Former Waitangi Tribunal member Robyn Anderson grills one of the Crown lawyers during Te Raki inquiry hearing in 2017. Photo / Northern Advocate
The Waitangi Tribunal wants local government to enable shared decision-making or other forms of collaboration with iwi and hapū.
It wants the Government to require local government, including regional councils, to develop partnership agreements with hapū and iwi, as appropriate.
And it wants the Crown to enter discussions with northern Māori on constitutional processes to give effect to their Treaty rights.
The recommendations are part of a 658-page report in one of the tribunal’s, longest-running inquiries, Te Paparahi o Te Raki, covering claims in areas north of Auckland that have not been the subject of previous tribunal reports.
It is the third report in the inquiry, which first began hearing in 2010.
The first report found that northern rangatira did not cede sovereignty to the Crown in 1840 when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. The main focus of the stage two report (released in three volumes) was specific claims concerning land issues and Māori-Crown engagement in the 19th century.
This fourth volume looks at local government and what it describes as “attempts of Te Raki hapū and iwi to assert tino rangatiratanga in the face of the Crown’s increasingly overpowering political authority at both national and local levels”.
The tribunal says when rangatira signed the Treaty of Waitangi, they agreed to share power with the Crown as equals, through the complementary spheres of tino rangatiratanga and kāwanatanga.
“Instead, the Crown asserted itself as the dominant partner, establishing a system of government that prioritised Pākehā interests over those of Māori. By the turn of the twentieth century, this assertion of practical authority was largely complete.”
The tribunal said that while the Crown tolerated some degree of Māori self-government, including the establishment of Māori Councils in 1900, such organisations were restricted to operate within a strict framework set by the Crown, and their actual powers were considerably limited.
“In short, Te Raki Māori were forced to accept what little autonomy the Crown would allow, rather than the tino rangatiratanga guaranteed to them under the Treaty.”
There were very few elected Māori representatives in the Pākehā-dominated local and regional councils for much of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a summary of the report says.
Despite attempts of Te Raki Māori to engage on issues of importance to them – issues which the Crown itself was eager to see resolved, such as the construction of roads in the district – local authorities generally considered Māori knowledge to be irrelevant.
And for many decades, very few Te Raki Māori were eligible to participate in local body elections, as voting was contingent upon the payment of rates.
The handling of rates was a key source of tension between Te Raki Māori and local authorities, the report says.
Initially, local councils faced difficulties in rating land in multiple ownership and did not attempt to extend rating to multiple-owned Māori land.
But as pressure to address Māori rates arrears grew, councils began to enforce rates debts upon Te Raki Māori through the rapid increase of rates demands, and the alienation of Māori land.
“Even after this change, Māori were slow to engage with local authorities with whom they had had very limited interactions for decades,” the summary said.
“By contrast, local authorities increasingly dictated and restricted how Māori land could be used.”
The tribunal found that instead of recognising Māori tino rangatiratanga, and sharing authority as guaranteed under the Treaty, the Crown consistently denied Te Raki Māori a voice over their own affairs, and a proportionate voice in the governance of the country.
The tribunal questioned whether such a voice was ever achievable within the political framework established by the Crown.
The tribunal found that the Crown had breached the following treaty principles: tino rangatiratanga; good government; partnership; mutual recognition and respect; active protection; mutual benefit and the right to development; equity; and redress.
As well as the new recommendations, the tribunal reiterated three of its recommendations from the previous report that:
Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith said the Government had received the report and would consider it in due course.
“Our government has made good progress mandating various hapu groups of Ngāpuhi.
“Separately, this week we passed legislation which returns Kororipo Pā. Progressing negotiations remains a priority.”