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A Far North iwi is vowing to stop the sale of a prime block of coastal land worth millions of dollars because they say the land is theirs.
But the owner, Landcorp - a State-owned enterprise engaged in farming - says the sale is legitimate, and the Office of Treaty Settlements says the land is not needed for landbanking to settle claims by the iwi.
Members and supporters of Doubtless Bay-based iwi Ngati Kahu have moved on to part of a 9.2ha block of coastal land overlooking pristine Rangaunu Harbour at Rangiputa in a bid to stop Landcorp selling it.
The land, mainly in scrub with some bush and a beachfront aspect of white sand and clear blue water, has an indicative value of up to $4 million, but some estimates are higher.
The sale is by Bayleys and tenders close in Whangarei this Thursday.
Iwi members moved on to the site last week. Soon after, a large For Sale sign was removed. It is understood the real estate company won't replace it.
"This is an absolute last resort. We've been very patient for 10 years. No one else would have allowed this to go on as long as it has," Ngati Kahu runanga chairwoman Professor Margaret Mutu says of the move on to the land which the iwi describes as repossession, not an occupation.
"It's a mandated decision of Ngati Kahu to do this. We tried to get Landcorp to take it off the market after [the Office of Treaty Settlements] told Landcorp to go ahead and sell.
"We said don't do this. This will cause huge problems," Professor Mutu said.
There had been no consultation with Ngati Kahu before the sale process began and a request by the iwi for first right of refusal on the land was turned down.
Professor Mutu says the Waitangi Tribunal's Muriwhenua report in 1997 found that in land transactions before 1865, Crown "purchases" were not land sales but were effectively leases.
In 1859, when the Rangiputa block changed hands, its Maori owners made the land available to Pakeha settlers under lease on the understanding it eventually had to come back to Maori, she said.
The tribunal, however, did not make a binding recommendation to return the Rangiputa land to Ngati Kahu, instead advising iwi claimants to start negotiating land claim settlements with the Crown, via the settlements office.
"Now the Crown won't even discuss returning SOE land to Ngati Kahu," Professor Mutu says.
"We have to buy it back at market rates."
She said Ngati Kahu had been offered a total of only $8 million in Far North settlements so that money could be used to buy land back from the Crown.
"Ngati Kahu lost 100,000ha (according to the Muriwhenua report) and we're being offered $8 million to buy it back."
