Waitangi Tribunal urges Crown to avoid alienating small Maori landowners in law review

The Waitangi Tribunal wants the Crown to avoid alienating small groups of Māori land owners in law reform aimed at making it easier to use iwi land.

In its final report on the government's proposed reform of the Te Ture Whenua Act, the Waitangi Tribunal found there were valid concerns raised over the process, and urged the Crown to tread cautiously to avoid prejudicing Māori during the process and only proceed if it attracts broad-based support. (See report attached below)

"We found that such a fundamental reform of the Māori land regime is too important to proceed with without further certainty on all of its components," the report said. "As a result of this unacceptable level of uncertainty, we found that Māori will be unable to offer properly informed, broad-based support for the bill to proceed, as Treaty principles require."

On the draft legislation itself, the report recommended keeping the Māori Land Court's discretionary powers to act as an authority of last resort, and close a loophole that would allow governing bodies to sell land if it attracts 75 percent support from participating owners.

"The bill only requires governance bodies to meet thresholds of owner agreement in select cases; other important thresholds in the bill will be non-binding unless included in the governance agreement when it is approved by the participating owners," the report said. "Allowing governance bodies to make decisions without owner agreement (even if only from participating owners) contradicts the bill's intended empowerment of owners and breaches the Crown's duty of active protection."

Māori Development Minister Te Ururoa Flavell embarked on reforming the legislation on his appointment in 2014 in an effort to drive agricultural business development among Māori landowners. His review of the law, which covers about 5 percent of New Zealand's land, sought to deal with the fragmentation among Māori land owners with a view to improving the performance of the land and tap into what's seen as its major economic potential.

Māori professional advisory firm, Tahi, has cited the fragmentation of organisations dealing with iwi, hapu, marae, Māori land, education and health as one of the opportunities to boost efficiency among Maori.

RAW DATA: He Kura Whenua Ka Rokohanga - report on claims about reform of Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993 (Pre-publication).

(BusinessDesk)