Hauraki iwi fail to get gold, but due 'substantive' redress

Gold reserves of up to $30 billion may still exist on Coromandel Peninsula. Click on 'more pictures' below for a map of the claimed area.

The Waitangi Tribunal has rejected a claim by Hauraki iwi to ownership of gold, but has found they are owed "generous" redress for goldfields revenue it has long been accepted they should have received.

The iwi are seeking return of Conservation Department stewardship lands, generally protected from gold-mining on Coromandel Peninsula.

If returned, they could opt to reopen mining access.

The Government is generally reluctant to return DoC land to settle claims, but the Hauraki Maori Trust Board argues the stewardship lands should be treated differently because much of the land is farmed or used for pine forests.

The finding on gold is one of many recommendations included in a tribunal report on the Hauraki claims, released on Saturday.

The inquiry, headed by Dame Augusta Wallace, covered 56 claims, including the southern part of Tikapa Moana (the Hauraki Gulf and its islands), Coromandel Peninsula and the lower Waihou and Piako Valleys. The region covers 60 per cent of the total area subject to Hauraki claims.

It dealt with colonisation under the British Crown, the extraction of resources from the region - mainly gold and kauri - and the purchase, mainly by the Crown, of all land in the inquiry district except 2.6 per cent remaining in Maori ownership.

The report found the 12 iwi - with a population of about 14,000, most of whom live outside the region - were due "substantive restitution" as a result of being marginalised by the transfer of land and resources to others, including other Maori.

But it did not uphold the claimants' assertion that the Crown's ownership of gold in the national interest was in itself a Treaty breach.

Under the Crown Minerals Act the Crown owns gold, silver, petroleum and uranium and will not transfer ownership of those minerals as part of Treaty settlements.

Evidence before the High Court last year estimated gold reserves of up to $30 billion may still exist on the Coromandel Peninsula, but mining is a political hot potato in the region.

The tribunal found there were "good reasons for public ownership of precious resources", but that in the 19th century Hauraki Maori were prejudiced by much heavier regulation of gold-mining on Maori land than on non-Maori land.

However, it found that "given gold was manifestly not a traditional taonga, we do not consider that Maori claims to ownership of gold separately from the land in which gold is found are so strong as to warrant making an exception for Maori.

"Gold acquired a value for Maori only after New Zealand's entry into the European economic order and it is not unreasonable that its exploitation should [have] been regulated."

Board Treaty claims manager John McEnteer said "the gold and mineral issue was a key aspect of our claim. The iwi has never claimed gold was a taonga, but we are saying we own the land and everything in it. We asked whether continued Crown ownership [of gold] was a Treaty breach."

Hauraki was seeking the return of significant chunks of the DoC stewardship land, much of it used for sheep and beef farming and commercial pine forests, he said.

He declined to comment on what the trust board's approach to mining would be in the event it was successful in returning the land to private ownership, but said valuable stone and aggregate quarries were of more economic interest to the iwi.

The tribunal ruled that a recommendation from a 1939 commission, that Hauraki iwi be paid £30,000 to £40,000 ($60,000 to $80,000) after being ill advised by Governments on the sale of land used for gold prospecting, should be "implemented fully".

After inflation and interest are taken into account, that could be worth $650 million today.

Mr McEnteer has said the iwi are seeking a settlement worth more than $100 million.

KEY TRIBUNAL FINDINGS

* Hauraki iwi lost large areas of their land due to the raupatu (confiscation) of the 1860s, and received very little compensation either in land or money.

* A Maori Land Court 1939-40 commission recommendation - never upheld - that Maori who sold freehold land already subject to gold-mining cessions were not well advised and were owed substantial redress, should be implemented.

* Most Hauraki land was acquired by the Crown under pre-emptive (monopoly) right and as Maori generally could not sell or lease their land on the open market, this was a Treaty breach.

* That the loss of land and other taonga led to the poverty and social dislocation of Hauraki Maori, which the state did too little to address.

* Claims to foreshore and seabed had been already addressed by the tribunal in its 2004 report on the Crown's (then) foreshore and seabed policy.

* There was insufficient evidence to judge the fairness of prices paid to iwi for kauri, but that sales of lands over which timber merchants held cutting rights were unfavourable to Maori.

* Hauraki Maori are owed "substantive" redress.