Waitangi Tribunal jurisdiction backdated to 1840
- When
- 10 December 1985
- Reach
- Nationwide
The single amendment that made Treaty settlements possible: the Tribunal could now investigate Crown breaches all the way back to 1840.
Without retrospective jurisdiction the Tribunal could not touch confiscation, the Native Land Court, or nineteenth-century purchases — which is to say, almost every real grievance. Backdating opened the door to the district inquiries and reports of the following decades, and to the Waikato-Tainui, Ngāi Tahu and later settlements. It is arguably the most consequential thing the fourth Labour government did outside economics.
Regions affected
Sources
Written for this project from these references rather than copied from them. Follow a link to check the account against the original.
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