Despite what Peter Dey (21 June) thinks, the manner of settlement of Treaty claims is indeed a threat to democracy. Sure, at the end of the day details of all Treaty settlements are publicly available. But that is the final step of a long process during which negotiations are carried out behind closed doors to hand over our public property and moneys, to give special race-based inherited rights to family groups based on wilful misinterpretation of history. It is only an empty formality.

I have been concerned with the fate of my neighbourhood, in Island Bay, Wellington, for many years and have written many times to the Minister of Treaty Settlements. The Ngati Toa claim, including $10 million for loss of marine empire around Cook Strait and ownership of Taputeranga (the island in the bay), is based on bloody attacks in the 1820s. It is no wonder then that the historical account was not even written as negotiations continued, and it turns out to be pathetic.

My efforts have included an article 'The battles of Tapu te Ranga” for the Wellington Southern Bays Historical Society (2004), articles 'Chance to create and island of peace” and 'Spoils of war behind Ngati Toa settlement for Wellington coast” in the Dominion Post (2009, 2010) and chapters in three recent books: 'A case study: Ngati Toa” in The corruption of New Zealand democracy, a Treaty overview (2011), 'The new apartheid society” in When two cultures meet the New Zealand experience (2012) and 'Wellington settlements and consequences” in Twisting the Treaty, a tribal grab for wealth and power (2013).

Yet only now can I take any part in decisions, by sending a submission to the Maori Affairs Select Committee, which Minister Finlayson assures me will be ignored, as by the time they reach Parliament settlements 'stem from legal agreements that are already entered into”. If a democracy is not open, if decision-making is not transparent, if citizens cannot have a say on the disposition of their property and their rights, surely that democracy is under threat.

Dr John Robinson, Wellington.