The Crown party is led into Ngakaunui Wharenui at Aotearoa Pā.
The Crown party is led into Ngakaunui Wharenui at Aotearoa Pā.
Disdain, grave failures and immeasurable harm: that’s how the Crown has described its treatment of Māori since confiscating Taranaki Maunga and the surrounding lands 158 years ago.
Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little made the admission on Friday, before he and Taranaki’s eight iwi initialled a deal to end Crown ownership of the mountain and share control of the national park.
“In 1865, the Crown committed one of most grievous Treaty breaches in this country’s history when it confiscated 1.2 million acres of Taranaki land, including the maunga,” Little said at Aotearoa Pā.
“The Crown’s actions and omissions that breached the Treaty have caused immeasurable harm over many decades to Ngā iwi o Taranaki and to your tūpuna.”
“The relationship between Ngā iwi o Taranaki and the Crown has been characterised by grave Crown failures from almost the very beginning. The Crown not only failed to recognise the rangatiratanga of the hapū and iwi of Taranaki, but treated it with disdain.”
The Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Deed – Te Ruruku Pūtakerongo – recognises the peaks of the national park as ancestral mountains and they will jointly become a legal person: Te Kāhui Tupua.
Te Kāhui Tupua will own itself, ending Crown ownership, and the National Park Act will be amended to give Te Ruruku Pūtakerongo priority.
The deal has been negotiated over six years, but each iwi must now ratify it by a vote of members before it can become law.
The strength of feeling about the century-and-a-half of Crown control was clear in the haka pōwhiri, addresses by kaikōrero, and the waiata poi supporting them.
Ruakere Hond reminded the Department of Conservation that iwi want to re-establish traditional schools of learning on the maunga.
Te Kāhui o Taranaki tumuwhakarito Wharehoka Wano told the hui: “I dream of a time when we’re all speaking te reo, and that we can really understand the depth of the expression from our reo kōrero [spokespeople] and our poi and our karanga.”
Rukutai Watene said waiata, Māori historical narratives and whakataukī all proved the mana of the mountain lay with iwi.
He was one of many to pay tribute to the late Tihi Daisy Noble, the Ngāruahine kuia who had been on the maunga negotiation team.
“Ko ia tētehi o ngā kaikōrero o Ngāruahine hei whawhai i ngā wā katoa mō te hokinga mai o tō tātou maunga ki te iwi. Ko tēnei te rā e hoa mā, te timatanga o tērā whakaaro a ngā mātua tūpuna.”
Rauru Broughton said Taranaki’s descendants still carried the understanding the maunga was their tūpuna taketake, and knew what that meant.
Damon Ritai spoke of the ancestor Tahurangi lighting a fire at the peak of Taranaki Maunga, establishing ahi kā – a claim on the maunga continuing through his descendants forever.
Ruakere Hond said despite war and law, the mana of Taranaki Maunga remained, and Tahurangi’s ahi kā continued.
He called on the Department of Conservation to listen and understand, and said iwi had long waited to rebuild traditional schools of learning on the maunga.
Negotiator Hemi Sundgren drew attention to photos of campaigners for the return of the mountain who died in the decades-long effort, including Tihi Noble.
“Nāna mātou i akiaki, nāna mātou i pana kia tīka te reo ki mua i te aroaro o te karauna. Nāna hoki whakamārama mai a mātou kaua e wareware koutou i ngā kōrero o ngā matua.”
“Ko ēnei kua tae ki tēnei rā.”
Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Andrew Little and Minister of Conservation Willow-Jean Prime initial Te Ruruku Pūtakerongo, the redress deed.
Minister of Conservation Willow-Jean Prime thanked “Ngā iwi o Taranaki for their purpose and their unfaltering commitment to reaching this day”.
She echoed Wano’s wish that everyone could understand te reo Māori in order to hear the depth of mamae.
“I commend your tireless work to ensure that the future of ngā maunga will be forever transformed from the grievances and wrongs of the past, that we heard of, that have caused so much pain for so long.”
Under the agreement, the park would be governed jointly by Ngā iwi o Taranaki and the Minister of Conservation, each having equal say in approving management plans.
The face and voice of Te Kāhui Tupua would be represented by a group called Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi.
Little said its eight members would be appointed half by the Crown and half by iwi, “because the responsibility to care for this most special place rests with both Treaty partners”.
Te Tōpuni Kōkōrangi would work under Ngā Pou Whakatupua, “a set of values recorded in legislation which reflect cultural, spiritual, ancestral and historical relationships between Ngā iwi o Taranaki and Te Kāhui Tupua.”
“Everything that happens within Te Papakura o Taranaki [the national park] will be guided by those values.”
Lead negotiator Jamie Tuuta recalled the many generations who had sought justice.
“The sense of loss, the frustration, the anger, the disappointment, the despair, the sometimes hopelessness and helplessness, experienced over multiple generations.”
“So, e te iwi, today we remember their struggle, their fight, their tenacity, their fortitude, their humility … and their aroha, their generosity.”
“We trust that those who fought long and hard for our generation at a time much more hostile than today would be proud of the progress that we have made.”
“We believe the arrangements we have negotiated in Te Ruruku Pūtakerongo are the best that we can do, within the current circumstances and constraints.”
“We need to be positive and optimistic, whānau, that this framework will allow us to reciprocate and give back to our tūpuna maunga for all they have provided to us spiritually, culturally and physically.”
Local Democracy reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.
