A hui attended by as many as 400 representatives of the hapū of Ngāpuhi has invited the Waitangi Tribunal to travel to Waitangi to formally hand over its momentous Northland report.
Saturday’s gathering, at Tahuaroa Conference Centre at Waitangi Treaty Grounds, was called in the wake of the December 23 release of Stage Two of Te Paparahi o Te Raki, also known as the Northland Inquiry.
The almost 2000-page report details the findings of the Tribunal’s years-long inquiry into Treaty breaches, land loss and military action suffered by Ngāpuhi between 1840 and 1900.
The report also urges the Government to return all Crown-owned land in Ngāpuhi’s tribal area — and to start talks with Māori about reworking New Zealand’s constitutional framework in the light of an earlier finding that Ngāpuhi chiefs did not cede sovereignty when they signed Te Tiriti [The Treaty of Waitangi] in 1840.
Saturday’s independent hui aimed to start charting a way forward for the tribe’s often-divided hapū as they seek to revive their Treaty settlement negotiations with the Crown.