logo
Tai Rāwhiti Protest: A Burning Question On Ngāti Oneone's Redress

Tai Rāwhiti Protest: A Burning Question On Ngāti Oneone's Redress

Scoop21-06-2025
A fire signalling Tai Rāwhiti hapū Ngāti Oneone's call for the return of their ancestral lands has been burning for over six weeks.
The hapū said it will stoke the fire until the grievance is resolved, but after three generations of attempting to remedy it, does not want the redress to fall on them.
"It always falls on us to 'make the case'," Ngāti Oneone chairwoman Charlotte Gibson told Local Democracy Reporting (LDR) when the movement started on 5 May.
The Crown said any potential redress in this case is the responsibility of the landowner and the hapū.
As part of its protest, members of Ngāti Oneone have inhabited Te Pā Eketū Shed, a warehouse-sized property on Gisborne's Hirini St.
Rather than an "occupation", the hāpu calls the action "a reclamation of whenua".
The location is where Ngāti Oneone's marae and pā were originally established in 1852 before being removed for harbour development under the Private Works Act.
Eastland Port, of which Trust Tai Rāwhiti is the sole shareholder, owns the shed and others on the hapū's ancestral land on Hirini St and the Esplanade.
At the beginning of the protest movement, the hapū called on the trust, Eastland Port and Gisborne District Council to return land not used for "core business".
Council chief executive Nedine Thatcher Swann told LDR the council had started exploring how land could potentially be returned following formal requests from Ngāti Oneone in 2024.
This includes investigating the relevant legal processes, policy settings and the interests of other Treaty partners.
However, Trust Tai Rāwhiti, which has a funding partnership with the council and serves as the region's economic development and tourism organisation, earlier said addressing historical Treaty breaches was not its responsibility, but rather a matter for the Crown, after it sought independent legal advice.
"We support Ngāti Oneone in pursuing this with the Crown," chairman David Battin told LDR when the protest started.
Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka had a different view.
The 2010 Ngāti Porou settlement of historical Treaty of Waitangi claims includes Ngāti Oneone, Potaka told LDR.
"The matter being raised ... is outside of the process for the settlement of historical Treaty claims.
"Any exploration of options to return and/or purchase the land is a matter for the landowner agency to undertake in discussion with Ngāti Oneone," he said.
Regarding Potaka's statement, a Trust Tai Rāwhiti spokesperson this week said trustees continued to "engage directly with Ngāti Oneone and remained focused on constructive resolutions".
The 'reclamation of whenua'
Gibson confirmed the hapū had met with the landowner groups involved under Trust Tai Rāwhiti and would have a meeting with the council next week.
She was unsure whether the groups would respond individually or together.
The hapū has committed to maintaining the protest for two months and then will reassess depending on outcomes, she said.
"We'll keep the fire burning until we've had an acceptable response."
In addition to the return of land, the hapū has made other requests to the landowners through an online petition signed by over 1950 as of Friday.
The petition urges the Tai Rāwhiti leaders to take three actions: "Whakahokia Whenua Mai", which requests the return of land not used for core business, "Whakamana Tangata" and "Te Tiriti".
Whakamana Tangata requests that Trust Tai Rāwhiti financially compensate Ngāti Oneone for "the alienation" of their lands without conditions.
"Te Tiriti" requests that the leaders seek a pathway that treats Ngāti Oneone in the same vein as a "Treaty" partner, rather than "a community group".
Gibson said that after Eastland Port sold a shed on their ancestral land to the Gisborne Tatapouri Sports Fishing Club three years ago, they worried about what could happen to the rest of their ancestral land, so they started negotiations for the Te Pa Eketū Shed.
If the land were sold, it would be harder to reclaim, she said.
However, they then realised the port had other sheds in the area, not used for "core business".
"In my view, it's not an occupation, it's a reclamation of whenua," Gibson said, explaining that the shed had been leased while negotiating the sales and purchase agreement.
The port would send the hapū the bill, which they would send to Trust Tai Rāwhiti, who would pay Eastland Port (owned by the trust), she said.
Trust Tai Rāwhiti was going to give them $1.4 million to purchase the shed, but the hapū wanted to use the money to buy the lot.
When their request was denied, they understood and looked into other ways of obtaining the sheds, Gibson said.
However, when the hapū got the sales and purchase agreement, things shifted.
"There were four clauses within the sales and purchase agreement, which undermined Mana motuhake [self-determination], which made it untenable," said Gibson.
On 5 May the beginning of the hapū's "Reclamation of whenua", they were supposed to sign the sales and purchase agreement but decided to "reclaim" the land instead.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Ngāti Porou CEO George Reedy resigns after four years
Ngāti Porou CEO George Reedy resigns after four years

RNZ News

time2 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Ngāti Porou CEO George Reedy resigns after four years

