Post by Kiwi Frontline on Jan 26, 2020 4:25:37 GMT 12
NOT A LEG TO STAND ON - By Peter Hemmingson
Scrutiny attracted by Ihumatao’s illegal occupiers has turned up information that undermines claims of long association with the land, and shows why land there was confiscated.
Protest leader Pania Newton said her Te Kawerau a Maki iwi had lived at Ihumatao for hundreds of years, yet they weren’t regarded as the landowners there in 1848 when Ngati Whatua, considered to have mana whenua, sold land there to settlers.
Newton says the illegally occupied land was ‘stolen’ but neglects to mention the land was confiscated because the people there sided with tribes fighting against the Crown.
A letter from a district commissioner at the time confirmed that Ngati Whatua in 1848 sold land at Ihumatao to settlers named Geddes and Imlay. [1] Te Kawerau a Maki’s settlement deed shows numerous instances in which they say they were ignored in land transactions in Auckland.
The punishment aspect of confiscation has been downplayed since 1985, in the most recent round of compensation payments, giving rise to the view that Maori land was taken from innocents.
This view ignores the complexities of 10 years of sporadic armed conflict in New Zealand from 1860 that spread from Taranaki and involved fighters from Waikato.
In this conflict, some Maori fought for the Government and some against. As a result, Maori were required to take an oath of allegiance to show which side they were on.
When the Government moved against Waikato fighters in 1863, starting from Auckland, Ihumatao Maori refused to take the oath and left for the Waikato, according to a letter from H. Halse to the Government dated July 11, 1863.[2]
This refusal shows that people living in Ihumatao chose loyalty to Waikato relatives who fought against the Government over loyalty to the Government.
After Waikato fighting finished, 1100 acres or 445 hectares in Ihumatao were confiscated under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863. This was a consequence of opposing the Government either by fighting against it, or by supporting or conspiring with rebels.
Native Compensation Courts were set up under the Act to deal with complaints and several applicants from Ihumatao were heard in 1866.
Puketapapa, the site of Newton’s protest, was ruled to have been lost forever to Te Ahiwaru on account of “the whole tribe” rebelling. Other owners at Ihumatao had 260 acres (105ha) returned, leaving 840 acres (340ha) that remained confiscated.[3]
Gavin Wallace of County Argyll, Scotland, moved on to land there in 1867, either by grant, lease, or purchase. If it was by grant, as Newton says, it could be under Section 16 of the Act in return for military service.
In 1998, the Wallace family sold the Stonefields part of their farm to Manukau City Council, the Auckland Regional Authority, and Department of Conservation, for well below market value.[4] That, plus land sold by three other farmers, became the 100ha Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve.
In June 2015, Fletcher Residential bought the remainder of the Wallace farm and proposed to build 480 homes.
Te Kawerau a Maki iwi inked a Treaty settlement in 2015 that included financial redress of $6.5 million and more.[5] The Deed of Settlement does not mention confiscated land, although the Te Kawerau a Maki website says that land was confiscated.
Former Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Chris Finlayson has told Magic’s Sean Plunket that the treaty negotiations covering Ihumatao are "full and final.”
Following extensive negotiations between the Crown and Te Kawarau a Maki, a full and final settlement was arrived at of all the tribe’s outstanding Treaty grievances. This was given effect to by Act of Parliament in the Te Kawerau a Maki Claims Settlement Act 2015.
Finlayson was explicit in stating that this settlement was full and final. He also made it clear that the same Green Party now supporting the Ihumatao illegal occupiers backed the Te Kawerau a Maki Claims Act into law at the time.
www.magic.co.nz/home/news/2019/07/treaty-settlements-concerning-ihumtao-are--full-and-final----chr.html
Under the Treaty Settlement process, private land cannot be used to settle Treaty grievances. This derives from the legal principle that one injustice cannot be remedied by creating another, since the current owner of disputed land purchased it in good faith from an earlier legal owner, regardless of how it came to be alienated from Maori customary title in the first place.
