We are frankly appalled by the events of the past and by the effect that they have had on the Manukau tribes.
The Waitangi Tribunal
The Manukau not only belongs to us, but we to it. We are a people begotton from within the depths of its waters.
Carmen Kirkwood
The Maori New Zealander points out, with justification, that at a time when his people outnumbered the European by over one hundred to one he agreed to allow the European to live and settle in New Zealand on terms and conditions solely agreed to in writing by both parties. He says that he has kept his side of the bargain throughout its existence.
The Waitangi Tribunal
The Manukau claim throws into relief the way in which it is said that the European New Zealander has failed to live up to his obligations.
The Waitangi Tribunal
Claim Wai 8, the Manukau claim, was brought by Nganeko Minhinnick for and on behalf of all the hapu of Waikato-Tainui and concerned the Manukau Harbour and its environs.
The claim alleged that, by failing to protect the Waikato-Tainui hapu in the use, ownership, and enjoyment of their lands and fisheries, the Crown had not met its Treaty responsibilities. And, further, that Crown policies in regard to discharges and water rights had caused ‘a serious and continuing deterioration in the quality and quantity of seafoods available to the Waikato-Tainui hapu’. The claim sought recommendations that the bed of the Manukau Harbour and the control of its waters be revested in the hapu; that a moratorium be imposed with respect to the granting of water rights affecting the harbour until such time as the ancestral and Treaty rights of the hapu had been investigated and protected; and that the Water and Soil Conservation Act 1967 be repealed and replaced by legislation that acknowledged, protected, and enhanced the rights of Maori people with respect to water and soil conservation matters.
In the Maori perspective, the Europeans are regarded as foolish or ignorant by some, and by others as simply ‘unschooled’. They fish anywhere at any time, make loud noises in the harbour, urinate and drop food in the water, gut fish in the sea or open shellfish on the shore, trample the shellfish beds or raid the sea to line their own pockets (without a thought for those who ‘own’ and rely upon it). Worse, they treat a great food garden as a garbage can for unwanted waste.
The Waitangi Tribunal
The Tribunal constituted to hear the claim comprised Chief Judge Eddie Durie (presiding), Sir Graham Latimer, and Paul Temm QC. Hearings were held in July, August, and November of 1984, and the Tribunal released its report in July 1985.
At the time that it inquired into the claim, the Tribunal’s jurisdiction extended only to events that occurred since 1975. And thus, while it outlined the Manukau tribes’ historical grievances – which began with land confiscations in the 1860s – the Tribunal could make no findings or recommendations on those matters. However, it did comment that:
The claim in respect of current concerns cannot be severed from the earlier events of the past. From their one time extensive lands, forests, estates and fisheries all that is left to the claimants is a few pockets of land, a severely restricted ability to enjoy traditional fisheries, and a legacy of their denigration as a people. If that which is left to them cannot be protected for their benefit, not as a consequence of a recent environmental awareness, but through a substantive recognition of their status as the indigenous people, then the pattern of the past, the plundering of the tribes for the common good, will simply be affirmed and continued.
In regard to the events over which it did have jurisdiction, the Tribunal considered that the claim was well founded, in that the omission of the Crown to provide protection to the Waikato-Tainui tribes’ use, ownership, and enjoyment of their lands and fisheries was contrary to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi:
The act of omission began last century with policies that led to war and the confiscation of tribal territories. It was continued in this century by a failure to give adequate protection to or recognition of Maori rights in the acquisition of lands or the proposal of major works. It is reflected after 1975, from whence our jurisdiction begins, in an omission to recognise or give appropriate priority to Maori interests in laws and policies and in planning in a number of statutory jurisdictions.
The Tribunal made a number of recommendations, among them that better policies and laws be formulated to honour the fishing guarantees of the Treaty; that the Whatapaka and Pukaki–Oruarangi Inlets be reserved for the exclusive use of the hapu of local marae; and that a comprehensive study on the effects of commercial fishing in the Manukau Harbour and the lower Waikato River be undertaken.
Basically the claim is about the despoliation of the Manukau Harbour and the loss of certain surrounding lands of the Manukau tribes. More potently underlying this claim is an enormous sense of grievance, injustice and outrage that continues to haunt the Manukau Maori and bedevil the prospect of harmony in greater Auckland.
… the pattern of unjust treatment continues still, and unless arrested, will yet continue until nothing is left but a deeply embittered people and the shreds of a worthless treaty.
The Waitangi Tribunal
|
