Treaty of Waitangi Act — the Waitangi Tribunal

For more than a century Māori had tried to resolve grievances with the Crown through petitions, court cases and other legal means, without significant success. From the late 1960s a 'Māori renaissance' brought calls for greater legal and social equality with non-Māori, the revival of Māori culture and language, and a halt to sales of remaining Māori land. At first many protesters denounced the Treaty of Waitangi as a 'fraud', but later they called on the Crown to honour its obligations under it. Matiu Rata, the Labour government's Minister of Māori Affairs, urged his cabinet colleagues to set up a special tribunal to investigate Māori claims that the Crown had breached the treaty. Rata wanted the tribunal to be able to hear historical claims, but his colleagues rejected the idea.

The Treaty of Waitangi Act received assent and came into force on 10 October 1975. Its long title described it as an Act to provide for the observance and confirmation of the principles of the treaty by establishing a tribunal to make recommendations on claims relating to the practical application of the treaty. The new Waitangi Tribunal could investigate claimed breaches of the treaty only from 10 October 1975, the date the Act was passed. The Act also made the tribunal the only official body with the authority to determine the meaning and effect of the treaty, taking into account both its English and Māori versions. It could make findings of fact and recommendations, but not binding determinations. The opposition National Party did not oppose the Act, and one of its MPs commented that 'the tribunal's responsibilities appear minimal'. The historian Bill Oliver later observed that the tribunal 'was not expected to hear many claims, to meet often or to cost much'. The political scientist Andrew Sharp thought the tribunal had been set up as a way of avoiding rather than confronting Māori demands that the treaty be 'ratified', and in its first years many Māori regarded it as a token gesture. The first members were the Chief Judge of the Māori Land Court, Kenneth Gillanders-Scott, Graham Latimer and Lawrence Southwick.

The first claim the tribunal heard was lodged by Joe Hawke and others of Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei over fishery rights in the Waitematā Harbour, and the hearing was held in the ballroom of the Auckland Intercontinental Hotel. The tribunal rejected Hawke's arguments, and its decision discouraged Māori from using the tribunal to express their grievances. Claims were relatively rare in its first decade, and most of its early inquiries dealt with local environmental and planning issues. In 1980 Eddie Taihakurei Durie became chair, and from 1982 sittings were held on claimants' marae, where evidence could be given in te reo Māori. In 1983 the tribunal upheld Te Āti Awa objections to a planned outfall at Motunui, and in 1984 it again upheld Māori traditional fishing rights, on the Kaituna River.

In 1985 the fourth Labour government extended the tribunal's jurisdiction to claims dating back to the signing of the treaty in 1840. The number of members rose from three to seven, and then to 17 in 1988, and the tribunal gained research and administrative staff. Political leaders expected few claims, mostly about land confiscation, and did not foresee the avalanche of claims that followed. Its 1986 report on te reo Māori led to the Māori Language Act 1987, which made Māori an official language. The tribunal's 1987 Ōrākei report recommended the return of land, including Bastion Point, to Ngāti Whātua, and the government accepted all its recommendations. The Treaty of Waitangi (State Enterprises) Act 1988 allowed the tribunal to make binding recommendations directing the government to transfer certain state-owned-enterprise assets to iwi. The tribunal does not settle claims itself; claimants can have their claims heard in full by the tribunal before negotiating with the Crown, or go directly to negotiation and settlement. The tribunal's conclusion that governments had breached the treaty on countless occasions since 1840 was highly controversial. Even so, NZHistory judges that it has made a major contribution to remedying some of the more unsettling aspects of New Zealand's colonial legacy.