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Noku te whenua, kei au te korero — Noku te whenua ko au te rangatira.
The land is mine, I have all the say. The land is mine, I make all the decisions.”
Dr Apirana Mahuika
Within the Ngati Porou community, there has been a lot of korero recently regarding the upcoming passage of the new Te Ture Whenua Maori (TTWM) Bill. This korero has included discussion about how stringent the measures will be to make sure “not one more acre” is lost to whanau and hapu.
Over the past few months the Select Committee for Maori Affairs has held hui within the Tairawhiti and around the motu to consult with Maori landowners about this legislation which was introduced into Parliament in May of this year.
Later this month, on November 25, the Select Committee will release their report about the bill. The following article has been written to provide readers with a background about the Te Ture Whenua Maori Bill, which is anticipated to be enacted as legislation in April 2017.
Te Ture Whenua Maori (TTWM) Act first came into law in 1993. A nationwide series of hui began five years later resulting in some changes to the Act being made in 2002. Almost a decade later, Te Puni Kokiri advised significant reforms of the Act and in 2012 the Government set up a panel of experts in Maori land law to review the legislation.
In 2013 the panel put their findings before the people at a series of 20 hui held throughout the motu. What came out of these hui formed the basis of what was to become a new draft of the 1993 Act, which is currently before Parliament.
The latest data held by Te Puni Kokiri shows that Maori owned land makes up 5.5 percent of Aotearoa and most of that whenua is in the East Coast (30,000 hectares approximately), Northland and the Central North Island. There are 27,500 blocks of Maori land. Each block on average has more than 100 co-owners and about one-third of that land is not currently being used or lived on.
The primary purpose of the reforms has been to set in place ways to tackle the wasp nest of issues that have stung successive governments into inaction. The problems of creating effective and affordable access to landlocked whenua has, in the past, provoked an allergic response among legislators. A comprehensive study of paper roads and related issues is due out later this year.
The bill is expected to provide remedies to address the dead weight of rates accrued by landowners for land that is either unoccupied or unutilised. The current register shows that more than one-third of land being rated is wahi tapu, urupa, papakainga or landlocked. The TTWM bill has promised to deliver a practical toolkit to help councils apply nonrating zones for land that is not generating income for owners. The bill also provides measures to manage valuation and rating of marae, urupa and land set aside under Nga Whenua Rahui Covenant.
The detail in the bill revolves around setting up an “engaged owners” model of governance where participating shareholders can choose their representatives. Owners can elect a rangatopu or management grouping. The rangatopu can be a private trust or a company, a limited partnership, an incorporated society or body corporate. Instead of forming rangatopu, owners can choose an existing statutory body, such as a Maori Trust Board, the Maori Trustee, Public Trust or a trustee company, or a suitable representative body that has the authority to represent hapu or iwi.
Rangatopu will have the power to approve consents, such as the licence to occupy land, without going through the High Court. Many of these forms of governance exist in a mainstream commercial context. This is thought to make the process of developing land easier because the legal framework is set up in a way business understands.
A third party called a kaitakawaenga can be called on to help work out disagreements between owners, as long as the issue is not a legal matter — in which case the dispute will be heard by the Maori Land Court. The kaitakawaenga’s job will be to draw upon customary tikanga to resolve differences between groups while upholding traditional values and practices.
Putea (Budget) 2016 set up funding of $12.8 million over four years to help Maori landowners get projects off the ground and plan for future land use.
The bill proposes a new Maori Land Service (MLS) to take over the administrative role till now filled by Te Koti Whenua Maori (Maori Land Court). The service would offer support with land information, representative governance, dispute resolution and land use options.
Both the proposed MLS and Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) will keep a full register of title and ownership information as well as governance arrangements.
