April 09, 2021
Judge cites tikanga in blocking land hand back
A High Court judge says he doesn’t expect to have the last word on a judgement that severely restricts the ability of the Waitangi Tribunal to order the return of state owned enterprise land to claimants.
Overturning the tribunal’s order that land around a Waikato River hydroelectric dam and a northern Wairarapa forest be handed back to Ngāti Kahungunu, Justice Francis Cooke said the case was important, and will likely proceed further on appeal.
He says it’s the first case in a generation to look at the mechanisms introduced after the Lands case, determined by his father the late Lord Cooke of Thorndon, in which the New Zealand Māori Council and others challenged the Rogernomics-era corporatisation of crown lands and forests.
If SOE land is sold, a memorial is put on the title warning it can be bought back to settle treaty claims.
Justice Cooke says land can only be handed back if there is a breach of treaty principles in the acquisition of the particular block, and it can’t be used to settle claims elsewhere in the rohe.
In the case of the Pouakani lands near Mangakino, he found returning land that had been given to Ngāti Kahungunu in compensation for the loss of Lake Wairarapa was inconsistent with tikanga because Ngāti Raukawa and Tūwharetoa still held the mana whenua of the area.
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