Members of the Waitangi Tribunal

Waitangi Tribunal members

The Waitangi Tribunal has up to 20 members. They are appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister for Māori Development. Members come from all walks of life and are appointed for their expertise in the matters that are likely to come before them. About half the members are Māori and half are Pākehā.

The Chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal is Chief Judge Caren Fox of the Māori Land Court. Other judges of the Māori Land Court, while not members of the Waitangi Tribunal, can be appointed as a presiding officer for a Tribunal panel.

A panel of three to seven members is appointed to carry out an inquiry. Each Tribunal panel has to have at least one Māori member.

Current Tribunal members:

Past members still serving on current inquiry panels:

Chairperson 

Chief Judge Caren Fox

Ngāti Porou

Chief Judge Caren Fox was appointed to the Māori Land Court on 1 October 2000 and was later appointed as Deputy Chief Judge on 20 February 2010. On 5 July 2023 Judge Fox was appointed Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court.  Chief Judge Fox is the first wāhine Māori appointed as a Chief Judge. She was also confirmed as the Chairperson of the Waitangi Tribunal, on1 September 2023.

She is one of the resident Judges for the Tairāwhiti District of the Māori Land Court, hearing cases in Gisborne. 

Before becoming a Judge, Chief Judge Fox was a Lecturer in law at Victoria University and a Senior Lecturer in law and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Waikato. In addition, she acted as legal counsel for Treaty claimants and Māori land clients. She also holds a LLM in law and a PhD covering the Ngāti Porou legal system.

A specialist in international human rights, Chief Judge Fox was a Harkness Fellow to the USA from 1991 to 1992 and a Pacific Fellow in Human Rights Education employed by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation 1997-1999. For her work in human rights she won the NZ Human Rights Commission 2000 Millennium Medal.

Chief Judge Fox has also been the presiding officer for the Waitangi Tribunal on the Aquaculture claims, the Te Arawa Mandate and Settlement claims, Central North Island Stage 1 claims, the Te Kōhanga Reo claims and the Te Rohe Pōtae claims. She is currently the presiding officer for the Porirua ki Manawatu claims and the Constitutional Kaupapa Inquiry.

Chief Judge Fox was also appointed as an Alternate Environment Court Judge in 2009.

Other Māori Land Court judges

Other judges of the Māori Land Court can be appointed as presiding officers for particular inquiries. They become Tribunal members while in that role.

Find out more about Māori Land Court judges(external link)

Current members

Dr Robyn Anderson

Dr Robyn Anderson

Dr Robyn Anderson completed her doctorate at the University of Toronto, where she worked for a number of years before returning to New Zealand in 1991. In 1992, she joined the staff of the Crown–Congress Joint Working Party and prepared historical evidence underpinning the return of railways land to Wellington Māori. She undertook research projects for the Waitangi Tribunal and for claimants from the Hauraki, Kaipara, and Whanganui districts. From 2000 to 2003, Dr Anderson was the first history concept leader at Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, where she led research and exhibition development for history and Pacific cultures. Dr Anderson was appointed to the Tribunal in 2004.

Ron Crosby

Ron Crosby

Ron Crosby spent 30 years as a court lawyer, particularly in Treaty-related and resource management cases. He is a hearings commissioner and a freshwater commissioner under the Resource Management Act 1991. He has written several books on New Zealand history, including The Musket Wars: A History of Inter-Iwi Conflict, 1806–1845 (1999), Gilbert Mair: Te Kooti’s Nemesis (2004), NZSAS: The First Fifty Years (2011), Kūpapa: The Bitter Legacy of Māori Alliances with the Crown (2015), The Forgotten Wars: Why the Musket Wars Matter Today (2020) and Te Kooti’s Last Foray (2023). Mr Crosby retains a deep interest in New Zealand’s back country and history. His interest in te ao Māori is constantly reinforced by his whānau relationships, his wife, Margy, being of Te Rarawa and Te Aupōuri descent. Mr Crosby was appointed to the Tribunal in 2011.

Derek Fox

Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Porou

Derek Fox

For more than 40 years, Derek Fox has been at the forefront of Māori broadcasting. He has a diverse career spanning journalism, communications, broadcasting, local and national politics, and publishing.

