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The owners of Oriwa 1B3 - a block of Maori freehold land - lodged a claim with the Tribunal objecting to a district scheme designation which proposed that the land be a public reserve. Following inquiries by Tribunal research staff and the commissioning and release of an exploratory research report on the matter, the Tribunal was formally advised that the Department of Conservation wanted the public reserve designation to be lifted. as a result, no recommendations needed to be made.

The Interim Report on Sylvia Park and Auckland Crown Asset Disposals concerns three claims lodged by the Ngāti Whātua o Orakei Maori Trust Board, Ngāti Paoa and Ngai Tai Umupuia o Tamaki, and Ngāti Whātua relating to 21 hectares at Mount Wellington. The land was known as Sylvia Park and formed part of the 1300-acre Hamlin purchase of 1838. The iwi claimed that the land should have been reserved for them but that the Crown instead kept it for itself, and they were dismayed to learn of the Government’s intention to sell the land through the Department of Survey and Land Information.

In 1992, the Tribunal of Chief Judge Eddie Durie (presiding), Professor Gordon Orr, and Joanne Morris was advised that the Sylvia Park land had been sold and that no protective arrangements had been made. The Tribunal therefore recommended that the proceeds of the sale be held in a separate trust account pending a determination of the claims and that the Government negotiate with the Ngāti Whātua of Orakei Māori Trust Board in association with representatives for Ngāti Paoa–Ngai Tai for a separate settlement and arrangement for the disposal of Crown or State enterprise assets in Auckland.

The circumstances of this case … cry aloud for redress for the Natives. The … reserves are theirs and should be returned to them, no matter what cost to the Crown this may involve.

Judge Acheson, 1942

In November 1996, a claim concerning the Maunganui block, the Waipoua Forest, Lake Taharoa and surroundings, and the Waimamaku Valley was filed with the Waitangi Tribunal by various members of Te Roroa. This claim was registered as Wai 38.

The Tribunal constituted to hear the claim comprised Judge Andrew Spencer (presiding), Mary Boyd, Ngapere Hopa, John Kneebone, and Turirangi Te Kani. Sadly, Mr Te Kani died before the completion of the proceedings, and Sir Monita Delamere was subsequently appointed to the Tribunal. Nine hearings were held between June 1989 and May 1991, and the report was presented to the Minister of Māori Affairs and the claimants on 3 April 1992 at Te Waikaraka Marae in Kaihu.

The Tribunal found that the Crown had acted unfairly when it purchased land from Te Roroa and that it had failed to make proper provision for reserves for local Māori. The Tribunal also found that the Crown had allowed Te Roroa’s taonga to be violated and that it had denied Te Roroa the benefits of development enjoyed by other New Zealanders. The Tribunal recommended that all the land that should have been set aside from the Crown purchases of the Maunganui, Waipoua, Waimamaku, and Wairau lands be returned to Te Roroa.

In September 1991, Eriapa Uruamo lodged a claim with the Tribunal complaining about the sale of 4 Domett Avenue, Auckland, by the Auckland Area Health Board. Maori use of the property dated back to about 1950, when a Māori youth hostel was constructed there for Māori trade trainees, and at the time of the claim the land was occupied by the Te Taou Reweti Charitable Trust, which had connections to the local Ngāti Whātua iwi.

After hearing the evidence, the Tribunal of Chief Judge Eddie Durie (presiding), Professor Keith Sorrenson, and Georgina Te Heuheu recommended that the Crown intervene in the Auckland Hospital sales process and, if it was not too late, in the disposal of 4 Domett Avenue in particular. It also recommended that the Crown consult with an appropriate national Māori organisation on a general policy for the disposal of those health board properties in which Māori had a particular interest and that the Minister of Health provide funding for this and for the research of prospective Māori claims to hospital lands.

Claim Wai 45 was lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal in December 1987 by the Honourable Matiu Rata and concerned the acquisition of land in the Far North.

