The Dixon Street building debacle surely allows us to ask some questions of the Treaty process.

If you missed it, Dixon St Apartments sold for a million dollars to local Māori under their Treaty deal – the Treaty deal had a first right of refusal clause.

Now my assumption, clearly incorrect, is you would get first right of refusal based on the idea that something of cultural or historic significance was coming to the market, and as local iwi you wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity.

I didn’t realise this was a commercial free for all, where anything and everything for sale goes to local Māori first.

Further, I had assumed, clearly wrongly as well, that in having a first right of refusal, that meant that long lost treasure, whether historic or cultural, would be returned to said iwi to be honoured and looked after in perpetuity, not flicked off for quick profit.

So obviously nothing like that is remotely part of the Treaty deals. So first question: why not?

Next question is: if it isn't, is it commercially acceptable to have a race-based clause when it comes to real estate?

And even if it is, is it commercially acceptable to sell stuff cheap?

For if you haven't followed the story, five minutes after buying the building, the new owners sold it on for $3 million.

So under a special deal signed for, on our behalf, by our government, we, the taxpayer, lose $2 million on one building.

Next question: how could a Crown agency, i.e. Kainga Ora, think $1 million was a good price for something that was clearly worth $3 million?

And in that is the problem with not involving the free market.

Next question: did anyone involved in the cloistered deal know what they were doing, and if not, given its taxpayers’ dosh, why not?

Another question: was the Treaty process designed so tribes could get into real estate speculation? At what point was a Treaty settlement about putting past wrongs right versus turning tribes into speculators?

This was a bad deal. The original owners of Dixon St, us, got stiffed.

And we got stiffed because of a race-based real estate clause that arguably should never have been part of an historic arrangement in the first place.

Final question: what are we going to do about it? Or more worryingly, is there anything we can do about it?

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Mike's Minute: Real estate deals shouldn't be race-based

The Mike Hosking Breakfast