Te Rūnanga-ā-Iwi o Ngāti Kahu
Land Claims Report for April 2012
1. Waitangi Tribunal agrees to hear our application for binding recommendations.
2. Hui-ā-iwi of kuia kaumātua of Te Hiku o Te Ika, 14 April at Te Rarawa marae. Next hui-ā-Iwi 1.30pm 28 April Kenana marae.
3. Objection filed to Te Aupōuri deed of settlement, objections to Te Rarawa’s and Ngāi Takoto’s to follow.
4. Moana Jackson, Independent Constitutional Transformation Working Party, to attend our Rūnanga hui 28 April to talk about and discuss constitutional matters.
Summary
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The Waitangi Tribunal issued a memorandum saying it will now hold remedies hearings for Ngāti Kahu’s claims and issued directions that Ngāti Kahu advise the Tribunal what principles it should take into account in determining what recommendations it will make, including binding recommendations. This is an historic win for Ngāti Kahu.
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Kuia and kaumātua from throughout Te Hiku o Te Ika held a fifth hui-ā-iwi at Te Rarawa marae on 14 April. This hui continued the focus on whanaungatanga and on whānau and hapū being empowered to fully exercise our mana and tino rangatiratanga through He Whakaputanga and Te Whakaminenga.
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We filed an application for an urgent hearing to object to Te Aupōuri’s deed of settlement (Ngāti Kurī filed one a couple of months ago). We will file objections to Te Rarawa’s and Ngāi Takoto’s as well. We are concentrating on the forest as far north as Hukatere, Te Oneroa-a-Tōhē, the lands administered by the Department of Conservation in their deeds and not removing 27B memorials.
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Moana Jackson, convenor of The Independent Constitutional Transformation Working Group of the National Iwi Chairs’ Forum, will arrive at our meeting on 28 April at about 1.30pm to talk about a constitution based on tikanga, He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. His Primer on constitutions is attached to this report.
1. Waitangi Tribunal agrees to hear our application for binding recommendations.
The Waitangi Tribunal issued a memorandum on 18 April saying it will now hold hearings for both binding recommendations and ordinary recommendations for Ngāti Kahu’s claims. It is satisfied that the claims the Tribunal upheld did include two general claims for Ngāti Kahu, both lodged by McCully Matiu and it will make recommendations based on those. However they declined to include the three Te Paatu claims because they were not lodged in time to be heard in the 1990-4 hearings, and as such were not reported on in the 1997 Muriwhenua Land Report. They also declined to include Te Paatu’s territories on Te Oneroa-a-Tōhē and up to Hukatere and across to Rangaunu for consideration for binding recommendations. We do not agree with this and have therefore sought urgent hearings to stop them vesting those lands in other iwi and not Ngāti Kahu.
In preparation for hearings the Tribunal issued directions that Ngāti Kahu advise the Tribunal what principles it should take into account in determining what recommendations it will make, including binding recommendations. We will be taking those principles from our Deed of Partial Settlement. We will also be asking for the total package of recommendations to be what we have listed in our Deed, although we know the law prevents the Tribunal from making recommendations over private land.
We are to file submissions on principles of relief and other issues, including timetabling for hearings, by 4 May. The Crown and others have until 18 May to respond. Ngāti Kahu then responds to them by 25 May. Another judicial conference will be held after that, hopefully in Auckland.
This decision from the Tribunal is very historic. We, and several other claimants, have been denied hearings for binding recommendations in the past. We are very grateful to the Mangatū Incorporation who had the resources to take the Tribunal through all the courts and finally got a decision from the Supreme Court saying the Tribunal had to hear their application for binding recommendations. We relied on that decision to get our hearing. Now we have to get the binding recommendations over all SoE and Crown Forest lands in our rohe.
That will be an extremely bitter fight because the Tribunal has been under threat from successive governments that if it used its powers of binding recommendations, they would be removed.
We are under no illusion that the Crown will do anything and everything to stop
us succeeding, legal or otherwise. However they cannot ever change the fact
that the land is ours and that it is not going anywhere.
