Final Ngāpuhi Waitangi Tribunal report on treaty breaches to be presented

Waitangi Tribunal Judge Craig Coxhead and late Ngāpuhi leader Erima Henare at the tribunal’s Stage 2 Te Paparahi o te Raki Hearing in 2012. The report on the hearing will be handed over to the Hapu of Ngāpuhi at Waitangi on December 9

A significant final report by the Waitangi Tribunal will be handed over to the hapū of Ngāpuhi on December 9 at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.

The report - the final report of Stage 2 Te Paparahi o te Raki Hearing Report (Part 1) - as a draft, provided several provocative and challenging recommendations.

The almost 2000-page draft report details the findings of the Tribunal’s years-long inquiry into Treaty breaches, land loss and military action suffered by Ngāpuhi between 1840 and 1900.

The report also urges the Government to return all Crown-owned land in Ngāpuhi’s tribal area - and to start talks with Māori about reworking New Zealand’s constitutional framework in the light of an earlier finding that Ngāpuhi chiefs did not cede sovereignty when they signed The Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.

The report follows 27 weeks of hearings held between 2013 and 2017 on marae around Te Paparahi o te Raki, an area spanning from Mangamuka to Waitemata.

The hearings focused on everything from old land claims, the operation of the Native Land Court, local government and rating, to ownership and management of the environment and water.

Waitangi Tribunal member Kihi Ngatai addresses the hosts at Te Rawhiti Marae when the tribunal visited the Bay of Islands during week two of stage two hearings in Te Paparahi o Te Raki (Northern Inquiry), on May 13, 2013

The draft report was presented to about 400 representatives of the hapū of Ngāpuhi at Waitangi last December. After the presentation of the draft and recommendations the tribunal asked for feedback, which has been incorporated into the final report, to be received on December 9.

Pita Tipene, Chair of Te Kotahitanga o nga Hapū Ngāpuhi, said the final report of Part 1 was much anticipated given the vigorous lobbying for the full hearings to be held so that the voices of the people could be heard in public. Others from the iwi favoured direct negotiations with the Crown and a bypassing of the hearings process.

Tipene said that through the hearings process the stories, the tears and heartache as well as the aspiration for a better future by whanau and hapū, was crucial in the people collectively understanding past injustices as well as to start a healing process.

Te Kotahitanga had been the forum over those many years where hapū were able to regularly gather and coordinate themselves for the hearings.

This Stage 2 report follows the Stage 1 report released by the Tribunal in November 2014. That report underscored to hapū what they have always known - that sovereignty had not been ceded when the Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed on February 6, 1840.

In preparation for the handover on December 9, Te Kotahitanga will host a hapū hui on November 28 at the Taheke marae in the Hokianga. The hui will start with a powhiri at 10am.