Te Runanganui o Ngāti Porou has announced the resignation of its chief executive officer George Reedy. Photo: LDR/Paul Rickard Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou chief executive George Reedy has resigned after years of leading the organisation. His resignation will take effect on August 1, Te Rūnanganui o Ngāti Porou (Tronp) confirmed. Reedy served as chief executive across four of the group's entities: Tronp, Ngāti Porou Oranga and Toitū Ngāti Porou. Mayor Rehette Stoltz said she had the utmost respect for Reedy and his departure from the role would be a significant loss for the region. Council chief executive Nedine Thatcher-Swann said it had been a privilege to work alongside Reedy, and on behalf of council staff she wished him "all the very best in whatever comes next". "It is not often you cross paths with someone whose leadership blends mana, humility and sharp strategic thinking, and that's the kind of leader George Reedy is." Reedy was instrumental in forging a strong relationship between the Rūnanganui and council, she said. His leadership was evident through joint efforts in regional economic development planning and civil defence emergency management, "spaces where trust and collaboration matter most", Thatcher Swann said. Reedy's vision and drive led to the creation of over 150 new jobs and a significant increase in their contracted income, Ngati Porou Tiamana (chairman) Patrick Tangaere said in a statement. "It is with both gratitude and regret that I announce the resignation." Under Reedy's leadership, the iwi navigated "some of the most challenging and turbulent periods", including the Covid-19 pandemic and cyclones Hale and Gabrielle, he said. "George played a pivotal role in the establishment of Ngāti Porou Oranga and the expansion of health, housing and social services for our whānau and communities of Te Tairāwhiti." Tangaere also acknowledged Reedy's role in strengthening Ngāti Porou's strategic relationships with local and national iwi, across government and with other key stakeholders. Reedy left Napier to come home and take up the position, he said. "It was a powerful expression of his service to his iwi, reaffirming his dedication to the people and whenua of Te Tairāwhiti," Tangaere said. The statement did not give a reason for Reedy's resignation. Reedy has been approached for comment. East Coast National MP Dana Kirkpatrick said it had been a privilege to work alongside Reedy, having known him for a few years. They had been delighted with the work he had overseen at the Puhi Kai Iti Community Health Centre, and recently with creating its urgent and after-hours care, which was significant for the people of Ngāti Porou and the region, she said. "He has served the community well, and it has been an honour to work with him." LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

