A.Taylor (1 June) claims that Maori were not the first settlers in New Zealand, and that Treaty settlement money is going to fatten the accounts of elders. These are fantasies that are not supported by any recognised evidence.
The Government requires settlement money to go into tribal trusts run by elected trustees (OTS NZ website), not into the accounts of elders or individuals. Tribes use this money for the survival of Maori language and culture. It is easy to say that settlement money should be used to help the needy but those who say this have not worked for the survival of Maori culture and do not care if it dies.
Michael King in The Penguin History of New Zealand writes 'All verifiable evidence – from archaeology, genetic analysis, carbon dating, burnt pollen remains and disposition of volcanic ash showers – points to New Zealand having been settled in the thirteenth century AD, during the era of widespread Polynesian ocean voyaging”.
Nigel Prickett, Curator of Archaeology Auckland Museum, in his book Maori Origins, writes 'There is no good evidence of anyone, other than that branch of Polynesian people now known as Maori, ever having lived in New Zealand prior to the arrival of Europeans. Any other suggestion, for example of Viking burials on Auckland's North Shore, or a peaceful pre-Maori ‘Waitaha' people, or Egyptians or Celts or others, is wishful thinking and invention”.
Maori were the first settlers in New Zealand. People who do not want justice for Maori because they wiped out Moriori are deluding themselves. There were no Moriori here before Maori arrived.

Peter Dey, Welcome Bay.