Hoki Whenua

Mai
Ko tēnei te wā kia whakatika. The time is now to right past wrongs and return
land wrongly taken from Māori to Māori, so whānau and whenua can thrive.

Returning land to tangata whenua is the right thing to do to address the ongoing
injustices that Māori experience. Aotearoa can be a place where active kaitiakitanga
led by tangata whenua guides our relationship with te taiao, ensuring our tūpuna
whenua, awa, and maunga are cared for.

The Aotearoa we know today has been built off of Māori land, much of which was
wrongly taken through breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi over the last 183 years.

Since 1975, the Crown has acknowledged there needs to be a pathway for the
restitution of these breaches. There have now been over 120 Treaty Settlements
negotiated between iwi and hapū with the Crown.

However, these agreements require deep compromises from iwi and hapū. They do
not achieve Tiriti justice.

www.greens.org.nz 1
 Summary
As Aotearoa approaches the 185-year anniversary of the signing of Te Tiriti o
Waitangi, and the 50-year anniversary of the Treaty of Waitangi Act, the time is now
to reflect on next steps to ensure the promise of Te Tiriti is honoured and wrongs are
put right.

In the next term of Parliament, the Green Party will take steps to fix the approach to
redress – to ensure it is based in honouring Te Tiriti and comprehensively addressing
the harms of the past. We will:

Establish a Commission of Inquiry into the full extent of land dispossession

and adequacy of redress, tasked with making recommendations on future
pathways for return of wrongfully taken land back to iwi, hapū, and whānau.

Abolish the 2008 deadline to lodge new claims for historical breaches of Te
Tiriti o Waitangi, allowing hapu and whānau to progress additional historic
claims through the Waitangi Tribunal.

Reinstate the ability for the Waitangi Tribunal to make recommendations in

relation to privately owned land.

Amend the Public Works Act to prevent whenua Māori being taken in future
and provide a clearer path for the return of land previously taken.

End perpetual leases and restore full land rights for owners.

Through honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi and restoring the relationship between

tangata whenua, the Crown, and tauiwi, Aotearoa New Zealand can be a place where
all people can thrive.

Ko tēnei te wā kia whakatika.

www.greens.org.nz 2
 Situation
When Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed in 1840, Māori owned almost all the land in
Aotearoa. By 1860, the entire South Island was no longer in Māori ownership. For
over 150 years, Māori were brutally dispossessed of their whenua. This continued
well into the twentieth century, despite protest, resistance, and legal challenge from
Māori.

Māori Land Loss

1860 1890 1910 2000

Māori-owned land

This has caused an underlying, deep, foundational harm that Māori continue
to experience to this day. The impact of land loss has been severe and
intergenerational.

The tools of colonisation have deliberately made it impossible for iwi, hapū and
whānau to seek full return of lands taken. Throughout generations, Māori have
continued to call for restitution and acknowledgement of indigenous rights as
tangata whenua of Aotearoa.

The introduction of the Waitangi Tribunal was an important step forward in 1975,
marking a turning point from dispossession to acknowledging the wrongs of the
past. However, Treaty settlements are constrained by the unwillingness of the Crown
to face the full extent of land dispossession.

www.greens.org.nz 3
 The total expenditure on Treaty settlements as at the start of 2023 was $2.6 billion
– which some estimate to be as low as one percent of the loss suffered. To put this
in context for government expenditure, the total cost of the wage subsidy for Covid
support as at 1 July 2022 was $19.43 billion. The crisis of Covid showed clearly
that the Government can take bold decisions when needed. The ongoing crisis of
colonisation demands real action of a scale that meets the harm done – not forced
compromise to minimise the cost to the Crown.

Creating a future where the long-lasting impacts of Te Tiriti breaches are healed, and
Te Tiriti is honoured, requires a reset of redress. The time has come to do the right
thing by tangata whenua. Aotearoa must focus on building a future where Te Tiriti is
honoured in full.

www.greens.org.nz 4
 Commission of Inquiry into Disposession
and Redress

‘‘
I understand why our people are ‘settling’ because we have had
too little for too long but the settlements do not even begin to
address the power that was taken from us through colonisation.

As well, treaties are not made to be

‘settled’, they are made to be
honoured, and that honouring
will only occur when there is a new
political/constitutional order in
place based on Te Tiriti.

– Moana Jackson

The Treaty settlement process has inbuilt limitations. When lands are returned as an
acknowledgement of land dispossession, it does not come close to full restoration or
redress for all land wrongfully taken.

