It went under the radar locally. UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Francisco Cali-Tzay, visited Wairarapa early April to hear directly from the Moana’s customary owners about the Crown’s actions that stopped the the Waitangi Tribunal returning Iwi lands taken in 1949.
Kingi Smiler, Chair of Wairarapa Moana Incorporation, noted it was the first visit by a UN Special Rapporteur to Wairarapa Moana.
“The Special Rapporteur visited our Wairarapa Lakes and was told the story of their gifting to the Crown in 1896 in return for land reserves in the Wairarapa, and the trail of broken promises by the Crown that followed,” Smiler said in a statement afterwards.
The site visit was followed by a hui at Masterton’s Te Rangimarie Marae, with descendants of the customary Māori owners of Wairarapa Moana: Rangitāne o Wairarapa, Ngai Tūmapūhia-a-rangi hapū, Pouākani hapū and Mangatu.
“Our whānau … told the Special Rapporteur that the Crown’s actions in stopping the Waitangi Tribunal return our Pouākani lands was a breach of our human rights, and the Treaty of Waitangi, and (has had a) significant impact on our whanau over the last 160 years.”
“This is not an issue which will simply fade over time. We remain resolute in our pursuit of our lands, for justice and for redress,” he said.
New Zealand’s human rights record was scrutinised by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva at its 5-yearly review on 29 April.
The Special Rapporteur’s visit to New Zealand was at the request of local groups; Wairarapa Moana Incorporation and Wakatū Incorporation, the National Iwi Chairs Forum and Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission. A statement from the Incorporation said formation of the group and the ownership of more than 30,000 acres of land in Mangakino, in South Waikato, had its origins in the colonisation of the Wairarapa after 1840.
“Wairarapa Moana hapū had valuable landholdings and customary fishing rights for tuna in and around Lake Wairarapa. However, by the late 1800s, continual pressure from farmer settlers and Crown coercion ultimately led to the hapū gifting the lake to the Crown in 1896 in exchange for other lands in the Wairarapa,” it said.
The Crown failed to honour the original agreement and was not prepared to source lands locally in Wairarapa, so in 1915 “with great reluctance” hapū leaders accepted land known as the Pouakani 2 Block in Mangakino.
In February 2017, WMI lodged a resumption application with the Waitangi Tribunal under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 for the return of some of the lands taken under the Public Works Act in the 1940s. In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled the Waitangi Tribunal application should proceed.
“Rather than allow this process to reach a conclusion, the New Zealand Parliament passed legislation which brought an abrupt end to our legal proceedings and to the return of our lands by the Waitangi Tribunal. This action was a breach of our human rights, and te Tiriti o Waitangi,” the statement added.
