Rapua ngā tuhinga ruku tātari

The Kārewarewa Urupā Report is a report by the Waitangi Tribunal into claims lodged about the eponymous urupā by Te Ātiawa/Ngāti Awa ki Kapiti as part of the Tribunal’s Porirua ki Manawatū inquiry. The panel that heard the claim comprised Deputy Chief Judge Caren Fox (presiding), the Honourable Sir Douglas Kidd KNZM, Dr Grant Phillipson, Tania Te Rangingangana Simpson, and Dr Monty Soutar. The claim was heard as part of the Te Ātiawa/Ngāti Awa hearings.

The Kārewarewa urupā is the resting place for many of those killed in the historically important battle of Kuititanga in 1839, as well as prominent ancestors of Te Ātiawa/Ngāti Awa. The land on which the urupā was located eventually became the Ngārara West A14B1 block but was never formally set apart as a Māori reservation.

In 1968, a meeting of owners of the block was called under the Māori Affairs Act 1953 to vote on a resolution to sell the land to a development company. Although just 13 of the 77 owners were present in person or by proxy, the statutory regime of the time allowed small minorities of owners to sell the land of the majority without their knowledge or consent. The owners were also incorrectly advised that the block was not the urupā block, and as a result they voted to sell it to the Waikanae Land Company.

The company in turn applied to the Horowhenua County Council for a district plan change in order to remove the ‘Māori Cemetery’ designation and develop the land for housing. Over the objections of tribal leaders, the council revoked the designation.

During the 1970s, about 350,000 cubic metres of dredged material from the adjacent wetland was dumped on top of the block, and streets and houses were built on more than half of the land. Work stalled in the late 1970s when the Waikanae Land Company went into receivership, but attempts were made to resume housing development in the 1990s. However, the discovery of kōiwi (human remains) halted that. The claimants remained deeply concerned at the prospect of further disturbance to the burial ground.

The Tribunal found that the statutory regime in 1968 deprived owner groups of their tino rangatiratanga over their land and breached the Treaty principles of partnership and active protection, that the Town and Country Planning Act 1953 was inconsistent with Treaty
principles, and that the Burial and Cremation Act 1964 gave little or no protection to Māori burial grounds. It also found that there were systemic Treaty breaches in the processes for exploratory authorities and the requirements of section 56 of the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014.

The Tribunal recommended that the Māori Heritage Council lead a review of the statutory timeframes for section 56 applications and that section 56 be amended to require an assessment of Māori values in the case of wāhi tapu and an assessment of the impact of the invasive exploratory investigation on those values.