Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Orakei Claim

09 Pride and Protest 1977-1978

9.4 The Assessment of Competing Claims

The moderates moved quickly, arranging a meeting with the Minister of Lands
on 18 February 1977. The Minister moved quickly too establishing a few days
later a joint Planning Study Group to consider how the competing claims
might be accommodated within a land use planning strategy.

The Maori land claim should have been resolved first in our view. The
determination of best land use was a distinct issue and acceptance of one
ought not to have been contingent on support for the other.

Nonetheless, in an attempt to reconcile the two, provision was made for the
Ngati Whatua community to elect a representative to the Group. At a
community meeting at which all families were represented Professor Kawharu
was chosen. He was appointed along with a representative for each the
Crown, City Council and Regional Authority. The Group was backed by a
planning team drawn from the central and local authorities.

The Study Group was required to respect 'the identity and possible
requirements of the existing Ngati Whatua community' but had no authority to
determine the claim itself. In the result while the Study Group heard evidence,
the Government continued to receive submissions from each the marae
trustees, Action Group and moderates for settlement of the Maori land claim.
The Study Group itself heard fifty one groups, one on behalf of the Orakei and
Ngati Whatua people.

It was then that a third 'Maori' claim was manifest. At a meeting with the
Minister of Lands at Orakei Marae on 13 March, the moderates reiterated their
claim to the ten acre exchange block and the housing estate. The Action
Group repeated their claim to all the undeveloped Crown Lands and control
of the marae. The latter presented three petitions, 59 signatories supporting
the Action Group's action, 243 supporting the return of all Crown Land at
Orakei to Ngati Whatua and 4800 signing a petition that could be read as
supporting either the return of that land or its retention for Auckland. The
marae trustees were there too. It was thought they would simply repeat their
earlier claim for more land to be added to Orakei Marae. In fact they produced
a massive research document in support of a claim to the existing homes and
the ten acres sought by both other claimants; the latter to house "persons of
any race involved in the activities on the marae" and the rents from both to
support the marae to benefit, of course, all people. Needless to say Ngati
Whatua were incensed. Once again they were expected to take second place
to the interests of Maori generally and the concept of a multi-cultural marae.

The occasion marks a rapid decline in the fortunes of the marae trustees. The
Government, not surprisingly, preferred increasingly to deal only with the
Ngati Whatua moderates, to distance itself from the marae trustees, and to
seek the removal of the Action Group from Bastion Point.

Removal of the protestors became a priority as more people gathered there
and distant tribal groups made formal visits to display their support. On 28
April 1977 the New Zealand Herald reported the Minister of Lands as saying
"if the squatters did not move soon, proposals he wanted to put to cabinet
would be jeopardised". The same message was relayed at a further meeting
with the moderates on 11 May. As reported in the Auckland Star on 18 May,
the Minister was willing to recommend the vesting of land in Ngati Whatua
provided the protesters vacated. Thereupon 18 elders went to the protest
camp to plead with the Action Group to go lest an imminent settlement was
upset.

Father MP Shirres, who spent much time with the protestors, referred to his
article published in the New Zealand Herald on 23 May describing the event,
and the discussion at the marae on 11 May before the elders went to the camp.
The choice he thought, was that the protestors had to leave or the tribe would
get nothing. He described as one of his saddest nights, that night "with the
Orakei Maori Committee, and seeing the anguish they suffered over the choice
the Cabinet and the Minister of Lands put to them. Would they reject the
kaumatua and all the kaumatua stood for, or would they disown their people
on Bastion Point?" "I was so sorry" said Michael Rameka, "but things had
gone too far". The Action Group decided to stay but insisted, against his own
wishes, that JP Hawke leave, to be a voice for the Group "on the outside".

The matter by now had political connotations. On I July, while the Minister
for Maori Affairs held a meeting with JP Hawke at Orakei, along with Dame
Whina Cooper and the President of the New Zealand Maori Council, the
Opposition spokesperson on Maori Affairs introduced a Private Members Bill
to transfer to a Ngati Whatua Board some 80 acres of the undeveloped Crown
Lands, not including Okahu Domain, the Battery Reserve or Takaparawha
Point.

The Bill was doomed to failure. Instead on 7 July the Minister of Lands
announced that civil proceedings had been filed in the Supreme Court "to
end the unlawful occupation of Crown Land at Bastion Point".

On 13 August the elders wrote to the Minister of Maori Affairs to distance
themselves from the Action Group whom they could not persuade to leave.
They wrote

We wish to state emphatically we give no support whatever to the various widely
publicised proposals, claims and allegations made on our behalf. While we recognise
the democratic right of individuals to express personal opinions, we deny anyone
the right to speak for the Ngati Whatua of Orakei on any subject without our
collective consent and the authority of the Kaumatua.

That stated their position clearly enough but left the Action Group with the
rejoinder that the moderates revised tribal policy had itself been conveyed to
the Commissioner of Crown Lands, in their opinion, without the prior
collective consent of the tribe.

The elders then identified themselves by genealogy showing their connection
to the blocks for which reparation was sought so underlining their prior right
to speak. The pragmatic difficulty was that negated the traditional proposition
that the land ought to have been held unpartitioned for all, and presumed the
descendants of former owners in other blocks had no case. An owner in the
papakainga block when it was compulsorily acquired was, for example, Te
Mamae Hira Pateoro, a direct descendant of Te Kawau and grandmother of J
P Hawke.

Nonetheless the elders referred to the 1898 partition which they said was
illegal and resulted, it was claimed, in the eventual loss of the estate. Still they
said, if their claim was accepted, Ngati Whatua would relinquish all claims
against the Crown arising from the partition and support the balance of the
Government's 1976 scheme. That at least left open the prospect of other
claims not founded on the partition. Indeed we consider the real cause of
Ngati Whatua's problem was not the partitions but the original Orakei Order
and the Legislature's failure to provide for tribal ownership.

The letter was nonetheless impressive and effectively disowned the Action
Group. It counteracts the popular view that the Government forced a division
by dealing only with the elders. The letter stated in no uncertain terms that
Government ought not to deal with anyone but them and it would have been
hard for any Government not to heed it.

Meanwhile, though the Government was keen to effect a settlement with the
moderates, the moderates preferred to await the report of the Joint Planning
Study Group (on which Ngati Whatua had representation).

Amongst the Action Group an air of despondency followed the death of 9 year
old Joanna Hawke in an accidental fire at the camp and the supporters in actual
residence dwindled to their lowest number of about twenty.