In the next term of Parliament, the Green Party will establish a Commission of Inquiry
which will undertake a comprehensive investigation into the:

a) Extent of dispossession of land due to breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi –

including working towards a registry of land wrongfully removed from Māori
ownership throughout Aotearoa.
b) Ongoing impacts of land loss – including quantifying the economic losses to
iwi, hapū, and whānau.
c) Adequacy of current redress processes for restoring land removed from Māori
ownership through breaches of Te Tiriti.
d) Mechanisms that could be used in future to return lands to iwi, hapū and
whānau.

www.greens.org.nz 5
 The terms of reference will be broad, and the Inquiry will be required to ensure there
is opportunity for extensive engagement by iwi, hapū, and whānau around the motu.
The steps towards redress taken in the past 50 years must be considered in the full
context of the history of land dispossession, and with a view towards the future that
can be created if Te Tiriti is honoured.

The Inquiry will begin in 2024. Recognising the scale of the investigation needed, we
have allowed for funding of a three-year work programme.

In the interim, the Green Party is committed to fixing issues with the current
settlement redress processes that are causing clear injustices. These are set out
below.

www.greens.org.nz 6
 Repealing the claims deadline
When the Waitangi Tribunal was first established in 1975, its mandate was to
consider contemporary claims only. This was expanded in 1985 to include historical
claims. But in 2006, the Treaty of Waitangi Act was amended to introduce a deadline
for claims. This was a clear injustice.

At the time of this legislative change, Green MP Metiria Turei said:

‘‘
It is true that the tribunal process and settlement negotiations
take a reasonable amount of time. We have had close to 170
years’ worth of wrongs committed against Māori, and of the
theft of land through legislation and other means—all of the
things that everybody in this Parliament knows about.

We cannot expect all of those claims, all of those wrongs, and

all of those issues to come to light in just a few years. It has
been only 10 years or so since we began to deal with the Treaty
claims and negotiations process in an effective and a clearer
way. The process cannot be run quickly, and we cannot expect
that it would.

We should spend a lot more time on

allowing the tribunal process to
continue to develop and evolve,
to provide the best possible
framework for providing
justice to the victims of these
crimes, for whom it was
designed.

– Metiria Turei

The Green Party will remove the bar on historical claims by repealing 6AA of
the Treaty of Waitangi Act. This will allow whānau, hapū and iwi to file additional
historical claims and evidence through the Waitangi Tribunal. This will provide
an additional pathwaywhich complements, builds on, and could address gaps in
existing settlements.

www.greens.org.nz 7
 The Green Party also recognises that as settlements have evolved over time, some
have included the return of conservation land; while others have involved legal
personality for awa or maunga and new governance arrangements with stronger
commitment to co-governance. The Green Party acknowledges other iwi and hapū
aspire to similar arrangements for public conservation land and waters in their rohe.

The Green Party will ensure Te Papa Atawhai / Department of Conservation

continues work on the future governance of conservation lands and waters within a
Te Tiriti framework – including outside of the settlements process – while engaging
with New Zealanders. As a first step, the Green Party will amend the Reserves Act to
require decisions under that Act to give effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This would also
apply to reserves operated by local councils and others.

As part of enabling new historic claims, the Green Party also anticipates future
redress could include return of title to specific areas of conservation land and other
Crown lands that were wrongfully taken from Māori landowners. This may include
collective redress that recognises overlapping claims by different hapū; and it may
include establishing governance structures that bring together representatives of
different ropū and a genuine Tiriti-based partnership with the Crown.

www.greens.org.nz 8
 Reinstating the ability for the Waitangi
Tribunal to make recommendations
relating to private land
The Waitangi Tribunal was initially able to make non-binding recommendations
in relation to privately owned land, but this was removed in 1993 following the Te
Roroa Report, which recommended returning significant wahi tapu on private land.
Reinstating this ability would allow for the purchase and return of whenua as part of
redress by the Crown.

This would be done together with removing the bar on new historical claims.
The combined effect of this would enable claims for specific landholdings, with
recommendations based around the return of this land. Tribunal recommendations
would not be binding. However, these would provide clear direction to inform redress
actions.

How to give effect to recommendations about privately owned land would depend
on the characteristics and uses of the land, and the future uses envisaged by the
claimants. Next steps following a recommendation could include negotiating with
current landowners for purchase, or keeping a record of land for future purchase
when it comes up sale.

www.greens.org.nz 9
 Example

There is a block of land that was wrongly

removed from the original Māori
landowners and sold at a discounted price
to Pākehā settlers. The land is still owned by
the descendants of the Pākehā family and
operated as a farm – but they are planning
to sell up.

The descendants of the original Māori

landowners become aware that the current
owners are planning to sell, and lodge an
urgent claim at the Waitangi Tribunal.

The Tribunal releases a finding that the land

was wrongfully acquired, and recommends
that the Crown negotiate with the current
owners to purchase it and return it to the
whānau as redress for their claim.

