New Year Honours: Professor Richard Boast recognised for services to law and Maori

Richard Boast has become an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in this year's New Year Honours. Photo / Supplied

Richard Boast, officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to the law and Maori.

With such an extensive list of accolades to his name, being recognised as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit shouldn't come as a shock to Richard Boast, yet it does.

The lawyer and professor was "completely surprised" upon hearing the news that he had been honoured for his services to law and Maori.

"It's very nice to have this recognition but it wasn't something I was expecting at all. My immediate family is aware but no one else and they are very pleased to see me getting this recognition but they were a bit surprised as well to be honest."

Richard Boast has contributed to the fields of history, Māori land law, and property law since the late 1970s and has written more than 30 research reports for Waitangi Tribunal inquiries and published award-winning books, as well as numerous academic articles.

His 2009 book, Buying the Land, Selling the Land, studied the important historical issue of the alienation of Māori land between 1865 and 1920.

More recently he has worked on a study of leading Native Land Court cases, which has become a standard resource for lawyers and is routinely cited in the courts.

He has been counsel for a number of iwi in Waitangi Tribunal inquiries and has helped a number of groups negotiate Treaty settlements with the Crown.

This included 24 years working with the Maungaharuru Tangitu hapu through their Waitangi Tribunal inquiry and Treaty settlement negotiations towards their 2013 settlement.

He was appointed to the panel which reviewed the Foreshore and Seabed Act 2009 and provided the Government with advice on how best to recognise customary and public interests in the coastal marine area.

He is a professor at Victoria University of Wellington, where he has spent most of his working life - teaching in the Law School as well as courses in New Zealand legal history, Maori Land Law, and honours and masters courses and supervising PhD students.

In 2015, he was appointed a Queen's Counsel.

"I'm a combination of academic and practitioner but more an academic at heart I guess."

He notes that having Maori groups trust him to do research for them is an "honour in itself and the books have been well received and well reviewed so that's more than enough recognition".

Since the early 1990s, the lawyer has had a long-standing association working with Hawke's Bay groups.

He notes that his teachers at Tokoroa High School started him off down a path of history.

His interests in history aren't confined to New Zealand, as he is very interested in overseas developments and comparing what has happened in New Zealand to other places - however New Zealand history is where his heart is at.

His wife, Deborah Edmunds, is a partner at Kensington Swan and specialises in Maori-related legal work. His son, Alex Boast, is a scientist, completing his PhD at the University of Auckland, while his daughter, Hannah Boast, has a degree in anthropology and works for the Ministry of Education.

Looking ahead, Mr Boast hopes to do "more of the same, continuing to work on books on the Maori Land Court, carry on teaching and writing for a few more years yet".

In the not too distant future, he hopes to write a book about the early history of Hawke's Bay.

"I can't see myself ever retiring. I will keep on doing what I'm doing for as long as I can. When you're an academic you don't really separate your work life from the rest of your life, actually it all blends into the same thing."

He hasn't got the "faintest idea" who nominated him.

"To whoever did nominate me, a grateful thanks and, of course, thanks to my own family who have always been so supportive of what I do."