie. Wira Gardiner or our man in Pipitea Ngatata.Of the $200 plus million accumulated in this Trust some $44 million has been spent on Waitangi Tribunal claims. But Eddie is a tough nut and his latest saga is about his conflict of interest in claiming water rights for his tribe from the Tribunal he used to chair.

What Maori strived for in the past the likes of Apirana Ngata, Maui Pomare, James Carroll, Heteriki te kani te Ua and Peter Buck have given way to the likes of the Harawiras, Turia, Sharples & the rest of them with Eddie Durie perhaps close behind now.

Not only were researchers asked to change the paperwork for tribes but also CFRT changed the favouring yet has got the MTA Muaupoko claim all wrong to fund them on paper when they won't even investigate them? CFRT are a joke.

“Some Treaty of Waitangi claimants have asked researchers to change findings that would be unhelpful to their cases, says the chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal. Eddie Durie said also that some tribes had even tried to make the payments of researchers conditional on findings being altered.”

Stephen Franks website says this: NZMC is now a facade for the wily Donna Hall, Sir Eddie Durie, Whata Winiata, Maanu Paul and the aging figurehead, Sir Graham Latimer. It has had little or no credibility for years, little in the way of elections and no organic connection with iwi, or  detribalised Maori. But it is the 'pocket borough' of very cunning politicians who have milked legal aid and the Treaty industry for years.

Just remember these characters will go down in history for what they have done & the greed that goes with it?

But it’s not just the tribes who’ve tried to doctor the evidence. The Waitangi Tribunal’s claim negotiator, the Crown Forest Rental Trust, has done the same. Ask researcher MIT Ph.D Dr John Robinson? so who are the crooks. CFRT and who else?? "The Government is not legally bound to follow the recommendations of the Waitangi Tribunal, it's just Treaty bound. If it's going to stand by the undertakings it made at the time of the signing of the Treaty then, oh yes, it should certainly be listening to the Tribunal." [ Read more here ]

Total fees paid to Crown Forestry Rental Trust trustees 1992–2003

Read more click on the link below as it gets even better?

READ THE PARLT REPORT ON CROWN FORESTRY RENTAL TRUST Forty-seventh Parliament (Mahara Okeroa, Chairperson) November 2003: [ OPEN CFRT INVESTIGATIVE REPORT ]

READ MORE PARLT REPORTS ON CROWN FORESTRY RENTAL TRUST [ OPEN CFRT REPORTS ]