Erica Stanford faces greatest NCEA test
Erica Stanford faces greatest NCEA test

NZ Herald

time7 hours ago

  • NZ Herald

Erica Stanford faces greatest NCEA test

Arguably, Stanford's most important move was the simplest: her ban on smartphones in schools informed by New York University's Professor Jonathan Haidt. The damage smartphones do to developing minds is comparable to alcohol and cannabis, so that nothing else will much matter if they're not sensibly regulated. At least, they must be kept out of schools, which Stanford delivered three weeks after being sworn in. Likewise, no amount of money or other reforms would much matter if primary students remained in barn-like so-called modern learning environments (MLEs), pushed on schools by the Key Government for reasons never properly explained and retained by Jacinda Ardern's Education Minister, Chris Hipkins. Effectively compulsory until Stanford arrived, she quickly made MLEs voluntary and has now banned new ones from being built altogether. But these were quick-win prerequisites to ensure structured learning could begin again in primary classrooms. Stanford also began the much more difficult work of restoring content and rigour to the school curriculum. First were new maths and English curricula, spelling out clearly what teachers are meant to teach, and how. That departs from recent decades, when subject curricula would instead focus on 'outcomes', leaving teachers to work out what to do for their students to achieve them. Now, practical teaching resources are included in curriculum documents, with over 800,000 new maths resources already provided to primary schools. That the curriculum was not just launched but is already being implemented in 92% of primary schools suggests Stanford has a rare ability to force bureaucrats to do what she wants, rather than the reverse. It's too simplistic to call Stanford's new maths and English curricula 'back to basics', but they do focus more on teachers passing on knowledge to students than on facilitating 'learners' to discover or invent knowledge themselves. The latter can wait for primary students to start their post-graduate work in a decade or two. In the meantime, Stanford's curriculum assumes there's foundational stuff they need to learn first. Following maths and English, the next priorities are the natural sciences, the social sciences, health, and Te Reo Māori. Stanford's curriculum reforms will become harder politically as they move into more contested subjects. But the politics may be easier if her focus remains on foundational knowledge, delivered in a structured environment, in a logical sequence, rather than trying to introduce the latest and most advanced theories in primary classrooms. Kids need to learn addition before multiplication, how to read before how to interpret texts, about atoms before electrons, and that the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840 between the British Crown and Māori chiefs before considering how well it has been honoured. As these students reach secondary school, Stanford's next big decision is how to extend her approach into the qualifications system and what to do about NCEA. Political blame for NCEA can be shared widely. Every party in Parliament has been part of a government that contributed to the fiasco, and all were warned by the country's best educators that it would dumb down secondary education and lead to a two-tier system, benefiting the rich and well connected at the expense of the middle class and poor. Everyone meant well. The NCEA's origins were David Lange and Phil Goff's Learning for Life report, which recommended establishing the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) 'to provide an across-the-board approach to the validation of qualifications in schools and in vocational and advanced academic areas'. This was a response to everyone needing some form of higher education in a more advanced economy, and a desire to break down the distinction and allow cross-crediting between vocational training and academic study. National's Lockwood Smith saw the advantages in trying to clearly define what knowledge, understanding and skills students and people in the workforce were meant to achieve, and to worry less about where they might develop them and more about whether they had. He was backed by employers who argued they needed to know exactly what potential recruits knew and could do rather than that they had scored 59, 71 or 82 in an exam. The proposed system was at the centre of Smith's Education for the 21st Century, which I ghost-wrote. But politicians should always be wary of utopianism, and the idea that NZQA or anyone else could write or validate rigorous outcomes statements for the entirety of human knowledge and capabilities, and then operate a system giving each student a detailed certificate accurately recording what they knew and could do was preposterous. To National's credit, it was never confident to finally press go on the new system. That was left to Helen Clark's Labour Government. The Key and Ardern-Hipkins Governments then set up review panels and made tweaks, but basically left the system unchanged. Meanwhile, the universities never took the system seriously while increasing numbers of schools adopted foreign systems or tried to develop their own. The upshot is NCEA delivering the opposite of that intended. If students go to a school offering Cambridge or the International Baccalaureate or take a traditional university route, their qualification is taken seriously, domestically and internationally. If they don't, they're left with the NCEA which isn't. You don't need to be a Marxist to see who that has benefited, and it is surely not those Lange, Goff or anyone intended. Now, as revealed by the Weekend Herald, even the left-wing education bureaucracy accepts NCEA has failed. Stanford faces probably the most consequential decision she'll ever make. Will she follow the Key and Ardern-Hipkins Governments and try to save NCEA with another review? Or will she accept the whole concept was utopian from the outset, and has delivered the catastrophic unintended consequences utopian visions invariably bring? For better or worse, schools, parents and students have tended to favour Cambridge, an internationally recognised qualification originally developed for Third World countries without their own systems. Singapore used it for many years after independence while getting its house in order. The least-disruptive option would be Stanford following Singapore's approach, abolishing NCEA from Year 11 next year, and engaging with Cambridge to roll out its system nationwide. That would require demanding Cambridge work with New Zealand experts to develop rigorous assessments for subjects like New Zealand history and Te Reo Maori. For a long-term, nationwide contract, it would surely be prepared to do so. Like Singapore, we would then progressively evolve Cambridge's exams into a genuinely New Zealand system. Stanford moved swiftly and boldly on smartphones, MLEs and curriculum reform. The same is needed to quickly put the multi-decade, multi-party NCEA disaster behind us.

Government and Ngāti Maniapoto iwi to build 40 affordable rental homes in Te Kūiti
Government and Ngāti Maniapoto iwi to build 40 affordable rental homes in Te Kūiti

RNZ News

timea day ago

  • RNZ News

Government and Ngāti Maniapoto iwi to build 40 affordable rental homes in Te Kūiti

The government is partnering with Ngāti Maniapoto to build 40 rental homes in Te Kūiti. Photo: Waitomo District Council / The government is partnering with Ngāti Maniapoto to build 40 affordable rental homes in Te Kūiti, as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement. The government has approved in principle $17 million for the partnership, while the iwi will contribute $11m - representing 50 percent of the housing supply costs and the land. Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka said the area had a high housing need . "With over a third of Te Kūiti residents renting, the limited availability of rental properties makes it difficult for whānau to secure stable housing," he said. "We're taking action to help address this shortage, which will also help local businesses because employers can struggle to attract and retain staff due to the lack of affordable housing. This mahi can mean a world of difference for whānau in small rural communities that need stable employment and incomes. "The development, named Te Kirikiri, will feature affordable rentals of a mixed typology to meet the diverse needs of kaumātua and young whānau, consisting of 20 two-bedroom accessible homes for kaumātua, 13 three-bedroom homes and 7 four-bedroom homes." Building was scheduled to begin next month and would take about two years to complete. "These affordable rentals will support Ngāti Maniapoto's ambition to place 200 whānau in safe, secure, high-quality and affordable homes by 2030." Potaka said there had been very little residential development in Maniapoto over the last 40 years and this development would be one of the largest for many years. Only about 25 percent of iwi members owned a home, he said. The investment was part of a $200 million commitment announced earlier this year to accelerate Māori housing projects nationwide, and enable the delivery of 400 affordable rentals in high-need areas by the end of June 2027. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store