Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu Land Claims Portfolio
Report for October 2017
1. Waitangi Tribunal judicial conference 9 October postponed to 13, 14 November
2. Launching the Ngāti Kahu book – January 3 Te Paatu marae
3. New Minister of treaty claims to be appointed
4. Decision on the repossession of Rangiāniwaniwa still awaited from High Court
Summary
• A judicial conference to prepare for the full hearing next year for binding recommendations will now take place at the Ramada Resort, Taipā on 13 and 14 November.
• For our book, Ngāti Kahu: Portrait of a Sovereign Nation, it will be launched at Te Paatu marae on 3 January 2018 followed by a wānanga.
• With the change of government, a new Minister of treaty claims will be appointed. We will know who that is shortly. While your negotiators are pleased to see Finlayson gone, we are well aware that the Office of Treaty Settlements are the primary drivers of the present loathed policy and that they will fight hard to stop it being changed and to keep it under their control.
• The hearing of the appeal to the High Court against the decision of the Kaitāia District Court on the repossession of Rangiāniwaniwa took place on 13 September in Whāngārei. We are still awaiting the decision.
1. Waitangi Tribunal judicial conference 9 October postponed to 13, 14 November
The Waitangi Tribunal will now hold a (postponed) judicial conference on Monday and Tuesday 13, 14 November at the Ramada Resort, Taipā, commencing at 9.30am. The postponement was caused by a very late submission by the Crown attempting to prevent the Tribunal from carrying out the instructions of the Court of Appeal to rehear our application for binding recommendations. We are aware that the postponement caused serious disruption to many people, and have been advised that the Crown has a habit of this type of behavior when it can’t get its own way.
The purpose of the judicial conference remains that it will hear from the lawyers for Ngāti Kahu and for the interested parties about what the full hearing for binding recommendations should cover and how that should be done. It will now also consider the Crown’s attempt to stop the Tribunal hearing our application for binding recommendations. It is trying to persuade the Tribunal that rather than adhering to the law, it should carry out the government’s wishes and allow them to extinguish all Ngāti Kahu’s claims. Our lawyers have provided a lengthy response addressing the Tribunal’s legal responsibility to adhere to its own law rather than succumbing to the whims of Pākehā politicians and bureaucrats’ intent on keeping what they stole from Ngāti Kahu.
2. Launch date for the Ngāti Kahu book – 3 January 2018
Our book Ngāti Kahu: Portrait of a Sovereign Nation will be launched on 3 January 2018 at Te Paatu Marae, Pāmapūria starting at 10am. It will be followed by a wānanga on the book for the rest of the day. The following morning there will be a dawn unveiling for the Ngāti Kahu pou in Te Ahu Centre in Kaitāia. The pou encapsulates the kōrero in our book about our ancestors Kahutianui and Te Parata, our waka Māmaru, our maunga, Maungataniwha, our seas and our hapū.
While the book launch will not take place until January, Huia Publishers expect the completed book to be available at the end of November or by mid-December at the latest. It can be pre-ordered now from the publisher’s website http://www.huia.co.nz/huia-bookshop/bookshop/ngati-kahu-portrait-of-a-so.... The cost is $65.
For items 3 and 4, please see the summary above.
Professor Margaret Mutu
21 October 2017