Mr Fox has had a hand in most of the major Māori broadcasting initiatives, including the battle for and the development of Māori Television and he served as the chair for the first Māori Television Service board. Mr Fox was appointed to the Tribunal in 2021.

Professor Susy Frankel

Susy Frankel, FRSNZ, is a professor of law and the chair of intellectual property and international trade law at Victoria University of Wellington. After practising law in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, in 1997 Susy joined Victoria University of Wellington’s Faculty of Law and in 2008 was the first woman promoted to full professor in the faculty. She assisted then Chief Judge Joe Williams and the Tribunal panel as consulting counsel in their inquiry into the Wai 262 claim. From 2008 to 2020, she was chair of the Copyright Tribunal and from 2015 to 2017 she was the president of the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property. She has been the co-director of the University’s New Zealand Centre of International Economic Law since its foundation in 2007. She has taught in several law schools abroad, including in 2020 as a global professor at New York University’s School of Law. Her scholarship focuses on international intellectual property and its nexus with the protection of indigenous peoples’ knowledge and innovation and on the relationship between intellectual property and international trade. In 2018, she was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Professor Frankel was appointed to the Tribunal in 2020.

Dr Paul Hamer

Dr Paul Hamer

Paul Hamer is a historian with extensive experience in the public sector. He has longstanding connections with Victoria University of Wellington’s Institute of Policy Studies and Te Kawa a Māui (the School of Māori Studies) and has a doctorate from Monash University in Melbourne. From 1993 to 2004, he worked for the Waitangi Tribunal, for most of that period leading the team that assisted Tribunal inquiry panels in the writing of their reports. From 2004 to 2007, he was employed at Te Puni Kōkiri, mainly as a policy manager in the area of Treaty settlements. During 2006, he was based at Griffith University in Queensland as a visiting fellow, researching a report for Te Puni Kōkiri about Māori in Australia, which was launched by the Minister of Māori Affairs in Sydney in 2007. In 2008, Paul returned to working for the Tribunal, taking a lead role in assisting the writing of Tribunal reports on two major inquiries, the Wai 262 Flora and Fauna and Māori Intellectual Property Inquiry and the Te Paparahi o te Raki (Northland) Inquiry. He also authored several historical research reports commissioned by the Tribunal as evidence. From 2017 to 2021, Paul was employed as principal adviser in the Rautaki Māori (Māori Strategy and Partnerships) Team at the Department of Corrections. Dr Paul Hamer was appointed to the Tribunal in 2020.

Professor Rawinia Higgins 

Tūhoe

Professor Rawinia Higgins

Professor Rawinia Higgins (Tūhoe) is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Māori at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington.  Professor Higgins is a Board member of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and the current Chair and Commissioner of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori - the Māori Language Commission.  Professor Higgins is the first woman to be appointed to this position. She was elected as a Pacific Region representative on the Global Taskforce for the UNESCO International Decade of Indigenous Languages.  Professor Higgins has been appointed to a number of governance and advisory board roles for government, Māori, and iwi.  Her research expertise is Māori language revitalisation and, more specifically, language planning and policy and she was instrumental in shaping the current Māori language legislation and policy framework.   

Dr Ruakere Hond

Taranaki, Te Āti Awa

Dr Ruakere Hond

Dr Ruakere Hond is a longstanding advocate of te reo Māori revitalisation and a key supporter of the Parihaka community. He was instrumental in working to achieve reconciliation between that community and the Crown, and he has held several leadership roles in Māori language organisations, including Te Reo o Taranaki, Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, and Te Ataarangi. He has served two terms as a member of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori and is a past board member of Te Mātāwai, which leads the implementation of the Maihi Māori language strategy.

In 2013, Dr Hond completed a doctorate in public health, with a focus on Māori language revitalisation, community development approaches, and intergenerationally sustainable health outcomes. He is currently helping lead an Ataarangi approach within the Ministry of Education initiative Te Ahu o Te Reo Māori in Taranaki, Whanganui, and Manawatū, which supports teachers to use reo Māori with students in their education setting. Dr Ruakere Hond was appointed to the Tribunal in 2018.