This explains why redress under the Treaty settlement process typically involves a cash payment, transfer of surplus Crown land in a tribe’s rohe, and options on further Crown land that may become surplus at some point in the future.
What we have at Ihumatao is a raggedy-arsed band of illegal occupiers prepared to ignore Te Kawarau a Maki’s full and final settlement; squatting on private land and preventing Fletchers from going about its lawful business. They should be ordered by police to leave, then batoned to the ground and dragged off to jail if they won’t go.
Even had there been no full and final settlement, there is reasonable doubt that the disputed land was in fact confiscated after the Waikato War of 1863 as the protesters and their supporters today assert.
Protest leaders need to explain why the land claimed to have been confiscated does not appear on a map of post-1840 government confiscations. That map on the “Confiscation” page of the Government’s Te Ara Encyclopaedia at teara.govt.nz/en/zoomify/25776/land-confiscation shows all confiscation areas in the North Island.
Ihumatao, which is to the west of Auckland Airport on the Mangere side of Manukau Harbour, is far away from the confiscation line that extends only to the southern shore of that harbour.
Someone clearly doesn’t have a leg to stand on here.
The police must uphold the rights of the landowner by evicting the illegal occupiers.
Rather than giving the illegal occupiers any further oxygen, the Government must state that Treaty settlements involving that area are full and final, to allow both Te Kawerau a Maki and Fletchers to proceed with their lawful business.
[1] John Grant’s description of Oruarangi, nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-TurEpit-t1-g1-t3-g1-t9-g1-t22-body1-d2.html
[2] Letter, H. Halse. www.flickr.com/photos/archivesnz/48377496731/
[3] Confiscated lands and other grievances, 1928. P16. atojs.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/atojs?a=d&d=AJHR1928-I.2.2.6.13&e=-------10--1------0--&
[4] www.noted.co.nz/planet/planet-planet/photo-essay-ihumatao-and-the-otuataua-stonefields-historic-reserve
[5] www.govt.nz/treaty-settlement-documents/te-kawerau-a-maki/
Scrutiny attracted by Ihumatao’s illegal occupiers has turned up information that undermines claims of long association with the land, and shows why land there was confiscated.
Protest leader Pania Newton said her Te Kawerau a Maki iwi had lived at Ihumatao for hundreds of years, yet they weren’t regarded as the landowners there in 1848 when Ngati Whatua, considered to have mana whenua, sold land there to settlers.
Newton says the illegally occupied land was ‘stolen’ but neglects to mention the land was confiscated because the people there sided with tribes fighting against the Crown.
A letter from a district commissioner at the time confirmed that Ngati Whatua in 1848 sold land at Ihumatao to settlers named Geddes and Imlay. [1] Te Kawerau a Maki’s settlement deed shows numerous instances in which they say they were ignored in land transactions in Auckland.
The punishment aspect of confiscation has been downplayed since 1985, in the most recent round of compensation payments, giving rise to the view that Maori land was taken from innocents.
This view ignores the complexities of 10 years of sporadic armed conflict in New Zealand from 1860 that spread from Taranaki and involved fighters from Waikato.
In this conflict, some Maori fought for the Government and some against. As a result, Maori were required to take an oath of allegiance to show which side they were on.
When the Government moved against Waikato fighters in 1863, starting from Auckland, Ihumatao Maori refused to take the oath and left for the Waikato, according to a letter from H. Halse to the Government dated July 11, 1863.[2]
This refusal shows that people living in Ihumatao chose loyalty to Waikato relatives who fought against the Government over loyalty to the Government.
After Waikato fighting finished, 1100 acres or 445 hectares in Ihumatao were confiscated under the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863. This was a consequence of opposing the Government either by fighting against it, or by supporting or conspiring with rebels.
Native Compensation Courts were set up under the Act to deal with complaints and several applicants from Ihumatao were heard in 1866.