This will expand the Crown’s ability to return land to its ancestral owners, and do
what is right for the historic breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. It is the evolution of
redress as Aotearoa heals from the harm of colonisation and gives meaningful effect
to Te Tiriti.

www.greens.org.nz 10
 Reforming the Public Works Act
Many iwi, hapū and whānau have had land taken under the Public Works Act, or
previous legislation enabling land to be taken for public works – such as roads,
railways, and energy infrastructure. This began as early as the 1870s and continued
right into the 2000s. Māori land was taken as recently as 2014 at Waikanae under the
Public Works Act for the recently opened Kāpiti Expressway, resulting in land lost not
just for the road, but the landscaping beside it.

The Waitangi Tribunal has found that Māori were often discriminated against as
a result of the legislation, were not communicated or consulted with, were not
adequately compensated or not compensated at all, and the resulting public works
were often not in the interests of Māori. In some instances, land was taken but not
used for the stated purpose, or was not returned when no longer required for the
purpose taken.

Mechanisms for unused land to be bought back also disadvantaged Māori

landowners, who were less likely to have available capital or to be able to access
finance, particularly for land with multiple owners. For example, land was often
offered back at a purchase price that the original landowners could not afford, giving
the Crown full benefit of increased land values over the time since compensation had
been paid (if any compensation was even paid for the taking, which was not always
the case).

www.greens.org.nz 11
 The Green Party will:

• Amend the Public Works Act to prevent Māori land being compulsorily taken
in future (while still allowing voluntary sale or lease for infrastructure and other
public purposes).
• Provide a more straightforward path for the return of land taken for public works,
that is no longer being used for a public purpose.

Previous Green MPs proposed amendments to the Public Works Act that would
prohibit compulsory acquisition of Māori Land (as defined under Te Ture Whenua
Māori Act). In the next Government, the Green Party will make this change –
together with improving the process for return of land taken previously, in line with
recommendations from the Waitangi Tribunal.

To improve the process for return of land taken for public works, the Green
Party will:

• Require LINZ to undertake an audit of Māori land taken for public works
purposes; and to identify areas that are no longer being used for public purposes
and offer these back at the earliest opportunity.
• Require the offer back process to ensure land is returned without disadvantage to
the former Māori landowners, taking all circumstances into account – for example
through offer back prices that are discounted for inadequate compensation paid
previously, rather than reflecting current market value of property.
• On an ongoing basis, ensure that there is consultation with the descendants
of former owners before using land acquired for one type of public works for a
different type of public works.

www.greens.org.nz 12
 Ending perpetual leases
Over a century ago, government administrators (who were meant to act in the best
interests of Māori owners) leased out many blocks of Māori land to Pākehā settlers
for very low rents, with perpetual renewal rights. There was no agreement from the
Māori landowners to this arrangement. These leases continue even now – with no
ability for the Māori landowners to use the land or change the terms of the lease.

Perpetual leases were abolished in the United Kingdom around 100 years ago,
but the colonial legacy lives on in Aotearoa. Māori landowners forced into this
arrangement are denied the right to live on their land, the right to care for and
manage their land how they see fit, the right to nurture and grow a future for
themselves and future generations – despite still being the legal owners of the land.

The Green Party will amend the Maori Reserved Lands Act and the Property
Law Act to abolish perpetual leases on Māori land, and return control of this
land back to Māori landowners.

Grievances from perpetual leases have led to many reviews, from as far back as 1878.
More recently, in 1994, a review panel found that:

‘‘
The facts overwhelmingly call for immediate action to
dismantle and abolish the system of perpetually renewable
leases of Māori reserved land. Further delay cannot be justified,
for the system involves not only the Government, owners and
tenants but also the thousands of New Zealand citizens who
are families of tenants and beneficial owners; ultimately it
impacts upon all New Zealanders. The issues are not so much
legal, commercial and economic; they are vitally personal and
go to the very heart of human relationships in this country.

Undoubtedly there are financial costs to be borne if the liberties

and rights of Māori land owners are to be restored. But Māori
land owners are in a special position in this country. They
are unique partners with the Crown in a sacred Treaty. The
redemption of their rights is a matter of urgency if justice and
peace are to prevail.

All citizens must participate in supporting the Government in

playing its role.

www.greens.org.nz 13
 Reforms were introduced following this review, through the Maori Reserved Land
Amendment Act. These did not meet the call to abolish perpetual leases or to
facilitate a negotiation process to allow parties to determine how leases would be
terminated. Instead, changes were made to introduce more frequent rent reviews,
and right of first refusal for Māori landowners to buy leases at market value if the
leaseholder was seeking to transfer land. These reforms don’t come anywhere
close to unwinding the harm of perpetual leases and restoring land rights for Māori
landowners.

In the next term of Parliament, the Green Party will amend the Maori Reserved Lands
Act and the Property Law Act to abolish perpetual leases, and restore full rights to
the underlying Māori landowners.

