Re the letter Ancestral Lands (14/4/15), I would like to enlighten Jane Tana that Maori are New Zealand citizens and as such have all the rights and responsibilities of that citizenship, which includes paying rates.
She can live the "idyllic" lifestyle if she wishes but she should notexpect fellow New Zealanders to subsidise her rates or those of Maori ancestral land.
The fact is British property laws gave tribes title to their lands which prevented the loss of these lands to another tribe by the law of the club.
New Zealand has a total land area of 26.8 million hectares, 1.2 million hectares were confiscated during 1860s sovereignty wars, the bulk of which was returned to Maori shortly thereafter via compensation commissions.
There is currently around 1.47 million hectares of Maori land, including customary land. The wicked white coloniser did not "take" land and natural resources from Maori as Jane Tana claims.
Landowner Maori sold up to 25.33 million hectares in hundreds of transactions painstakingly recorded in Turton's deeds posted for all to see on the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre of Victoria University.
Turton's deeds also reveal that the sales included "trees, minerals, waters, rivers, lakes, streams, and all pertaining to the said land or beneath the surface of the said land". These were standard deeds used in all transactions of that time.
The claim that Maori had everything taken from them is in fact a repeated lie.