Puketapapa, the site of Newton’s protest, was ruled to have been lost forever to Te Ahiwaru on account of “the whole tribe” rebelling. Other owners at Ihumatao had 260 acres (105ha) returned, leaving 840 acres (340ha) that remained confiscated.[3]
Gavin Wallace of County Argyll, Scotland, moved on to land there in 1867, either by grant, lease, or purchase. If it was by grant, as Newton says, it could be under Section 16 of the Act in return for military service.
In 1998, the Wallace family sold the Stonefields part of their farm to Manukau City Council, the Auckland Regional Authority, and Department of Conservation, for well below market value.[4] That, plus land sold by three other farmers, became the 100ha Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve.
In June 2015, Fletcher Residential bought the remainder of the Wallace farm and proposed to build 480 homes.
Te Kawerau a Maki iwi inked a Treaty settlement in 2015 that included financial redress of $6.5 million and more.[5] The Deed of Settlement does not mention confiscated land, although the Te Kawerau a Maki website says that land was confiscated.
Former Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Chris Finlayson has told Magic’s Sean Plunket that the treaty negotiations covering Ihumatao are "full and final.”
Following extensive negotiations between the Crown and Te Kawarau a Maki, a full and final settlement was arrived at of all the tribe’s outstanding Treaty grievances. This was given effect to by Act of Parliament in the Te Kawerau a Maki Claims Settlement Act 2015.
Finlayson was explicit in stating that this settlement was full and final. He also made it clear that the same Green Party now supporting the Ihumatao illegal occupiers backed the Te Kawerau a Maki Claims Act into law at the time.
www.magic.co.nz/home/news/2019/07/treaty-settlements-concerning-ihumtao-are--full-and-final----chr.html
Under the Treaty Settlement process, private land cannot be used to settle Treaty grievances. This derives from the legal principle that one injustice cannot be remedied by creating another, since the current owner of disputed land purchased it in good faith from an earlier legal owner, regardless of how it came to be alienated from Maori customary title in the first place.
This explains why redress under the Treaty settlement process typically involves a cash payment, transfer of surplus Crown land in a tribe’s rohe, and options on further Crown land that may become surplus at some point in the future.
What we have at Ihumatao is a raggedy-arsed band of illegal occupiers prepared to ignore Te Kawarau a Maki’s full and final settlement; squatting on private land and preventing Fletchers from going about its lawful business. They should be ordered by police to leave, then batoned to the ground and dragged off to jail if they won’t go.
Even had there been no full and final settlement, there is reasonable doubt that the disputed land was in fact confiscated after the Waikato War of 1863 as the protesters and their supporters today assert.
Protest leaders need to explain why the land claimed to have been confiscated does not appear on a map of post-1840 government confiscations. That map on the “Confiscation” page of the Government’s Te Ara Encyclopaedia at teara.govt.nz/en/zoomify/25776/land-confiscation shows all confiscation areas in the North Island.
Ihumatao, which is to the west of Auckland Airport on the Mangere side of Manukau Harbour, is far away from the confiscation line that extends only to the southern shore of that harbour.
Someone clearly doesn’t have a leg to stand on here.
The police must uphold the rights of the landowner by evicting the illegal occupiers.
Rather than giving the illegal occupiers any further oxygen, the Government must state that Treaty settlements involving that area are full and final, to allow both Te Kawerau a Maki and Fletchers to proceed with their lawful business.
[1] John Grant’s description of Oruarangi, nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-TurEpit-t1-g1-t3-g1-t9-g1-t22-body1-d2.html
[2] Letter, H. Halse. www.flickr.com/photos/archivesnz/48377496731/
[3] Confiscated lands and other grievances, 1928. P16. atojs.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/atojs?a=d&d=AJHR1928-I.2.2.6.13&e=-------10--1------0--&
[4] www.noted.co.nz/planet/planet-planet/photo-essay-ihumatao-and-the-otuataua-stonefields-historic-reserve
[5] www.govt.nz/treaty-settlement-documents/te-kawerau-a-maki/