Rapua ngā tuhinga ruku tātari

The Kōpūtara Priority Report was released by the Tribunal on 27 March 2024 in pre-publication format. It concerns a claim about the Crown’s failure to grant title or access to the Kōpūtara reserve. This reserve is located at Lake Kōpūtara near Foxton and Hīmatangi Beach. It was set aside from the 240,000-acre Rangitikei–Manawatu purchase in 1870 but the claimants did not receive a title until 1964 or physical access until 2016. The Crown conceded that it breached the Treaty when it failed to grant title in a timely manner, and the Tribunal also found other breaches of Treaty principles.

The panel comprised Chief Judge Dr Caren Fox (presiding), Dr Grant Phillipson, Tania Te Rangingangana Simpson ONZM, and Dr Monty Soutar.

The Wai 1932 claim was led by Kōpūtara trustees Annabel Mikaere and Patrick Seymour. It was brought on behalf of the hapū Ngāti Parewahawaha, Ngāti Pareraukawa, Ngāti Kikopiri, Ngāti Tūranga, and Ngāti Tukorehe. The Kōpūtara trustees claimed that they were denied legal title and/or access to their own land and treasured resources for almost 150 years, during which time the environment of the reserve and lake was severely degraded.

The Crown accepted that it failed to provide the Kōpūtara reserve with access when it granted all the land surrounding the reserve to private owners. The Crown also acknowledged that this impacted the claimants’ economic, social, and cultural well-being and their ability to exercise ownership and kaitiakitanga. Depriving the claimants of access also disrupted their cultural relationship with the lake and reserve.

The Tribunal found that the Crown’s failure to provide access when it alone had the power to do so was a breach of the principles of the Treaty. The prejudicial result was that the claimants had no legal access until 1998 and no physical access until 2016. The Crown covered the trustees’ legal fees in the 1980s in a long-running litigation to obtain access. The Crown accepted at that time that it should compensate the claimants and fund the construction of a right of way, but it failed to do either. The Tribunal found that this further breached Treaty principles.

The Crown also accepted that it negatively affected the environment of the reserve and Lake Kōpūtara while the claimants were locked out. The Himatangi Drainage Scheme was established and funded by the Crown. It over-drained the lake and contributed to serious sand drift. The Crown also accepted that the Army’s use of the reserve as a live shell range in the 1940s and 1950s worsened the sand drift.

The Tribunal found that the Army’s damage to the reserve, the deficient legislative framework, and the excessive drainage before and by the Himatangi Drainage Scheme were key factors in the degradation of the reserve and lake. The Kōpūtara owners were further disadvantaged because they had no title when the Himatangi scheme was established and could not take action to stop sand drift even once they obtained a title due to their lack of access. The Tribunal found that the Crown failed to protect the reserve’s environment and contributed actively and significantly to the environmental degradation of the reserve and lake, in breach of Treaty principles.

The Tribunal found that the claimants suffered significant prejudice from these Treaty breaches. They lost access to the mahinga kai of the reserve and of Lake Kōpūtara, lost their ability to act as kaitiaki, and lost the ability to transmit customary knowledge to later generations. The claimants were also significantly prejudiced by the high degree of damage to the reserve and to their taonga, Lake Kōpūtara.

Overall, the Tribunal concluded that the Kōpūtara claim was well-founded. To remove or mitigate the harm caused by the Crown’s breaches, the Tribunal made several recommendations that can be found in chapter 5 of the report.

The Waitangi Tribunal’s report into the Crown’s response to contemporary Māori homelessness, Kāinga Kore, examines Crown policies and strategies from 2009 (when the Crown introduced its first comprehensive definition of homelessness) to 2021 (when the Tribunal’s hearings took place).

The Tribunal finds that the Crown breached its Treaty obligations during this period by:

• Its failure to adequately consult with Māori in the development of its homelessness definition in 2009 and to rectify this in the period since. This was a breach of the Crown’s Treaty duty of consultation.
• Its prolonged failure to adequately collect data on homelessness in New Zealand. This breached both the principles of good government and active protection.
• Its failure to provide homeless Māori with housing that meets a range of basic standards in terms of amenities, comfort, and security. This was a breach of the principle of active protection. The Crown also breached the principle of equity through the growing over-representation of Māori with unmet housing need, and it breached the principle of good government by its failure to implement, or monitor the progress of, its Māori housing strategy He Whare Āhuru.
• The narrowness of its consultation over the Homelessness Action Plan and the Māori and Iwi Housing Innovation Framework (MAIHI).
• Its failure, with regard to rangatahi homelessness specifically, to take vigorous action to protect such a vulnerable group. This breached the principle of active protection. It also breached the principle of good government through its failure to obtain adequate data on rangatahi homelessness.

The Tribunal also found that the Crown’s acknowledgement that ongoing ‘fragmentation’ and ‘congestion’ within the housing system was undermining Māori housing ambitions confirmed that it had breached the principle of good government.

Kāinga Kore does not examine (or make findings on) broader housing issues which the Tribunal is yet to hear evidence and submissions on. These will be considered later in the inquiry and include the historical provision of housing to Māori, the longstanding barriers to building on whenua Māori, and the advent of the welfare state in the 1930s and its later abandonment in the neo-liberal political economy of the 1980s and beyond.

The Housing and Policy Services Kaupapa Inquiry (Wai 2750) was formally initiated in July 2019. The following year, the Tribunal confirmed that stage one would address contemporary Māori homelessness in a targeted way. This decision reflected the parties’ wishes and recognised that homelessness was the most acute and urgent housing issue Māori were facing, especially with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seventy-nine claims were eligible for this initial stage of the inquiry and a further 21 parties were granted interested party status. Five hearings were held between March and November 2021. Witnesses appeared for the Crown from five separate agencies and technical witnesses were called by the claimants, but no research was commissioned for this part of the inquiry.

The panel for the Housing and Policy Services Kaupapa Inquiry comprises Judge Craig Coxhead (presiding), Dr Paul Hamer, Prue Kapua, and Basil Morrison. Hearings for the next stage of the inquiry are due to begin in 2024.