These amendments will introduce an end date of 2025 for all remaining leases.
This will allow a year for the transition, including negotiations between the parties to
address specific circumstances for each lease (such as how to deal with buildings or
other improvements on the land). The transition would also include considering what
compensation may be payable by the Crown to the Māori landowners for the loss
of the use of the land while it was under lease; and to leaseholders for the statutory
removal of their future lease interests.

Ending perpetual leases would enable the Māori owners of lands to regain
control of these lands, so they can be used for the benefit of whānau, hapū
and iwi. Ko tēnei te wā.

www.greens.org.nz 14
 Costings table
Expenditure ($ millions):

Initiative 2024 2025 and

subsequent years

Resourcing for a Commission 10 10

of Inquiry
(30 million over three years)

Additional resourcing for the 20 21

Waitangi Tribunal to process
claims

Claimant funding support 15 16

Redress for additional claims [NA] 350

Total 45 397

www.greens.org.nz 15
 Modelling assumptions

Costings per year for the Commission of Inquiry are informed by the operating
expenses of recent Commissions of Inquiry, adjusted for inflation.

Costings for the year from 2024 – 2025 assume claims will be being prepared and
filed with the Waitangi Tribunal, but redress is unlikely to be finalised. We have
assumed that claimant support costs will need to be higher with more potential
claimants, while resourcing needed to process each claim will be less than for claims
brought by larger groups over larger geographical areas.

Costs in subsequent years use the starting point of the current appropriation for
payment of redress for Treaty of Waitangi Claims ($350 million per year), and
provide for an additional $350 million to allow for redress of additional historical
claims by iwi, hapū, and whānau. It is assumed that, as with the current claims
process, the redress will be spread over several years.

Sufficient information is not available to cost potential compensation for landowners

subject to perpetual leases, or leaseholders. This would depend on the specific land
values of each lease, and would require further engagement between the Crown,
Māori landowners, and leaseholders. Similarly, sufficient information is not available
to cost value write-offs of returning land taken under the Public Works Act for less
than current market value. If costs for either of these initiatives are unable to be met
through existing baselines, they would be provided for through partial reallocation of
the additional appropriation for redress.

www.greens.org.nz 16
 Sources
Bassett, Heather “Preliminary Report on Te Atiawa/Ngāti Awa ki Kapiti Public Works Case Studies.”
(2018). https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_138649934/Wai%20
2200%2C%20A202.pdf

Fyers, Andy. “Treaty of Waitangi: What Was Lost.” Stuff, 1 Aug. 2018, https://www.stuff.co.nz/
national/104100739/treaty-of-waitangi-what-was-lost.

Jackson, Moana “We have come too far not to go further.” Counterfutures 4 (2017): 27-51 https://
counterfutures.nz/4/Interview_Moana%20Jackson.pdf

Jones, Carwyn New treaty, new tradition: reconciling New Zealand and Maori law (2016, UBC Press).

Maori Reserved Lands Act 1955

Mutu, Margaret “To honour the treaty, we must first settle colonisation” (Moana Jackson 2015): the
long road from colonial devastation to balance, peace and harmony” Journal of the Royal Society of
New Zealand 49:sup1, 4-18 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03036758.2019.166967
0

Nielson, Michael “Treaty Settlements Slow to Less than Half Rate of National under Labour”
NZ Herald, 13 July 2023, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/waitangi-2023-treaty-
settlements-under-labour-and-whats-happening-with-ngapuhi-countrys-largest-iwi/
XLPMDBEK4NCM5LODCUBV3MSFR4/

Options Development Group “Partial Reviews of the Conservation General Policy and the General
Policy for National Parks regarding the Treaty of Waitangi” (March 2022) https://www.doc.govt.nz/
our-work/partial-reviews-of-conservation-general-policy-and-general-policy-for-national-parks/
options-development-groups/options-development-group-report/.

Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition Māori Land) Amendment Bill, 2015

Public Works Act 1981

Te Ara Encyclopedia, ‘Loss of Māori Land’. https://teara.govt.nz/en/map/19476/loss-of-maori-

land

Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993

Trapski, Kirby and Cooper “Report of the Reserved Lands Panel” (1994)

Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975

Turei, Metiria Māori Purposes Bill — In Committee - New Zealand Parliament. 18 July 2023, https://
www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansard-debates/rhr/combined/48HansD_20061206_00001113

Waitangi Tribunal “The Turangi Township Remedies Report” (WAI 84, 1998) https://forms.justice.
govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68455312/Turangi%20Township%20Remedies%20
Report.pdf

Waitangi Tribunal “Te Roroa Report” (WAI 38, 1992) https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/

Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68462675/Te%20Roroa%201992.compressed.pdf

Waitangi Tribunal “Wairarapa Ki Tararua Report” (Wai 863), 2010 https://forms.justice.govt.nz/

search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68640655/Wairarapa%20ki%20Tararua%20Vol%20III.pdf

www.greens.org.nz 17