KEY POINTS:
Few claims are likely to be as deliberately inflammatory as Te Matarahurahu's Treaty Grounds claim.
The named claimant, David Rankin, says if his hapu's claim is successful, the Waitangi National Trust - which holds the land for all New Zealanders, effectively making it private land - can expect the boot.
What will take precedence instead, Mr Rankin says, is some type of commercial development aimed at building an economic base for his hapu.
Any question of Maori owning iconic sites that sit high in Kiwi consciousness is bound to stir up some feeling. Example: foreshore and seabed.
Different governments have handled these types of situations differently. Ngai Tahu received Aoraki Mt Cook in their settlement before gifting it back to the nation, and more recently the Tainui Waikato River deal initially caused concerns among non-Maori stakeholder groups. But neither of those settlements sought to deny access.
Whether Mr Rankin acknowledges it or not, killing access to the birthplace of our nation - the place where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed in 1840 - is likely to be seen by many as an attack on nationhood.
Love the Treaty or hate it, it's where this country took its first steps into being.
Is he likely to get buy-in from Maori? From his own Ngapuhi iwi? Mr Rankin, a lecturer at Unitec, doesn't mind stirring things. He doesn't mind if people think he's eccentric - a fair few do - in fact, I get the feeling he actually quite likes it. What we do know is that he is likely to have to wait, in all probability for decades, to get a hearing.
And even then, he has to prove his case and overcome the private land question. Smart governments avoid like the plague trampling on private land owners' property rights.
In tribunal chairman Chief Judge Joe Williams' directions dealing with the matter, he asks whether the claim could be consolidated with the larger iwi process.
But Ngapuhi isn't anywhere near the Waitangi Tribunal hearing's proper stage. It is still working out how it wants its claims to be heard. It is a long slow process.
Traditionally there's been a dim view of single WAI claimants. Lone rangers are usually dumped right at the bottom of the list.
Even Mr Rankin knows it could be a long wait. He was actually shocked the tribunal accepted the claim. So talk of banning people is pie-in-the-sky stuff at the moment.
But his point about developing a strong economic base for his hapu has enormous merit - because for as long as tribes such as Ngapuhi aren't settling, the work needed to move Maori forward economically remains stilted.