2. Hui-ā-iwi of kuia kaumātua of Te Hiku o Te Ika, 14 April at Te Rarawa marae. Next hui-ā-Iwi 1.30pm 28 April Kenana marae.
There continues to be very good turnouts to these hui. Ngāti Te Ao hosted the hui at Te Rarawa marae and several Te Rarawa kaumātua attended. Discussion from the previous hui continued about revitalizing Te Whakaminenga. That hui at Mahimaru marae decided to give life back to Te Whakaminenga, bringing together the rangatira of each hapū, while being very careful to uphold and preserve the mana and rangatiratanga of each and every hapū. The hui was careful to articulate that it as up to the hapū whether they wanted to maintain the various rūnanga that exist while still reinvigorating Te Whakaminenga. Essentially the aim of Te Whakaminenga is to find practical ways of organizing ourselves to live under our own power and authority and free ourselves of the oppression of the Pākehā and his parliament.
The hui at Te Rarawa marae decided to start formalizing this and hapū were asked to sign a facsimile or copy of He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni to indicate their on-going support for that declaration of our mana, rangatiratanga and sovereignty. A number of people signed it while others wanted to get confirmation from their whānau and hapū before they signed.
At the request of our Ngāti Kahu kaumātua, the hui discussed my upcoming trip to the meeting of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. The hui gave me the tautoko and blessing of Te Whakaminenga to represent them in New York where we will be discussing the Doctrine of Discovery and constitutional issues affecting indigenous peoples. We leave on 5 May and return on 15 May.
The next hui for the Kuia Kaumātua of Te Hiku o Te Ika has been scheduled for 1.30pm on 28 April at Kenana marae to hear Moana Jackson talk about a constitution based on tikanga, He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
3. Objection filed to Te Aupōuri deed of settlement, objections to Te Rarawa’s and Ngāi Takoto’s to follow.
On the same day we received the Tribunal’s decision we filed an application for an urgent hearing to object to Te Aupōuri’s deed of settlement. This is because that deed and those of Te Rarawa and Ngāi Takoto include lands that the Crown is selling to them that Ngāti Kahu holds mana whenua over. We have been clear with the Tribunal that we acknowledge Te Rarawa and Ngāi Takoto share mana whenua with us but we have emphasized that the Crown was wrong to exclude us from those lands.
We have focused on four issues: the forest to the south of Hukatere; Te Oneroa-a-Tōhē, the lands administered by the Department of Conservation and the removal of memorials from SoE and Crown forest lands.
We have objected to the Crown’s double-dipping on the forest when they’ve already been paid $37.7m by Juken Nissho in 1990 and are now demanding another $7.66m from iwi for it. We have objected to Te Oneroa-a-Tōhē being managed by the Far North District Council and Northland Regional Council with iwi in a demeaning advisory role to those councils, even though the courts said iwi own the beach. We have objected to iwi being reduced to advisors appointed by the Minister of Conservation for their own lands currently administered the Department of Conservation. We have objected to the memorials being removed from SoE and Crown forest land because that will prevent us being able to get binding recommendations over them.
We will be filing objections to both Te Rarawa’s and Ngāi Takoto’s deeds along the same lines as soon as they are prepared. Ngāti Kurī filed an objection to Te Aupōuri’s deed a couple of months ago.
4. Moana Jackson, Independent Constitutional Transformation Working Party, to attend our Rūnanga hui 28 April to talk on constitutional matters.
Moana Jackson, convenor of The Independent Constitutional Transformation Working Group of the National Iwi Chairs’ Forum, will arrive at our meeting on 28 April at about 1.30pm to talk about and discuss a constitution based on tikanga, He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. The Working Group has just started a series of hui throughout the country to ask whānau, hapū and iwi what they want in a constitution drawn up on this basis.
Moana has prepared one of his Primers and asked that it be circulated. It asks and answers a number of simple questions about constitutions. I have appended it to this paper.
We discussed this at the Kuia Kaumātua hui and a great deal of interest was expressed in hearing Moana. So the Kuia Kaumātua of Te Hiku o Te Ika have been invited to join us at our Rūnanga hui on 28 April.
Professor Margaret Mutu
20 April 2012