The Waitangi Tribunal has reserved its decision on the Rena wreck after the Crown spent the final day explaining the $10.4million settlement signed by the government and ship's owners and insurers.

In 2012 the Government and Daina Shipping, and the Swedish Club signed a $27.1 million settlement for costs inflicted from the ship's grounding in October 2011.

The last day of a three-day Waitangi Tribunal hearing into alleged breaches concerning the Rena finished today.

A further $10.4million was promised to the government should the owners be permitted to leave the remainder of the wreck on Astrolabe Reef. A resource consent application has since been filed with BOP Regional Council.

At the final day of the three-day hearing in Tauranga today lawyers acting on behalf of Motiti Maori focussed on the $10.4m settlement, claiming the government's failure to consult, warn or inform them over consultations that led to the agreement over the deed is a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Key Crown witness in the case is Dr Matthew Palmer QC who was at the time the deputy solicitor general.

The Crown argued that at the time the government spent $47 million dealing with the multi-agency response to the grounding and subsequent oil spill and aftermath. The maximum it could claim was $11.3 million.

Removing the wreck is several orders of magnitude greater. The owner has said it cost $300 million and expected to spend another $300 million if it had to remove the entire wreck.

Crown evidence is the Rena was owned by a one-ship Liberian company, Daina Shipping Company - a subsidiary of the Costamare Shipping Company group.

The government felt there was a risk the company would be insolvent and unable to pay compensation or remove a wreck.

Legal action would be expensive and success uncertain. After the initial emergency response the Crown and Maritime NZ began engaging with the Rena owner and insurer.

'It is obvious, and I was very clear, that the Crown would not want to pre-judge its position on these matters before it knew what the proposal was, what the evidence was, what expert evidence there was, and what people affected by it thought – including hapu, iwi and other Maori organisations. The settlement preserved that,” Matthew says in evidence.

He was extensively cross examined by lawyers acting for the hapu, and the panel.

Discussion was over the $10.4 million and whether or not it can imply the government accepted the money to stay out of the resource consent process, and also over when the government should have contacted tangata whenua concerned about the fate of their taonga - Astrolabe Reef. There were also questions asked about precisely when the government's stance changed from one of total removal of the wreck.

The Crown claims that the $10.4 million ‘for public purposes' was chickenfeed compared with the Government's annual budget of $85 billion, was challenged by panel member Sir Doug Kidd.

As a former chair of the cabinet expenditure committee he said an extra $10 million was not considered chickenfeed. Matthew says the cabinet is not as tightly run now as it was back in the 1990s.

While $10 million might be considered a small amount, it was about the entire budget of the Waitangi Tribunal, says Doug.

Sir Tamati Reedy focussed on the impact the government's lack of communication with local tangata whenua has had on them, relating their plight to the words of the haka - ‘Tis night, the teeth of the crown are gnawing at my soul'.

Illustrating the experience of a 1600-page resource consent application being literally dropped on an island with no copier, where the mail is only picked up if the plane is met. They face a limited time frame to respond in defence of their taonga in an arena in which people are hugely disadvantaged, as they heard earlier.

On top of that it costs the pensioners $100 to get to the mainland. The advantages, the strength in the relationship all lie with the Crown, says Sir Tamati.

'That's what I am saying. And you can come up with all the arguments that go round and round in circles.

'At this point in time it seems that the Maori voice is being suppressed and its views, the views of Maori are not even being taken into consideration. That's what I hear the claimants saying.”

The Tribunal reserved its decision.