Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu
Land Claims Report for November 2015
1. Awaiting Court of Appeal date for binding recommendations application
2. Minister of Treaty Negotiations, OTS and government officials still causing problems
3. Repossession of Kaitāia Airport in the District Court
4. Progress with publication of Deed of Partial Settlement
5. Ngāti Kahu Trust Board Litigation Against Ngāti Kahu Mortgage Services
6. National Iwi Chairs’ Forum – Arahura marae, 3-4 December
Summary
· We are waiting on a hearing date from the Court of Appeal in respect of the Waitangi Tribunal not making binding recommendations.
· Minister of Treaty Negotiations Finlayson has not publicly attacked Ngāti Kahu in the past month since our AGM but is still demanding that we answer his queries to our lengthy response to his letter questioning the Rūnanga’s mandate. We are drafting that response and rejecting his false assertion that the senior OTS staff member has not been interfering and/or having other government servants interfere in Ngāti Kahu’s treaty claims.
· The next hearing date for the six Patukōraha, Ngāi Tohianga and Te Paatu people arrested for trespassing on their own ancestral lands at Rangiāniwaniwa is 16 December in the Kaitāia District Court. It will be to review evidence only.
· The finalised manuscript of our book Ngāti Kahu: Portrait of a Sovereign Nation, our Deed of Partial Settlement, is due into Huia Publishers in a fortnight.
· The Ngāti Kahu Trust Board has discontinued its litigation in respect of Ngāti Kahu’s farm at Taipā.
· Archdeacon Timoti Flavell, Anthony Housham, Wīkātana Pōpata, Zarrah Pineaha and I will be attending National Iwi Chairs’ Forum (and the associated Rangatahi Forum) on 3-4 December at Arahura marae near Hokitika.
1. Awaiting Court of Appeal date for binding recommendations application
Before the Waitangi Tribunal can rehear our application for binding recommendations as ordered by the High Court, the Court of Appeal will hear and decide our appeal against the sections of the High Court decision that are in error. We are waiting for the Court of Appeal to schedule a hearing. Our lawyers are also still pursuing costs from the government as directed by the High Court.
2. Minister of Treaty Negotiations, OTS and government officials still causing problems
The media campaign being conducted by Minister Finlayson against Ngāti Kahu’s leadership has fallen silent since our AGM re-elected the same leadership unopposed at the beginning of this month.
The Minister is nevertheless pursuing his paper war strategy and demanding that we answer his queries about our very lengthy response to his challenge to the Rūnanga’s mandate.
We have been preparing another detailed response proving conclusively that the Rūnanga does have the mandate to represent Ngāti Kahu. It includes a rejection of his bald and false assertion that the senior OTS staff member has not been interfering and/or having other government servants interfere in Ngāti Kahu’s treaty claims. We will circulate our response once it is finalized.
3. Repossession of Kaitāia Airport in the District Court
Patukōraha, Ngāi Tohianga and Te Paatu repossessed the Kaitāia Airport at Rangiāniwaniwa on 8 September to highlight the injustices against Ngāti Kahu being perpetrated in the legislation which extinguishes all the claims of Te Rarawa, Ngāi Takoto, Te Aupōuri and Ngāti Kurī. The NZ Police arrested six people, all but one of them kuia and kaumātua, and charged them with trespassing on their own land. The matter is before the Kaitāia District Court.
As reported last month, the next hearing is for a case review (a review of all the relevant facts in the case) and the treaty claims negotiations team will be providing written expert evidence on Ngāti Kahu’s treaty claims. It is set down for hearing on 16 December in the Kaitāia District Court.
4. Progress with Publication of the Deed of Partial Settlement – Ngāti Kahu: Portrait of a Sovereign Nation
The deadline for our book to be into the publishers is mid-December. I am currently finalizing everything and will be sending in the completed maps, photographs and text to them by then so that the publishers can start preparing it all for publication. The layout and presentation of the book will follow that of McCully Matiu’s and my book Te Whānau Moana.
Work on finalizing the maps is almost completed. I have been and will continue to contact people where I can see that more place names could be included.
Compiling the photographs has taken up a lot of time this month. A number of the electronic copies of photos whānau have provided are not high enough resolution for publishing and so we are calling on whānau to please provide us urgently with original photos, especially those of tūpuna and those involved in trying to get our lands back over the years, or provide high resolution (larger than 2MB) scans of them.
We are waiting on fine days to complete photographs of our territories. Anahera has arranged to take aerial photographs throughout each hapū’s rohe on the next fine day. We are both doing and in some cases redoing several ground level shots as well. We are focusing on places people talked about in their hapū korero and any other places they have asked to have photographed.
As I review the text for a final time I am coming up with queries. As such I am ringing and emailing people about them, just to make sure that we do our very best to provide accurate information for the following generations.
5. Ngāti Kahu Trust Board v Ngāti Kahu Mortgage Services Ltd
On Wednesday 24 November the Ngāti Kahu Trust Board discontinued its litigation against Ngāti Kahu Mortgage Services Ltd. The matter has been settled.
We now need to appoint two interim trustees from the marae who are mana whenua in the Taipā farm (Karepōri marae and Ko Te Āhua marae). Their sole responsibility is to make an application to the Māori Land Court to set up an Ahuwhenua trust over the farm. This matter is on the agenda for our hui on 5 December at Waipapa marae, University of Auckland. Once the trust is set up, each of the 15 marae will appoint one trustee each to the trust. The Rūnanga’s lawyers have completed the legal work required to make the application for an Ahuwhenua trust.
6. National Iwi Chairs’ Forum – Arahura marae, 3-4 December
This coming week I will be attending this hui on the west coast of Te Waipounamu (South Is). I will be accompanied by the chair of our Taumata Kaumātua o Ngāti Kahu, Archdeacon Tīmoti Flavell and Anthony Housham. I will report on this hui at our Rūnanga hui on 5 December.
At our last hui it was agreed that Wīkātana Pōpata and Zarrah Pineaha will attend the Rangatahi Forum which runs at the same time and reports to Iwi Chairs’ Forum on the last day.
Season’s Greetings
I tēnei wā ka tukuna atu ngā mihi aroha ki ngā whānau katoa i a tātou e ahu atu ana ki te wā hararei o te Kirihimete. E maumahara ana ki te tini o rātou kua hinga i tēnei tau – takoto mārika mai, haere, haere, haere. E kore koutou e warewaretia.
Kia a tātou te hunga ora, kia pai, kia harikoa ngā hararei, ā, kia tau ngā manaakitanga o te Runga Rawa i runga i a tātou katoa.
My best wishes to us all for the holiday season and the time for whānau to come together so that the nannies can marvel at how precious and important all our tamariki and mokopuna are and can take time out to enjoy them and each other.
Arohanui ki a tātou katoa
Professor Margaret Mutu
28 November 2015