The Tribunal constituted to hear the claim comprised Chief Judge Eddie Durie (presiding), Bishop Manuhuia Bennett, Sir Monita Delamere, Joanne Morris, and Professor Evelyn Stokes. Following the death of Sir Monita in April 1993, the Tribunal continued with a quorum of four.

Fifteen hearings were held between August 1990 and June 1994, and in March 1997 the Tribunal released the Muriwhenua Land Report, which covered pre-1865 land transactions. The Tribunal was satisfied that the claims to 1865 were well founded and that the consequences had been such that recommendations for the transfer of substantial assets, to be effected as soon as practicable, would be appropriate. However, it held off making recommendations until the parties had been heard on the issue of remedies.

In all, the Muriwhenua claims are about the acquisition of land under a show of judicial and administrative process. They concern Government programmes instituted to relieve Maori of virtually the whole of their land, with little thought being given to their future wellbeing or to their economic development in a new economy. There is little difference between that and land confiscation in terms of outcome, for in each case the long-term economic results, the disintegration of communities, the loss of status and political autonomy, and despair over the fact of dispossession are much the same.

The Waitangi Tribunal

In 1990, while the inquiry was proceeding, the claimants asked the Tribunal to intervene in the sale of 1183 hectares of Kaimaumau land adjoining Rangaunu Harbour. In a short report, the Report on Kaimaumau Lands, the Tribunal recommended that the Crown take all steps that it reasonably could to retain or recover the land at Kaimaumau about to be sold by the State-owned enterprise Landcorp, and that like measures be taken to prevent the sale of other State enterprise or Crown surplus land in Muriwhenua during the currency of the Muriwhenua inquiry.

The narrative that follows will not lie comfortably on the conscience of this nation, just as the outstanding grievances of Ngai Tahu have for so long troubled that tribe and compelled them time and again to seek justice. The noble principle of justice, and close companion honour, are very much subject to question as this inquiry proceeds. Likewise, the other important equities of trust and good faith are called into account and as a result of their breach sadly give rise to well grounded iwi protestations about dishonour and injustice and their companions, high-handedness and arrogance.

The Waitangi Tribunal

The various reports dealing with the Ngāi Tahu claims constitute the Tribunal’s most exhaustive treatment of an inquiry. The three volumes of the Ngai Tahu Report 1991 total more than 1200 pages, and the Sea Fisheries and Ancillary Claims reports add another 400 pages each to the Tribunal’s coverage of the issues.

I hereby claim upon the principles of justice, truth, peace and goodwill for and on behalf of my peoples within the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Rakiihia Tau

The Ngāi Tahu inquiry began with a claim, Wai 27, registered in August 1986. It was brought by Rakiihia Tau and the Ngāi Tahu Maori Trust Board, but as the Tribunal said, it was ‘really from and about Ngai Tahu, an amalgam formed from three main lines of descent which flowed together to make the modern tribe’. The inquiry was extensive: over a period of 3½ years, 23 hearings were conducted and the Tribunal received 900 submissions and heard from 262 witnesses and 25 corporate bodies.

The claim was presented in nine parts, known as the ‘Nine Tall Trees of Ngai Tahu’. Eight of these ‘trees’ represented the different areas of land purchased from Ngāi Tahu, whilst the ninth represented Ngāi Tahu’s mahinga kai, or food resources. A number of grievances attached to each of the nine tall trees, and these came to be known as the ‘branches of the Nine Tall Trees’. There were also a number of smaller claims, which came to be described as the ‘undergrowth’, or ancillary, claims.

The Tribunal constituted to hear the claims comprised Deputy Chief Judge Ashley McHugh (presiding), Bishop Manuhuia Bennett, Sir Monita Delamere, Professor Sir Hugh Kawharu, Professor Gordon Orr, Sir Desmond Sullivan, and Georgina Te Heuheu, though Sir Monita died in 1993, before the last of the reports was released. The Ngai Tahu Report came out in 1991, the Ngai Tahu Sea Fisheries Report in August 1992, and the Ngai Tahu Ancillary Claims Report in May 1995.

