Crown breached Treaty of Waitangi - tribunal

6.00pm

The Waitangi Tribunal has found that the Crown made numerous breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi in the way it alienated land from Maori in Hawke's Bay.

The Tribunal yesterday released the long-awaited 700-page Mohaka ki Ahuriri claims report at Te Haroto marae. However, no financial settlements have yet been made.

The report was presented by tribunal member John Clarke to an expected gathering of 400 descendants of Hawke's Bay's earliest settlers.

It covers 20 claims in Hawke's Bay spanning a district bounded by the Tutaekuri River to the south, Hawke Bay to the east, the Waiau River to the north, and the inland ranges and the old Hawke's Bay provincial boundary to the west.

The claimants are predominantly Ngati Kahungunu, although some identify more or equally with Ngati Tuwharetoa.

The claims were heard over three years from November 1996 to February 2000.

They focused on land loss and included allegations concerning pre-1865 Crown purchases under the Crown's pre-emptive rights, alienation post-1865 facilitated by the Native Land Court, and confiscation.

The report also looked at problems which plagued the remaining Maori land base from the late 19th century -- title disputes, lack of development opportunities, and renewed and intensive Crown land purchasing between 1910 and 1930.

Among the claims was one relating to the Ahuriri Purchase, the land deal made between government agent Donald McLean and Maori chiefs and signed in 1851, the precursor to the development of Napier.

It focused on use of the land, and an associated claim, relating to the closure of Napier Hospital and the delivery of health services to descendants of those who had provided the land on which the hospital had been built was heard separately and reported on, under urgency, in 2001.

The claims fell into three broad areas. The northernmost covered the traditional tribal territory of Ngati Pahauwera, which comprised a number of blocks and included the purchase of the Mohaka Block in 1851.

In the centre is the Mohaka-Waikare confiscation block -- land confiscated after the Crown attacked and defeated a group of alleged "rebel" Pai Marire followers in 1866.

To the south, the large Ahuriri block encompasses the area between the Kaweka Range and Napier, which the Crown acquired in 1851.

Overall, the Tribunal found that the Crown had acted frequently in breach of Treaty principles in its dealings over these lands. It ruled that:

* 1851 land purchases at Ahuriri and Mohaka left Maori with legitimate expectations that the deals would lead to collateral advantages;

* the Crown breached treaty principles in its Ahuriri and Mohaka purchase negotiations over reserves, price, and the inclusion of various lands that Maori were reluctant to sell ; and

* Section 23 of the Native Lands Act 1865, which provided for the award of title to 10 or fewer owners, was "in particular violation of Maori rights under the Treaty".

The Tribunal also found the Crown could have done much more to keep the peace in the district in 1866, and there was no "rebellion", which justified the confiscation of the land.

While much of the confiscated Mohaka-Waikare block was returned to Maori ownership, in a number of cases this was not to the rightful customary owners.

The Crown did little to remedy the situation of those who had wrongly missed out on the return of this land.

Between 1910 and 1930 in the seaward "returned" blocks and in Ngati Pahauwera's remaining lands, the Crown embarked on a land-purchasing programme that drastically reduced remaining Maori land holdings, and some of the Crown's purchase methods were "simply coercive".

Assistance to Maori to develop their remaining land-holdings came over 30 years after it had been made available to individual (invariably Pakeha) land owners, and this failure to treat Maori equitably represented a breach of the Treaty.

Where Maori retained land in the Mohaka ki Ahuriri district, it was usually infertile and remote, and they never had the opportunities to derive full benefit from the developing Hawke's Bay economy.

The next step in the process will be for the claimants and the Crown to negotiate settlement of the claims.

The Mohaka ki Ahuriri inquiry was the first to employ the Waitangi Tribunal's district casebook approach, where all the claims within a particular geographic region were grouped together for hearing, with evidence assembled into a casebook of reports before the hearings started.

- NZPA