What is the Wai 2800 Inquiry into Remaining Historical Claims?

The Wai 2800, Inquiry into Remaining Historical Claims was set up in September 2018 to hear any remaining Treaty claims with outstanding historical claim issues that have not yet been heard or resolved to date, and that claimants still wish to bring before the Tribunal.

What is a historical claim?

A historical claim is a claim that:

was lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal on or before 1 September 2008; and
relates to Crown enactments, policies, practices, acts or omissions that occurred before 21 September 1992 – regardless of whether the claim also raises later issues occurring after 21 September 1992.

Why is the Tribunal reviewing its historical claims now?

Over time, most historical claims have either been addressed in Tribunal district inquiries (and subsequently often addressed in Treaty settlements), have been addressed in other Tribunal inquiries, or the claimants have advised they no longer wish to proceed with their claim.

As the Tribunal approaches the completion of its district inquiry programme, it is timely to address any remaining historical claims with outstanding historical claim issues.

The Tribunal has also recently released its Strategic Direction: 2025-2035, which sets out a strategic goal of completing the Inquiry into Remaining Historical Claims by 2030.

If you are a claimant with a historical claim:

If you:

have a historical claim with the Waitangi Tribunal; and
have outstanding historical claim issues that have not been addressed or are not being addressed in other Tribunal inquiries;

you must advise the Waitangi Tribunal whether you intend to participate in this Inquiry into Remaining Historical Claims.

This applies to all claimants who submitted historical claims up to or on the statutory deadline of 1 September 2008. To check whether your claim was filed before the statutory deadline, please contact the Tribunal’s Registrar at WT.Registrar@justice.govt.nz or check the list of claims below.

Please e-mail your indication via the template which can be found on the Tribunal’s website to the Waitangi Tribunal’s Registrar at WT.Registrar@justice.govt.nz by Monday 11 May 2026.

If the Waitangi Tribunal does not receive an indication or response from you, the Tribunal will regard you as not seeking an inquiry into your historical claim, and the claim may be dismissed.

You should also note that, with the exception of other inquiries currently underway, the Tribunal will not hold any further inquiries into historical claims under its Strategic Direction 2025-2035.

List of claims received on or before 1 September 2008

A list of all claims received by the Tribunal on or before 1 September 2008 (the statutory deadline for lodging a historical claim) is provided as a pdf attachment below.

Please note that this claims list:

includes claims that are not eligible to participate in this inquiry, including claims that were received before the statutory deadline but are contemporary in nature;
includes claims that are not within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction to inquire into, including claims that have been previously reported on, or fully settled through legislation;
has been taken directly from the Waitangi Tribunal database and may therefore include information that is no longer current, or was entered incorrectly at the time; and
does not include ‘wai’ numbers that were allocated specifically to Tribunal inquiries that heard and reported on multiple claims such as ‘Wai 143’ covering the Taranaki claims, ‘Wai 215’ covering the Tauranga Moana claims, and ‘Wai 686’ covering the Hauraki claims.

What happens next?

Once the Tribunal has received the claimant responses, the Tribunal will:

assess the responses; and
convene a judicial conference to discuss how the inquiry will proceed.

For more information, please see the recent memorandum-directions of the Presiding Officer Judge Wara regarding the inquiry which are on the Tribunal’s website as well as attached to this letter.