Rapua ngā tuhinga ruku tātari

Claim Wai 414 was lodged in January 1994 by Haki Wihongi on behalf of himself and the Te Whanau o Waipareira Trust, of which he was the chairperson. The trust had been established by Te Whanau o Waipareira, a non-tribal Maori community based in west Auckland, in order to provide effective social services and to lead the community's efforts to help itself. The claim alleged that the Crown, through the Community Funding Agency of the Department of Social Welfare, had failed to recognise the special status of Te Whanau o Waipareira as a Maori organisation and had failed to properly consult and deal with it in accordance with the Crown's obligations under article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi.

The Tribunal constituted to hear the claim was made up of Joanne Morris (presiding), Sir John Ingram, Sir Hugh Kawharu, Pamela Ringwood, and Hepora Young, and it sat five times between August 1991 and April 1995 to hear evidence and submissions.

John Tamihere of the trust described the claim as being:

essentially about fairness, due process and equality of opportunity. It is about our right as a pan-tribal wha-nau in the urban area to be acknowledged as a Treaty partner and our right as urban Maori to organise ourselves in accordance with our own tikanga to address our own problems our way.

Dr Pita Sharples noted that:

Waipareira is the appropriate organisation to administer and deliver services and create responsibility and hope and dreams amongst our people in West Auckland. We are better suited to know our needs and to deal with them than any government organisation. That is what the claim is saying.

The members of Te Whanau o Waipareira were not all linked by kinship, and most lived outside the traditional territories of the tribes from which they were descended. The claim thus broke new ground by contending that a non-tribal group of Maori had rights under the Treaty. According to claimant counsel, at its heart the claim said that ‘the rights and interests of urban Maori, separated from, distanced from and disenfranchised from the home iwi, are rights which fall properly within the Treaty of Waitangi’.

The Te Whanau o Waipareira Report was released in Auckland on 6 July 1998. In it, the Tribunal upheld the trust's claim that Te Whanau o Waipareira was prejudiced by policies and operations of the Community Funding Agency, and it found that, if a Maori community exercised rangatiratanga, then it deserved special recognition in terms of the Treaty:

Rangatiratanga, in this context, is that which is sourced to the reciprocal duties and responsibilities between leaders and their associated Maori community. It is a relationship fundamental to Maori culture and identity and describes a leadership acting not out of self-interest but in a caring and nurturing way with the people close at heart, fully accountable to them and enjoying their support … The principle of rangatiratanga appears to be simply that Maori should control their own tikanga and taonga, including their social and political organisation, and, to the extent practicable and reasonable, fix their own policy and manage their own programmes.

In examining this claim, the Tribunal said that it was important to read all parts of the Treaty together in order to understand it, instead of trying to interpret the separate words and articles of the texts. It rejected the argument that only 'traditional iwi' are the Crown's Treaty partners, saying that the Treaty was for the protection and benefit of all Maori:

The Treaty of Waitangi was signed by rangatira of hapu, on behalf of all Maori people, collectively and individually. Therefore, conversely, protective benefits and rights of autonomy in terms of the Treaty are not limited to traditional tribal communities.

The Tribunal also found that the Treaty partnership made the Crown accountable to Maori for the outcomes of its social and welfare policies. Waipareira's efforts to provide better integrated and coordinated programmes were frustrated by its having to deal with many different Crown agencies, each with its own policies and procedures.

The Tribunal recommended that, in developing and applying policy for the delivery or funding of social services to Maori, the Department of Social Welfare and the Community Funding Agency deal with any Maori community that had demonstrated its capacity to exercise rangatiratanga in welfare matters and that social and welfare services to Maori communities stand as a separate output class designed to promote community development. It also recommended that there be better consultation and a greater devolution of decision-making power and resources to Waipareira in particular and a greater reporting of the outcomes for Maori of the Government's social policies:

We reminded ourselves that the intent of the Treaty was something like a marriage of two nations, two cultures, who wanted to share a house which they planned to build together, accommodating each other's needs with respect and goodwill, for their mutual benefit. …

The success of a marriage depends not on the ability of the parties to formulate or interpret vows advantageously to themselves, nor on their ability to enforce them in the case of dispute. Rather, it depends on their commitment to work through problems in a spirit of goodwill, trust, and generosity, actively seeking creative solutions, and taking opportunities to bolster each other.