This claim is not primarily about the inadequacy of price that Ngai Tahu was paid, although as we will see in respect of the North Canterbury, Kaikoura and Arahura purchases, the claimants strongly criticised the arbitrary imposition and unfavourable terms of the purchase price. Ngai Tahu have certainly a sense of grievance about the paucity of payment they received for their land but then Ngai Tahu have always regarded the purchase price not as a properly assessed market value consideration in the European concept but rather as a deposit; a token, a gratuity. Ngai Tahu understanding and the substance of their expectations was that they agreed to share their resources with the settler. Each would learn from the other. There was an expectation that Ngai Tahu would participate in and enjoy the benefits that would flow from the settlement of their land. As part of that expectation they wished to retain sufficient land to protect their food resources. They expected to be provided with, or to have excluded from the sale, adequate endowments that would enable them to engage in the new developing pastoral and commercial economy.

This claim and this story is about that expectation. Ngai Tahu grievances therefore are directed at the Crown’s failure to keep its promises, its failure to provide the reserves, the food resources and the health, educational and land endowments that were needed to give Ngai Tahu a stake in the new economy. This claim is also about Ngai Tahu’s comprehension of those areas of land they considered they did not sell to the Crown despite what the written agreements might have said. And of course, this claim is about Ngai Tahu expectations of their rights under the Treaty of Waitangi and how those rights were disregarded by the Crown in its dealings with the tribe.

The Waitangi Tribunal

In the Ngai Tahu Report, the Tribunal concluded that many of the grievances arising from the Crown’s South Island purchases, including those relating to mahinga kai, were established, and the Crown itself conceded that it had failed to ensure that Ngāi Tahu were left with ample lands for their needs. The Tribunal found that, in acquiring more than half the land mass of New Zealand from the tribe for £14,750, which left Ngai Tahu only 35,757 acres, the Crown had acted unconscionably and in repeated breach of the Treaty, and its subsequent efforts to make good the loss were found to be ‘few, extremely dilatory, and largely ineffectual’. After the Ngai Tahu Report was released, the Tribunal also put out a short supplementary report in which it referred to the need for tribal structures to be put in place to allow Ngāi Tahu to conduct remedies negotiations with the Crown. The Tribunal supported the proposals regarding representation that the claimants had made and it recommended that the Ministry of Māori Affairs introduce legislation constituting the Ngāi Tahu Iwi Authority as the appropriate legal personality to act on behalf of the iwi in those negotiations.

The Sea Fisheries Report dealt with the issue of Ngāi Tahu’s fisheries, and reported that, as a direct consequence of the loss of their land, Ngāi Tahu were ‘unable to continue their thriving and expanding business and activity of sea fishing’. The Tribunal found that, in legislating to protect and conserve fisheries resources, the Crown had failed to recognise Ngāi Tahu’s rangatiratanga over their fisheries and in particular their tribal rights of self-regulation or self-management of their resource. It also found that the quota management system then in place was in fundamental conflict with the terms of the Treaty and with Treaty principles. The Tribunal recommended that the Crown and Ngāi Tahu negotiate a settlement of the sea fisheries claim, that an appropriate additional percentage of fishing quota be allocated to Ngāi Tahu and that Waihora (Lake Ellesmere) be returned to them as an eel fishery, and that the Fisheries Act 1983 be amended to allow for ‘mahinga kaimoana’, or specific marine areas set aside for iwi.

The Ancillary Claims report dealt with 100 of the ‘undergrowth’ claims and showed how the 35,757 acres that Ngāi Tahu had been left with were further eroded by public works and other acquisitions. Of the 100 claims, 41 were found to involve breaches of the Treaty, and as a result, the Tribunal recommended that the Public Works Act 1981 be amended and proposed changes to the way that the Crown acquired land from Māori for public purposes.

In 1990, the Tamaki Maori Development Authority lodged a claim with the Tribunal alleging that the Crown’s actions in delaying the authority’s review proceedings against the former Department of Māori Affairs were a denial of the rights of due process secured to Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Tribunal decided not to inquire further into the claim because there was an adequate remedy for the matters complained of within the general courts.

