Black Power veteran asks Supreme Court to hear fight against Taranaki eviction

Kevin Moore has been illegally occupying Māori coastal land in Taranaki for the past 11 years.

A veteran Black Power member facing eviction from the coastal Māori land he has been illegally occupying for the past decade has asked the country’s highest court to hear his fight to stay put, stating it involves a matter of general or public importance.

Kevin Moore’s latest and final move in his years-long battle to be recognised as tangata whenua of a Waitara East Beach site has seen his lawyer, Charl Hirschfeld, apply to the Supreme Court for leave to challenge a recent Court of Appeal judgment that dismissed his bid to remain on the land.

Moore, who moved to the Taranaki beachside property in 2013, has long argued he is a descendant of the site and it is his right to live there. He built himself a house overlooking the ocean and has continued to ignore orders to leave by the Rohutu Block Trust that manages the area.

In 2018, the Māori Land Court approved Moore’s eviction but also gave him immediate leave to file further information to establish his links to the land. A stay regarding the eviction was granted, with which the trust agreed.

Moore, who is legally aided, took his argument up the chain to other courts but has so far been unsuccessful.

However, there is no legal recourse beyond the Supreme Court, the final appeal court of New Zealand.

In the application to the Supreme Court, released to NZME, Hirschfeld proposed an appeal on six grounds including that the Court of Appeal had erred by not finding the Māori Land Court was obliged to consider whether or not its orders were founded on error, in finding that this was not a proper case for the comity issue to be ventilated, and in its interpretation of several sections of Te Ture Whenua Māori Act.

Hirschfeld submitted the Supreme Court should give leave to hear and determine the appeal because it involved a matter of general or public importance.

“In particular, novel issues of law in NZ are at large, tikanga and law converge, and the role of the Māori Land Court needs to be determined by the Supreme Court.”

He sought for the legal issues at large to be resolved by the Supreme Court, for the factual issues to be remitted back to the Māori Land Court and for Moore to be permitted to remain on the property until a final decision from the lower court.

Submissions from all parties were expected to be filed by mid-July and then the Supreme Court would make a ruling on the application for leave to appeal in the following months.

The eviction stay would automatically lift if Moore’s application fails.

Claims of ancestral ties to the land

Moore, in his 60s, has argued his tīpuna was wrongfully omitted from the 1884 Crown grant, which listed the holding’s beneficiaries.

In 1958, a partition order was made by the Māori Land Court in respect of the same block. The beneficiaries identified in that order were the descendants of most of the original owners named in the Crown grant, but do not include Moore or his tīpuna.

There are about 30 homes in the Rohotu Block at Waitara's East Beach.

The trust, which manages about 8ha of Māori freehold land at the beach under Te Ture Whenua Māori Land Act 1993, said Moore was a “squatter”. It has argued he was not a beneficiary of the land nor did he have a lease to reside there.

Even if he could prove he was tangata whenua, the trust was not obliged to give him a lease.

The home he built himself was without consent from the New Plymouth District Council and he has not paid anything to be there.

According to trustees, Moore, who has been affiliated with Black Power for more than three decades, has entertained gang members at the property.

Before he took up residency, the community at Rohutu was “low-key and harmonious” but they say the community was now “anxious and afraid”. Currently, there are about 30 homes in the Rohutu Block.

After Moore was given leave to apply to have the list of block owners amended to include his tīpuna, the Chief Māori Land Court judge rejected that application.

His application to the High Court to review the decision of the Māori Land Court was later dismissed, and then the Court of Appeal rejected his latest challenge.

Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.