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The Waitangi Tribunal’s Horowhenua: The Muaūpoko Priority Report was released on 30 June 2017. It concerns 30 claims relating to Muaūpoko, an iwi of the lower North Island.

In her letter of transmittal Deputy Chief Judge Caren Fox described Muaūpoko as ‘an ancient, proud, and dignified people who once ranged over an area that reached into the northern end of Manawatū, across the Tararua Ranges, and down into the top of the South Island’. One of their tupuna, Taueki, signed the Treaty of Waitangi in May 1840.

Muaūpoko’s claims are part of the Porirua ki Manawatū district inquiry. The Tribunal heard these claims as a priority in 2015–16, at the request of claimants, in order to provide a report before settlement negotiations were well advanced.

The inquiry panel comprised Deputy Chief Judge Caren Fox (presiding), Emeritus Professor Sir Tamati Reedy, Dr Grant Phillipson, the Honourable Sir Douglas Kidd, and Tania Simpson. The Tribunal convened a two-day Nga Kōrero Tuku Iho hui in February 2014 to hear oral and traditional evidence from the people. Three hearing weeks were held between October and December 2015. The parties made closing submissions in writing between February and May 2016.

Muaūpoko’s claims focused on their lands at Horowhenua and their treasured taonga Lake Horowhenua and the Hōkio Stream. The environmental degradation of the lake and associated waterways was an especially strong grievance for Muaūpoko. Claimant Philip Taueki told the Tribunal that the polluted state of these precious taonga ‘epitomises the Crown’s appalling and disgusting treatment of Mua-Upoko ever since the day Tauheke signed the Treaty of Waitangi’.

Deputy Chief Judge Fox noted that the Crown assisted the Tribunal’s inquiry by making a number of significant concessions of Treaty breach. These included admissions that some legislation and Crown acts have prejudiced Muaūpoko and that Muaūpoko were made virtually landless, in breach of the Treaty.

The Tribunal accepted the Crown concessions and identified several other important Treaty breaches in relation to Muaūpoko’s Horowhenua lands. The Tribunal found that the Native Land Court and the individualisation of tribal land was imposed on Muaūpoko in the 1870s, and that the Crown purchased the Levin township site in the 1880s in a way which was significantly unfair to Muaūpoko. The Tribunal also found that Muaūpoko were subjected to a number of significant Treaty breaches in the 1890s. By the end of the twentieth century, they had been rendered landless.

The Tribunal found serious Treaty breaches in relation to Crown actions and omissions in respect of Lake Horowhenua and the Hōkio Stream. In the early 1900s, the Crown made Lake Horowhenua, the bed of which belonged to Muaūpoko, a public recreation reserve, giving control of it to a domain board. The Tribunal found that this was done without the full agreement of the Muaūpoko owners, and that a series of significant Treaty breaches followed in the way the lake has been controlled and administered, including an inadequate attempt by the Crown to remedy these matters in 1956. The Tribunal also found that the Crown took an unusually active role in respect of Lake Horowhenua and the Hōkio Stream, and that the Crown was complicit in the pollution and environmental degradation of these taonga.

The Tribunal recommended that the Crown negotiate with Muaūpoko a Treaty settlement that will address the harm suffered, and that the settlement include a contemporary Muaūpoko governance structure with responsibility for the administration of the settlement.

The Tribunal further recommended that the Crown legislate as soon as possible for a contemporary Muaūpoko governance structure to act as kaitiaki for Lake Horowhenua and the Hōkio Stream, and associated waters and fisheries. This will require the Crown to undertake detailed negotiations with the Lake Horowhenua Trustees, the lake bed owners, and all of Muaūpoko.

The Tribunal recommended that the Crown provide to the new Lake Horowhenua Muaūpoko governance structure annual appropriations to assist it to meet its kaitiaki obligations in accordance with its legislative obligations.

The Tribunal noted that it had not yet heard the claims of or made recommendations in respect of Ngāti Raukawa and Te Āti Awa/Ngāti Awa ki Kapiti. Those iwi will be heard as part of forthcoming Porirua ki Manawatū hearings.