DIVIDE AND RULE

Every time I fly out of Kaitāia airport I always look at how the land has been divided up by the Crown and I have George Erstich and his sister Katie Evans in my mind.  You see the land at Rangiāniwaniwa was actually confiscated by the Crown off their mother Kataraina Mātenga during the Second World War.  At 84 and 81 years old respectively, they are her last surviving children and they belong to the Ngāti Kahu hapū of Patukōraha.

The Crown still has no title over that land, but it has benefited time and time again from its theft.  Now the Crown is about to benefit again because, unfortunately for Kataraina’s uri, it has gotten some of their Ngāi Takoto cousins to agree to buy their land from it. 

Last month Katie Evans (Kataraina Matenga’s daughter) and Yvonne Pūriri (Kataraina’s mokopuna) presented evidence on their own marae Kareponia about how Rangiāniwaniwa was stolen from them by the Crown and that they want it returned to them via Ngāti Kahu.  But the Tribunal has since ruled that the Crown gets to determine who it allocates lands to under its settlement processes.  So the only way the descendants of Kataraina Matenga will be able to get their land back is if Ngāti Kahu settles with and cedes the sovereignty of its hapū to the Crown.  That is not going to happen.

On Saturday 27^th October the overwhelming majority of Ngāti Kahu hapū directed that a judicial review be sought in the High Court against the Tribunal’s decision to deny Ngāti Kahu a hearing over the Crown’s deeds of settlement with Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa and Ngāi Takoto. 

If left as they are those deeds will settle thousands of acres of Te Paatu, Tahaawai, Ngāi Tohianga and Patukōraha hapū lands in iwi corporate bodies that don’t represent them and have never benefited them.  As one of the kaumātua at the hui said, it’s not about what the hapū, particularly Te Paatu, stand to gain so much as what they stand to lose.

Sadly the Crown has not only divided the land, it’s done it to the people as well.  On Saturday, two marae voted against the funding of the judicial review from their share of any annual grant, even though their particular marae stand to gain the most from it.  Is it possible that they would prefer to be ruled by the Crown then be united with the rūnanga?  

All of this surely is stark evidence of how the Crown’s settlement processes add to the grievances and the prejudice rather than remove or fix them.