Matt Mullany, of Ngati Paarau, who is trying to ensure the historical record is correct before the settlement becomes law. Photo / Paul Taylor
A series of Napier area claims which include some of the longest-running filed with the Waitangi Tribunal could be settled in the next two months, despite continuing concerns about part of Crown and historic accounts.
After the second reading of the Ahuriri Hapu Claims Settlement Bill in Parliament on Tuesday, Minister of Treaty Negotiations Andrew Little confirmed to Hawke's Bay Today he is working towards enactment of the bill as soon as possible.
It will come after elections he ordered for all nine trustee positions on post-settlement governance entity Mana Ahuriri. The elections are about to start, and will end on August 9.
Introducing the reading, and the first of 12 MPs to speak on it, Little explained recent delays by saying the first reading in March last year had been on the basis of a Mana Ahuriri undertaking to hold the elections as recommended by the Tribunal in 2019.
In a subsequent Parliamentary Select Committee hearing in Napier, Mana Ahuriri chairman Piriniha Prentice said it was unacceptable for the Crown and the Minister to "demand the Trust hold fresh elections that will make no material difference to the settlement outcome."
Little told Parliament this week that the Trust's view that it didn't have to hold the elections, despite the Tribunal direction, led to "a standoff, to be perfectly honest," but more recently the Trust decided to proceed with the vote.
After the Parliamentary session, Little told Hawke's Bay Today: "A date for the third reading is yet to be set. I am working with the Leader of the House to ensure the third reading occurs shortly after the outcome of elections."
The settlement agreement sets out an agreed historical account and Crown acknowledgements and apologies, along with cultural and financial and commercial redress.
It would help enable developments proposed by Mana Ahuriri such as the Napier railway land off Munroe St, where site preparation stopped suddenly in mid-2019, and Mataruahou becoming the official name for Bluff, Middle and Hospital hills, named by European settlers as Scinde Island, as it stood until the 1931 Hawke's Bay Earthquake.
Also among the six "official geographic name changes" is Perfume Point, seen by many as repugnant and reverting to Te Karaka, Sturms Gully to Karetoki Whare, and the Ngaruroro river mouth to Te Ipu-o-Taraia.
The claimants represented the people of hapu Ngāti Hinepare, Ngāti Māhu, Ngāti Matepū, Ngāti Paarau, Ngāi Tāwhao, Ngāti Tū and Ngāi Te Ruruku – the shoreline hapu of once expansive inland waterway Te Whanganui-a-Orotu.
It has been otherwise known as the Ahuriri Lagoon or Napier Inner Harbour, and the area on which much of Napier was built by both reclamation and the raising of the land in the 1931 Hawke's Bay Earthquake.
The claims include WAI 55 Te Whanganui-a-Orotu (also known as the Napier inner harbour claim), which was filed with the Tribunal more than 33 years ago, with a history of concern dating back to the Crown's Ahuriri Purchase of 1851.
The Tribunal found the hapu did not relinquish rights to the waterway, with evidence in the hearings including a statement by historian and researcher Pat Parsons that the only people not to reap the benefits were those who actually owned it, and recommended settlement in the inquiry report, and in a Remedies Hearing report in 1998.
Other primary claims are WAI 168 (Tūtaekurī River/Waiōhiki lands), with an account of the 1866 Omarunui conflict still a major sticking point, and WAI 732 (Pētane block claim).
Matt Mullany, of Waiohiki and Otatara-based Ngati Paarau, and who served a short time on the trust and is now contesting in the Maori Land Court the rejection of his nomination to stand again, says the historical account in the agreement "is factually incorrect and undermines local Maori leadership".
"Centring Crown acts at Omarunui forgets that the Rangatira of local hapu led the Crown into battle," he says. "Most of those who lost their lives were manuhiri on foreign lands. The events after the battle to those imprisoned - forced exile and land confiscation were made by the Crown alone."
"Despite repeated requests to fix the broken account, the Crown continues to lead the New Zealand public astray," he says.
"We would prefer a balanced narrative in the one account," he says. "Not acknowledging our perspective in the historical account feels like a new form of colonisation for us."
The latest delays highlight a tortuous course since the signing of the Ahuriri Purchase by the Crown and Chiefs, 170 years ago in November this year.
Concerns about reclamation from the area reserved for the hapu were evident in 1861 and escalated with Harbour Board reclamation 1874, and then the impacts of the earthquake.
The Native Land Court, which was established in 1865 and became the Maori Land Court in 1954, considered lagoon matters in 1934, but Judge Harvey's decision against the applicants did not appear until 1948.
Lodged in 1988, the inner harbour claim was the 55th of now well over 3000 claims to the tribunal, and was granted urgency because leasehold sections in the claim area were about to be sold and the hearings started five years later.
The Government in late 2009 accepted a mandate for Mana Ahuriri to negotiate settlement on behalf of claimants in the Napier area, as a Large Natural Grouping based on Crown decision in the 1990s to deal with settlement on a district basis rather than with individual claims.
The Minister told Parliament negotiations were interrupted for some time by a period of dysfunction among committee members before agreement in principle with the Crown in December 2013.
A ratification vote process in 2015 and the Crown issued acknowledgements and an apology to the claimants in a deed of settlement on November 2, 2016.
In the meantime, Ngati Paarau was contesting the ratification of Mana Ahuriri as flawed, claiming Mana Ahuriri Incorporated had lost its mandate and the Crown should not have proceeded with the settlement.
Hearings of that claim were held in 2019, and in its report the Tribunal agreed that the process had been flawed and the Crown's decision to proceed with the settlement in those circumstances was in breach of the Treaty principles of partnership and active protection.
But while the Tribunal found the Crown was in breach of Treaty principles for accepting Manu Ahuriri Trust ratification results, it did not find the Crown's acceptance of the deed of settlement was a breach.
The Tribunal recommended that before introducing settlement legislation, the Crown obtain an undertaking from Mana Ahuriri Trust to hold an independently-monitored election for all trustee positions.
Other MPs who addressed Parliament, including Ikaroa-Rawhiti MP Meka Whaitiri, former National Party leader Simon Bridges, Act leader David Seymour, and newly reinstalled National List MP Harete Hipango,
The 17 candidates in the election include six current trustees, and those eligible to vote and wanting to register should check on the Mana Ahuriri website.
The candidates are Maree Brown, Rihi Elizabeth Anne Clarke-Reiri, Peter Eden, Tania Eden, Allana Hiha, Beverley Kemp-Harmer, Joinella Maihi-Carroll, Piriniha Prentice, Evelyn Ratima, Joe Reti, Mike Taane, Chad Tareha, Marina Toatoa, Emma-Marie Uriarau, Barry Wilson, and Terry Wilson.