The island is of great cultural significance to Ngapuhi. It was the landing place of the canoe Tunui-a-rangi before it went to Ngunguru and Whangarei.
Passing through the natural hole in the island is the highlight of many tourist boat trips in the Bay of Islands and the trust believes tourism operators should pay a fee to go through the hole, in the same way companies pay a concession to cross private or conservation land.
But the High Court has ruled against the trust because maritime law says that access to the open sea cannot be impeded.
Trust member Richard Witehira said said tourist boats had carried about 360,000 passengers through the Hole in the Rock in the early 2000s, The fare for the trip was now $99 a person and if boat operators paid $3 a passenger to go through the hole it could provide $1 million to help free the "dirt poor" people of Rawhiti from the "shackles of the welfare state".
Welfare dependency would end if the Rawhiti people had the finance to develop the tourism assets they owned.
"And I don't mean just swinging poi and singing songs. We want to be the bosses of our own show on our land," he said.
Trustees had no problem with private boaties having free passage but if tour boat operators were making money out of it then the Maori owners wanted their share.