Prue Kapua

Te Arawa

Prue Kapua

Ms Prue Kapua is the principal of Tamatekapua Law and has an extensive background in resource management and the Treaty sector. She has supported whānau, hapū, and iwi claimants in several Waitangi Tribunal inquiries. She was a member of the Refugee Status Appeals Authority, Deputy Chair of the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal, and a director of First Health NZ Ltd (a Southern Cross NZ Ltd subsidiary).

In 2000, the Minister of Health appointed Ms Kapua to represent the interests of Māori women in the Gisborne Cervical Cancer Inquiry. She also advised the Ministry of Health on its Treaty policy in respect of a national screening programme. She has been a member of the Ministry of Health’s National Kaitiaki Group and an external specialist adviser on legal aid funding for Waitangi Tribunal claims. She is currently the co-Chair of Oranga Tamariki Māori Design Group and Chair of the Interim Te Rōpū on Family Violence, Sexual Violence, and Violence within Whanau. She is the current president of the Māori Women’s Welfare League and a trustee of Māori Women’s Development Inc. Ms Kapua was appointed to the Tribunal in 2018.

Basil Morrison CNZM JP

Basil Morrison

Originally a dairy farmer at Hikutaia (where his family still farm), Basil Morrison has served in local government since January 1971. He was chairperson of the Ohinemuri County Council from 1983 until 1989, when he became inaugural mayor of the Hauraki District Council. Mr Morrison retired from the mayoralty in 2004. He served on the Waikato Regional Council from 2004 to 2007 and was president of Local Government New Zealand from 2000 until 2008. Currently, Mr Morrison chairs the Local Government Superannuation Board, is a New Zealand Freshwater Commissioner, a Director of Civic Assurance and Civic Property Pool, and is the Honorary Consul of Uganda in New Zealand.  He is an independent hearing commissioner under the Resource Management Act 1991 for the Auckland Council and the Thames Coromandel District Council.  Mr Morrison was appointed to the Tribunal in 2008.

Kim Ngarimu

Ngāti Porou

Kim Ngarimu has an extensive public service career dating back to the early 1990s. After leaving Te Puni Kōkiri in 1999, she worked in the office of the Auditor-General as a sector manager and co-directed her management and public policy consulting company, serving in 2004 as acting director of the Waitangi Tribunal. Between 2007 and 2013, she held the position of deputy secretary policy at Te Puni Kōkiri, and in 2012 she served as acting chief executive of the Ministry of Women.

She is currently self-employed as a consultant and a professional governor, serving on a number of boards, including the Medical Council of New Zealand, Evolution Healthcare, and Te Pūkenga. Ms Ngarimu was appointed to the Tribunal in 2018.

Dr Hana O’Regan

Dr Hana O’Regan

Dr Hana O’Regan has worked in the areas of language revitalisation, identity and cultural development, te reo Māori, and education for over 25 years. She is a published author and composer and is recognised internationally for her work in indigenous language acquisition and revitalisation. A graduate of Te Panekiretanga (the Institute of Excellence in Te Reo Māori), Hana is widely respected for her Māori language contribution, skills, and advocacy.

Hana has held two director positions on the senior executive at ARA Institute of Canterbury, has been the general manager oranga for Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, and has held many positions on national boards, review panels, and committees across the areas of education, Māori development, national identity, Treaty rights and policies, and health. Since late 2020, she has been Tumu Whakarae of Tātai Aho Rau - CORE Education, a for purpose organisation with a focus on equity through learning. Hana’s passion for education, community, history, and equity has resulted in a career committed to working with organisations, businesses, and individuals to support and enhance positive outcomes for learners and whānau. Dr O’Regan was appointed to the Tribunal in 2021.

Dr Grant Phillipson

Dr Grant Phillipson

Dr Grant Phillipson's professional involvement with the Waitangi Tribunal began in 1993 as a commissioned researcher. In 1995, he was appointed research manager and, two years later, chief historian. He held that role until his appointment to the Tribunal in 2011. Dr Phillipson has written numerous research and historical reports, commissioned by the Waitangi Tribunal, the New Zealand Māori Congress–Crown Joint Working Party, and the Crown Forestry Rental Trust. As chief historian, Dr Phillipson was responsible for supervising the Tribunal's commissioned research programme and providing research and report writing advice to numerous Tribunal panels. Dr Phillipson has published academic papers on questions relating to the church in nineteenth century New Zealand, Treaty history, the Waitangi Tribunal, and Māori land.