The narrative that follows will not lie comfortably on the conscience of this nation, just as the outstanding grievances of Ngai Tahu have for so long troubled that tribe and compelled them time and again to seek justice. The noble principle of justice, and close companion honour, are very much subject to question as this inquiry proceeds. Likewise, the other important equities of trust and good faith are called into account and as a result of their breach sadly give rise to well grounded iwi protestations about dishonour and injustice and their companions, high-handedness and arrogance.

The Waitangi Tribunal

The various reports dealing with the Ngāi Tahu claims constitute the Tribunal’s most exhaustive treatment of an inquiry. The three volumes of the Ngai Tahu Report 1991 total more than 1200 pages, and the Sea Fisheries and Ancillary Claims reports add another 400 pages each to the Tribunal’s coverage of the issues.

I hereby claim upon the principles of justice, truth, peace and goodwill for and on behalf of my peoples within the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Rakiihia Tau

The Ngāi Tahu inquiry began with a claim, Wai 27, registered in August 1986. It was brought by Rakiihia Tau and the Ngāi Tahu Maori Trust Board, but as the Tribunal said, it was ‘really from and about Ngai Tahu, an amalgam formed from three main lines of descent which flowed together to make the modern tribe’. The inquiry was extensive: over a period of 3½ years, 23 hearings were conducted and the Tribunal received 900 submissions and heard from 262 witnesses and 25 corporate bodies.

The claim was presented in nine parts, known as the ‘Nine Tall Trees of Ngai Tahu’. Eight of these ‘trees’ represented the different areas of land purchased from Ngāi Tahu, whilst the ninth represented Ngāi Tahu’s mahinga kai, or food resources. A number of grievances attached to each of the nine tall trees, and these came to be known as the ‘branches of the Nine Tall Trees’. There were also a number of smaller claims, which came to be described as the ‘undergrowth’, or ancillary, claims.

The Tribunal constituted to hear the claims comprised Deputy Chief Judge Ashley McHugh (presiding), Bishop Manuhuia Bennett, Sir Monita Delamere, Professor Sir Hugh Kawharu, Professor Gordon Orr, Sir Desmond Sullivan, and Georgina Te Heuheu, though Sir Monita died in 1993, before the last of the reports was released. The Ngai Tahu Report came out in 1991, the Ngai Tahu Sea Fisheries Report in August 1992, and the Ngai Tahu Ancillary Claims Report in May 1995.

This claim is not primarily about the inadequacy of price that Ngai Tahu was paid, although as we will see in respect of the North Canterbury, Kaikoura and Arahura purchases, the claimants strongly criticised the arbitrary imposition and unfavourable terms of the purchase price. Ngai Tahu have certainly a sense of grievance about the paucity of payment they received for their land but then Ngai Tahu have always regarded the purchase price not as a properly assessed market value consideration in the European concept but rather as a deposit; a token, a gratuity. Ngai Tahu understanding and the substance of their expectations was that they agreed to share their resources with the settler. Each would learn from the other. There was an expectation that Ngai Tahu would participate in and enjoy the benefits that would flow from the settlement of their land. As part of that expectation they wished to retain sufficient land to protect their food resources. They expected to be provided with, or to have excluded from the sale, adequate endowments that would enable them to engage in the new developing pastoral and commercial economy.

This claim and this story is about that expectation. Ngai Tahu grievances therefore are directed at the Crown’s failure to keep its promises, its failure to provide the reserves, the food resources and the health, educational and land endowments that were needed to give Ngai Tahu a stake in the new economy. This claim is also about Ngai Tahu’s comprehension of those areas of land they considered they did not sell to the Crown despite what the written agreements might have said. And of course, this claim is about Ngai Tahu expectations of their rights under the Treaty of Waitangi and how those rights were disregarded by the Crown in its dealings with the tribe.

