Lead Claimant welcomes the Tribunal Report

Lead claimant for Wai 2478 in Te Ture Whenua Inquiry, Marise Lant states:

"I welcome the report of the Waitangi Tribunal on our claim concerning the Government’s proposed Māori land reforms. It confirms our concerns regarding the indecent haste of these reforms, the potential for our lands to be lost, the imposition of cumbersome procedures, enabling of unaccountable behaviour by land managers and much more."

"After receiving a letter from the Minister of Māori Development refusing to meet with a panel of claimants and their expert witnesses following the release of this report, it is clear that we are not going to be able to influence his decision to continue with the reforms. He has made it clear that he still intends to introduce a Bill into Parliament by the end of this month. Already he claims that the Waitangi Tribunal’s report is out of date as there have been several drafts of the proposed legislation since the hearing of the claim in December 2015. Thus he is already dismissive of its findings."

"Our analysis of the several drafts of the Bill that have been developed since the hearing, shows that the core issues concerning the claimants and the Waitangi Tribunal remain in the proposed Bill. I am advised that once the Bill is introduced into Parliament, the Waitangi Tribunal’s ability to hear another urgent claim based upon the final draft will be lost, as it is not permitted by their governing statute, the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. The Court’s cannot intervene as matters concerning the Treaty are deemed political and are not justiciable – meaning not able to be heard. The Minister – The Hon. Te Ururoa Flavell has already warned those who opposed this Bill at the Gisborne Consultation Hui held here in February 12 2016, that once the Bill is in Parliament that the Government and the Māori Party have the numbers to pass this legislation into law, no matter what submissions Māori make and no matter whether the majority oppose or support. We who have opposed these reforms have as a consequence exhausted all domestic remedies and we are now going to go to the United Nations to seek findings that demonstrate that these reforms are discriminatory, contrary to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, breach the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other relevant human rights instruments – such as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. We will be sending them the Waitangi Tribunal Report and we intend filing as soon as possible" says Marise Lant.

The named claimant Ms Lant, who is a Maori landowner and former employee of the Maori Land Court, has led a national petition against the proposed new Bill, in a long struggle that she has called a “David versus Goliath battle”

ENDS

© Scoop Media