Kevin Prime

Kevin Prime

Kevin Prime has been a farmer and forester in Mōtatau (Northland) for the last 50 years, and in the last 20 years took up bee keeping as a hobby.

During that period, he has been very much involved in community matters with marae, rūnanga, charitable trusts, health trusts, community trusts, forest trusts, and educational, forestry, health, and conservation groups at local, regional, and national levels.

He has also served on ministerial advisory groups pertaining to health, forestry, conservation, Māori affairs, the environment, Crown research institutes, land, and sport. He currently works as a commissioner with the Environment Court. Mr Prime was appointed to the Tribunal in 2021.

Professor Tom Roa

Ngāti Maniapoto, Waikato Tainui

Associate Professor Thomas Roa

Tom Roa is a Professor in the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Studies at the University of Waikato. He is an expert in translation between te reo Māori and English and the oral and written history of Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Maniapoto, and the Kīngitanga. He has researched and contributed to a wide range of publications on the Māori classificatory regime for flora and fauna and traditional ecological knowledge, the theory and practice of translating from and into te reo Māori, Māori men’s health, and Māori military history.

Professor Roa has served for many years in Te Kauhanganui, the Waikato-Tainui parliament, including as its chairperson. He has also been a member and chairperson of Te Arataura, the Waikato-Tainui executive board, and is a Justice of the Peace. He was appointed to the Tribunal in 2016.

Tania Simpson ONZM

Tainui, Ngāpuhi, Ngāi Tahu

Tania Simpson

Tania Simpson is a director of Auckland International Airport, Meridian Energy, and Tainui Group Holdings. She is Chair of the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge, Deputy Chair of Waitangi National Trust, and a member of the governance group for the Deep South National Science Challenge. She has had a career in public policy and governance.

Ms Simpson holds a Master of Mātauranga Māori from Te Wānanga o Raukawa, is an Accredited Fellow with the Institute of Directors, and was awarded the rank of Commander in the Order of the Taniwha by King Tūheitia and rank of Dame Commander in the Order of St Lazarus. In the 2024 New Year honours list, she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to governance and Māori. Ms Simpson was appointed to the Tribunal in 2008.

Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith CNZM

Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou

Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith

Dr Linda Tuhiwai Smith is a Distinguished Professor at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. She is from Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou, and Tūhourangi. Distinguished Professor Smith is known internationally for her work on decolonising research methodologies, Indigenous education, and kaupapa Māori.

She was the founding Co-Director of Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga - the Māori Centre of Research Excellence and has held several senior academic roles at the University of Auckland and Waikato University. She has served on the Health Research Council, the Marsden Fund Council, the Royal Society of New Zealand Council, and is currently Deputy Chair of Council of Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi.

She is a Fellow of the American Education Research Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and an Honorary International Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Distinguished Professor Smith is a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Her publications include Decolonising Methodologies, Research, and Indigenous Peoples (1999, 2012, 2021), The International Handbook of Indigenous Education, co-edited with Elizabeth McKinley (2017), and A Civilising Mission? The Making of New Zealand’s Native School System 1867-1969 (2001) co-edited with J.Simon, F.Cram, M. Hoheepa, and S.McNaughton. Dr Smith was appointed to the Tribunal in 2016.

Dr Monty Soutar ONZM

Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Awa, Ngāi Tai, Ngāti Kahungunu

Dr Monty Soutar

Dr Monty Soutar is a professional historian, currently working on a historical novel series called Kawai. He has worked widely with iwi and Māori communities, in particular while writing Ngā Tama Toa (David Bateman, 2008), which told the story of C Company of 28 (Maori) Battalion in the Second World War and Whitiki! (David Bateman, 2019), which focused on Maori participation in the First World War. He has been a teacher, soldier, university lecturer, iwi runanga chief executive and senior historian with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage. He and has held a number of appointments on national advisory boards, including the Archives NZ Council, the Guardians of the Alexander Turnbull Library and the First World War Centenary Panel. Dr Soutar was appointed to the Tribunal in 2002.

