Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu Land Claims Report for
March 2017
1. Rehearing application to Waitangi Tribunal for binding recommendations
2. Progress with publication of the Ngāti Kahu book
3. Ngāti Kahu Taipā Farm
4. Very important decision from the Supreme Court on Nelson Tenths
5. Reconfirmation of mandate
6. Repossession of Kaitāia Airport – appeal to High Court
Summary
• The Waitangi Tribunal has been urging us to proceed with rehearing our application for binding recommendations as directed by the Court of Appeal.
• The index for our book is being compiled and the quality of some of the maps is being improved
• The appointments of a trustee from each marae for Ngāti Kahu’s farm at Taipā have had to be redone to comply with the trust deed. The interim trustees’ role ceases this month.
• The Supreme Court has ruled that the Crown had a fiduciary duty to hold land for the iwi of the Nelson area from the 1840s and that it did not do so. As such the High Court has been directed to determine the extent of the loss and the remedies owing to the Nelson iwi. This is the first time a New Zealand court has upheld a case taken by Māori about our lands stolen by the Crown.
• The proposal for the mandate reconfirmation process approved at our last hui was sent to the Ministers of Treaty Negotiations and Māori Development. No substantive response has been received.
• The date for the full hearing of the appeal to the High Court, Whāngārei against the decision of the Kaitāia District Court on the repossession of Rangiāniwaniwa will be decided next month.
1. Rehearing application to Waitangi Tribunal for binding recommendation
Last month the Crown advised that it would not appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision. That decision found that the Waitangi Tribunal was wrong in refusing to give Mangatū Incorporation (of Te Tairāwhiti) and Ngāti Kahu binding recommendations over Crown Forest and State Owned Enterprise lands in both our territories.
This month the Waitangi Tribunal has contacted our lawyers twice about scheduling a rehearing as directed by the Court of Appeal. Our lawyers will be filing the necessary papers to start that process as soon as they can.
2. Progress with publication of the Ngāti Kahu book
The publishers are waiting very patiently for the Waitangi Tribunal to provide better quality maps from their 1997 Muriwhenua Land Report for our book. The index is also being compiled. I have not yet been advised of the confirmed release date.
3. Ngāti Kahu Taipā Farm
For some time now, each marae has been appointing their trustee for Ngāti Kahu’s farm at Taipā. When the four interim trustees met on 28 February they discovered that the process for appointment set out in the trust deed required that the election of a trustee be publicly advertised at least 30 days prior to each marae’s meeting. None of the 11 marae who had made their appointments to date had followed this process and therefore have all had to do it again. A number of marae have now placed advertisements in the Northland Age for marae meetings during April to elect their trustee for the farm. The term of each of the four interim trustees ends this month.
4. Very important decision from the Supreme Court on Nelson Tenths
On 28 February the Supreme Court issued its decision on the Nelson Tenths case. It ruled that the Crown had a fiduciary duty to hold ten per cent or approximately 15,100 acres of land for the iwi of the Nelson area from the 1840s and did not do so. Kaumātua and the Wakatū Incorporation, which administers the remaining 1,626 acres of the Nelson Tenths lands, have been fighting the Crown for the return of their lands through the courts since 2010 and they have finally succeeded. The High Court has been directed to determine the extent of their loss and the remedies owing to the Nelson iwi. This is the first time a New Zealand court has upheld a Māori claim to our lands stolen by the Crown.
This process is quite separate and very different from the treaty claims taken through the Waitangi Tribunal and negotiations to settle those claims with the Crown. This is the courts finally ruling that the Crown broke its own law when it stole land that they were supposed to hold in trust for Māori and now they must provide remedies as determined by the High Court. In the Tribunal all we get is recommendations which the Crown ignores (except for the binding recommendations which we are pursuing which they must carry out). And then if you ‘negotiate’ a settlement with the Crown, you have no say because the Crown dictates whether you can have anything returned, how much and what you must pay for it. And it refuses to pay any compensation.
The essential difference is that the High Court must use the law to decide what remedies will be provided. For treaty claims settlements the Government (masquerading as the Crown) uses a political process that is determined by the whim of government ministers and bureaucrats and is designed primarily to strip Māori of their legal rights.
I have asked our lawyers to consider the implications of this case for us because the Waitangi Tribunal in its 1997 Muriwhenua Land Report lists numerous reserves that were set aside for hapū of Ngāti Kahu in the 1800s and then stolen by the Crown.
For items 5 and 6 please see the summary above.
Professor Margaret Mutu
19 March 2017