Tairāwhiti hapū Ngāti Oneone six weeks into protest seeking land’s return

Ngāti Oneone chairwoman Charlotte Gibson stoking the fire at the protest movement taking place at Te Pā Eketū Shed, on Hirini St, calling for the return of Ngāti Oneone's ancestral lands. Photo / Zita Campbell

A fire signalling Tairāwhiti hapū Ngāti Oneone’s call for the return of their ancestral lands has been burning for over six weeks.

The hapū says it will stoke the fire until the grievance is resolved, but after three generations of attempting to remedy it, does not want the redress to fall on them.

“It always falls on us to ‘make the case’,” Ngāti Oneone chairwoman Charlotte Gibson told Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) when the movement started on May 5.

The Crown says any potential redress in this case is the responsibility of the landowner and the hapū.

As part of its protest, members of Ngāti Oneone have inhabited Te Pā Eketū Shed, a warehouse-sized property on Gisborne’s Hirini St.

Rather than an “occupation”, the hāpu calls the action “a reclamation of whenua”.

The location is where Ngāti Oneone’s marae and pā were originally established in 1852 before being removed for harbour development under the Private Works Act.

Eastland Port, of which Trust Tairāwhiti is the sole shareholder, owns the shed and others on the hapū’s ancestral land on Hirini St and the Esplanade.

At the beginning of the protest movement, the hapū called on the trust, Eastland Port and Gisborne District Council to return land not used for “core business”.

Council chief executive Nedine Thatcher Swann told LDR the council had started exploring how land could potentially be returned following formal requests from Ngāti Oneone in 2024.

This includes investigating the relevant legal processes, policy settings and the interests of other Treaty partners.

However, Trust Tairāwhiti, which has a funding partnership with the council and serves as the region’s economic development and tourism organisation, earlier said addressing historical Treaty breaches was not its responsibility, rather a matter for the Crown, after it sought independent legal advice.

“We support Ngāti Oneone in pursuing this with the Crown,” chairman David Battin told LDR when the protest started.

Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka had a different view.

The 2010 Ngāti Porou settlement of historical Treaty of Waitangi claims includes Ngāti Oneone, Potaka told LDR.

“The matter being raised ... is outside of the process for the settlement of historical Treaty claims.

“Any exploration of options to return and/or purchase the land is a matter for the landowner agency to undertake in discussion with Ngāti Oneone,” he said.

Regarding Potaka’s statement, a Trust Tairāwhiti spokesperson this week said trustees continued to “engage directly with Ngāti Oneone and remained focused on constructive resolutions”.

The ‘reclamation of whenua’

Gibson confirmed the hapū had met with the landowner groups involved under Trust Tairāwhiti and would have a meeting with the council next week.

She was unsure whether the groups would respond individually or together.

The hapū has committed to maintaining the protest for two months and then will reassess depending on outcomes, she said.

“We’ll keep the fire burning until we’ve had an acceptable response.”

In addition to the return of land, the hapū has made other requests to the landowners through an online petition signed by over 1950 as of Friday.

The petition urges the Tairāwhiti leaders to take three actions: “Whakahokia Whenua Mai”, which requests the return of land not used for core business, “Whakamana Tangata” and “Te Tiriti”.

Whakamana Tangata requests that Trust Tairāwhiti financially compensate Ngāti Oneone for “the alienation” of their lands without conditions.

“Te Tiriti” requests that the leaders seek a pathway that treats Ngāti Oneone in the same vein as a “Treaty” partner, rather than “a community group”.

Gibson said that after Eastland Port sold a shed on their ancestral land to the Gisborne Tatapouri Sports Fishing Club three years ago, they worried about what could happen to the rest of their ancestral land, so they started negotiations for the Te Pa Eketū Shed.

If the land were sold, it would be harder to reclaim, she said.

However, they then realised the port had other sheds in the area, not used for “core business”.

“In my view, it’s not an occupation, it’s a reclamation of whenua,” Gibson said, explaining that the shed had been leased while negotiating the sales and purchase agreement.

The port would send the hapū the bill, which they would send to Trust Tairāwhiti, who would pay Eastland Port (owned by the trust), she said.

Trust Tairāwhiti was going to give them $1.4 million to purchase the shed, but the hapū wanted to use the money to buy the lot.

When their request was denied, they understood and looked into other ways of obtaining the sheds, Gibson said.

However, when the hapū got the sales and purchase agreement, things shifted.

“There were four clauses within the sales and purchase agreement, which undermined Mana motuhake [self-determination], which made it untenable,” said Gibson.

On May 5, the beginning of the hapū’s “Reclamation of whenua”, they were supposed to sign the sales and purchase agreement, but decided to “reclaim” the land instead.