Professor Pou Temara

Ngāi Tūhoe

Professor Pou Temara

Professor Sir Pou Temara is a professor of Māori Philosophy at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. He is a recognised authority on Māori customary practice and whaikōrero, having taught at Waikato University as a Professor of Reo and Tikanga and Victoria University as a senior lecturer and later as Tohunga. He was a director of Te Panekiretanga o Te Reo, the Institute of Excellence in the Māori Language, where he taught and researched whaikōrero, karanga, and tikanga. As a member of the Tūhoe Waikaremoana Māori Trust Board, Professor Temara made several submissions during the Tribunal’s Te Urewera hearings. He has experience in dispute resolution, mediating between the iwi of Taranaki during their claims to the Tribunal. He is widely credited with playing a crucial role to the survival of Te Teo Māori, and is regarded as a leader, mentor, and inspiration to people across Aotearoa. 

Herewini Te Koha

Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Tamaterā

Herewini Te Koha is the Director of Ngā Mātārae which works across Auckland Council to strengthen relationships with Tāmaki Makaurau mana whenua and Māori communities.

Mr Te Koha has extensive public sector experience in Māori development and a legacy of strong iwi leadership. His previous roles include Deputy Secretary at Te Puni Kōkiri, Chief Executive at Te Māngai Pāho, and Deputy Director at the Office of Treaty Settlements. He is also the former Chief Executive of Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou.

Mr Te Koha’s governance involvement includes co-chair of the governance group Manaaki Tairāwhiti, and he was one of three rūnanga-nominated appointees to Te Haeata, Ngāti Porou’s Treaty of Waitangi claims negotiation team. Mr Te Koha was appointed to the Tribunal in 2021.

Professor David Williams

 

Professor Emeritus David V Williams comes from a sheep farming background in Hawkes Bay and Whanganui. He attended Whanganui Collegiate School. He has tertiary qualifications in history, law and theology from Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Oxford (where he was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College). His PhD is from the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. His university teaching and research career at Waipapa Taumata Rau | University of Auckland focussed especially on ‘law and society’ and on ‘legal history.’

As an officeholder in the Citizens’ Association for Racial Equality [CARE] he was a political activist engaging with many issues affecting Māori and Pacific peoples during the 1970s and 1980s. From 1991 to 2001 he was an independent researcher specialising in historical research relevant to Treaty of Waitangi claims. He has worked with many hapū and iwi as an historian, and as a claims negotiator. He is also an ordained priest in the Anglican Church, chairperson of the St Isaac’s Retreat House Trust in the Hokianga, and was formerly Legal Adviser to Te Pīhopatanga o Aotearoa. Professor Williams was appointed to the Tribunal in 2023.

Past members still serving on current inquiry panels

 

Dame Margaret Bazley ONZ DNZM

Dame Margaret Bazley ONZ DNZM has held senior leadership roles in the health and state sector for more than 50 years. She was commissioner and deputy chairperson of the State Services Commission in the 1980s, where she was involved in the formation of State-Owned Enterprises and the development of the State Sector Act. She was the secretary for transport from 1988 to 1993, director-general of the Department of Social Welfare, chair of the Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology from 2001 to 2007, and a member of the Waitangi Tribunal from 2001 to 2011. She was commissioner of the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct, a member of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, and the chair of the Review of the Legal Aid System. Most recently, Dame Margaret has been chair of Environment Canterbury and registrar of pecuniary and other specified interests of members of parliament. She has received a numerous honours and awards, including the Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award in 2011 and an honorary doctorate of literature from Massey University in 2008. Dame Margaret was made a Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 1999 and later made an additional member of the Order of New Zealand in 2012.

Dr Ann Parsonson

Dr Ann Parsonson is a senior New Zealand historian. She lectured for many years in history at the University of Canterbury and is currently adjunct senior fellow in the School of Humanities and Creative Arts (History) at Canterbury. She has been a research associate at the Centre for Māori Studies and Research, University of Waikato, and senior research fellow at the Waikato Endowed College, Hopuhopu. Dr Parsonson has worked with Ngāi Tahu, Ngā Iwi o Taranaki, and Waikato iwi in the preparation of their Treaty claims, providing major historical reports. Her publications are on New Zealand history, Māori history, and Treaty history. Dr Parsonson was appointed to the Tribunal in 2001, and has been the historian member on a number of major district historical inquiries.

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