The Waitangi Tribunal

In the Ngai Tahu Report, the Tribunal concluded that many of the grievances arising from the Crown’s South Island purchases, including those relating to mahinga kai, were established, and the Crown itself conceded that it had failed to ensure that Ngāi Tahu were left with ample lands for their needs. The Tribunal found that, in acquiring more than half the land mass of New Zealand from the tribe for £14,750, which left Ngai Tahu only 35,757 acres, the Crown had acted unconscionably and in repeated breach of the Treaty, and its subsequent efforts to make good the loss were found to be ‘few, extremely dilatory, and largely ineffectual’. After the Ngai Tahu Report was released, the Tribunal also put out a short supplementary report in which it referred to the need for tribal structures to be put in place to allow Ngāi Tahu to conduct remedies negotiations with the Crown. The Tribunal supported the proposals regarding representation that the claimants had made and it recommended that the Ministry of Māori Affairs introduce legislation constituting the Ngāi Tahu Iwi Authority as the appropriate legal personality to act on behalf of the iwi in those negotiations.

The Sea Fisheries Report dealt with the issue of Ngāi Tahu’s fisheries, and reported that, as a direct consequence of the loss of their land, Ngāi Tahu were ‘unable to continue their thriving and expanding business and activity of sea fishing’. The Tribunal found that, in legislating to protect and conserve fisheries resources, the Crown had failed to recognise Ngāi Tahu’s rangatiratanga over their fisheries and in particular their tribal rights of self-regulation or self-management of their resource. It also found that the quota management system then in place was in fundamental conflict with the terms of the Treaty and with Treaty principles. The Tribunal recommended that the Crown and Ngāi Tahu negotiate a settlement of the sea fisheries claim, that an appropriate additional percentage of fishing quota be allocated to Ngāi Tahu and that Waihora (Lake Ellesmere) be returned to them as an eel fishery, and that the Fisheries Act 1983 be amended to allow for ‘mahinga kaimoana’, or specific marine areas set aside for iwi.

The Ancillary Claims report dealt with 100 of the ‘undergrowth’ claims and showed how the 35,757 acres that Ngāi Tahu had been left with were further eroded by public works and other acquisitions. Of the 100 claims, 41 were found to involve breaches of the Treaty, and as a result, the Tribunal recommended that the Public Works Act 1981 be amended and proposed changes to the way that the Crown acquired land from Māori for public purposes.

In May 1989, Pauline Tangiora lodged a claim with the Tribunal seeking the return of five acres at Mahia owned by the Wairoa District Council and formerly used as a roadman’s cottage.

In its report of 19 December 1990, signed by Chief Judge Eddie Durie, the Tribunal noted that the claim related to a local authority and that the Tribunal’s jurisdiction was to hear claims only against the Crown. The Tribunal did note that it might be possible to mount a Treaty argument relating to the Crown’s duty to return gifted land, but further noted that such an argument had not been made. In addition, it appeared to the Tribunal that the Maori Land Court was able to assist in this inquiry and to revest the land to suit. Accordingly, the Tribunal did not inquire further into this claim, but it gave leave for the claim to be revived in the event that a land return was not proceeded with or additional information was uncovered.

Claim Wai 32 was received on 15 April 1987. It was lodged by Te Aho Welsh and others of Ngati Rangiteaorere and alleged that they had been prejudicially affected by the Crown’s granting of tribal land at Te Ngae to the Anglican Church. They claimed that the Crown should have returned the land to the tribe once it was no longer needed for a residential mission station.

The Tribunal constituted to hear the claim comprised Judge Heta Hingston (presiding), Sir Monita Delamere, and Professor Keith Sorrenson, and three hearings were held, one each in December 1989, July 1990, and August 1990.

The Tribunal subsequently released its report in December 1990. The Tribunal found that Ngati Rangiteaorere had been deprived of their land without adequate consultation or consent, in breach of article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi, and recommended that compensation be paid to them for the time that they were denied the use of the land. Because the church wanted to return the land to the tribe, the Tribunal recommended that the Crown pass legislation to facilitate the release of the land from a trust it was subject to.