Preliminary Report on the Pouakani Claim (Wai-33). By
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WAI-33 DOCUMENT #A 28 PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE POUAKANI CLAIM (WAI-33). BY P T HARMAN RESEARCH OFFICER WAITANGI TRIBUNAL STAFF May 1989 2 ABBREVIATIONS , AJHR Appendices to Journals of the House of Representatives DoSLI Department of Survey and Land Information MA MLP Maori Affairs Maori Land Purchase papers held at National Archives, Wellington. M.P. McLean Papers held at Manuscript Section Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington NLC Native Land Court NZH New Zealand Herald NZPD New Zealand Parliamentary Debates WT Waikato Times 3 CONTENTS PAGE 1.The Claim 6 1.1 The Claimants 7 1.1.1 Tribal, Hapu Relationships 7 1.2 The Claim Area 7 1.3 History of the Claim 8 2.Historical Account 10 2.1 Introduction 10 2.2 The Arrival of Tia 14 2.3 The Spreading of Arawa 17 2.4 First European Contacts 18 3. After The Wars, the Aukati and the Rohe Potae 24 3.1 Rohe Potae 24 3.1.2 The Breakup of the King Country 24 3.2 The Doors of Welcome Open 28 3.2.1 The Governor Grey Efforts 30 3.2.2 Rewi Nanga Maniapoto 31 3.2.3 Tawhiao - The King 33 3.2.4 William Henry Grace 34 3.2.5 John Bryce 34 3.2.6 Ballance 4 1 4. The Land Court 43 4.1 The Native Land Laws 43 4.2 The Native Lands Act 1886 46 4.3 The Native Land Court 48 4 5. Economic Change 53 5.1 Vogel's Ten Year Plan 53 5.2 The Growth of the Railway 53 5.3 Big City Investment 54 6 The Native Land Court Process 57 6.1 Tauponuiatia West Boundary 57 6.1.1 Events Surrounding the Land Court 57 Hearing (Taupo). 6.2 Tauponuiatia - Pouakani Subdivisions 60 6.3 The Taupo Nui A Tia West 62 Royal Commission 6.4 The 1891-1892 Native Land Court 6 8 6.5 Subsequent Partitions 71 7. The Land Purchases 72 7.1 Policy 72 7.2 WH Grace as Land Purchase Officer 72 7.3 WH Grace as Land Purchase Agent 73 7.4 Bringing into the Native Land Court 78 7.4.1 Laurence M Grace 78 7.4.2 John Edward Grace 81 7.4.3 WH Grace 82 7.5 The Final Purchases 88 8.Surveys 89 8.1 Taking of Lands for Survey Costs 89 9.Forests 90 9.1 Introduction 91 9.2 Pakeha Industry 91 5 9.3 The Industry and Pouakani Block 93 10.Farming 96 11. Additional Issues 99 12. Conclusions. 100 " Bibliography 103 Figure 1 - Reduced copy of plan 5995E - doc A 23(c) 106 6 1.THE CLAIM On 27 March 1987 the Tribunal received a claim (doc A l(a)) from ',Mr John Hanita Paki on behalf the Titiraupenga and Pouakani Trusts, concerning lands North West of Lake Taupo and known as the Pouakani Block. An amended claim (doc Al (b)) was filed on 27 October 1987. An Addendum to this was received by the Registrar on Friday 28 April 1989 and directed by the presiding officer Pouakani Tribunal, Judge R Russell to be filed as doc A 1 (c) • The Claimants' primary complaint is that the placing of Torrens land transfer boundaries and title on the Pouakani lands was never done in a satisfactory manner. It is alleged that the original boundaries were never properly defined and that the subsequent internal partitions were and still are uncertain. As a result, they claim, substantial areas of land and forest have been lost to them as present Maori land owners of the B 9B and C IB blocks. The Claimants are also concerned with the way the Crown acquired title to other blocks of the claimant area, specifically Pouakani 1 and Pouakani C 3 blocks, approximately one quarter of the Pouakani Block. They ask for an investigation into the activities of the Government Land Purchase Officer (Mr William Henry Grace) whom they claim was involved with the Native Land Court's investigations and purchases of Pouakani lands which were to the detriment of their ancestors detriment. WH Grace's wife and brother-law were to appear on the title as the owners of the Weraroa block of Pouakani lands ( Pouakani B7). It is alleged that he may have used his office to benefit not the sellers, nor the Crown, but his own family interests. A third complaint concerns the taking of land for survey costs. They claim that Pouakani I, a 20,000 acre sub-division, was awarded to the Crown in 1887 for the cost of surveys which they claim is an action in breach of the Treaty, and were never properly completed. Fourthly they call for the Crown to account for its 7 management of their forestry resources on Pouakani C1B2, one of their two remaining blocks. The Addendum has as its' main concern the loss of original Pouakani block lands adjacent to the Waikato River which were taken by the Public Works Act 1928 or as a ,consequence, of the hydroelectric power schemes became flooded. These actions and various Statutes have failed to acknowledge the Claimants interests in the Waikato as the original landowners. 1.1 THE CLAIMANTS Mr J Hanita Paki and the beneficial owners of Titiraupenga and Pouakani B9 B Trusts claim descent from those named members of the haapuu, who were awarded Native Land Court title to the Pouakani Block in the 1886-1887 Native Land Court judgment and re-affirmed though subject to the modifications made by the Court in its final judgment of 1891. It is this relationship that makes them beneficiaries of these two section 438 Maori Affairs Act 1953 Trusts. 1.1.1 TRIBAL, HAPU INTER-RELATIONSHIPS There is a need to hear from the Claimants of their relationship to the hapu Waerangi, Moe, Korotuohu, Ha, Hinekahu, Hinerakau, and their relationship with the Arawa and Tuwharetoa iwi. 1.2 THE CLAIM AREA - the Land Te Pouakani was a kainga where intermittent cultivation and residence occurred and lies close to the junction of the waipapa and Waikato rivers (Fig.1). Pou-a-kani was the named site for one of the RohePotae (King Country) boundary posts laid out in 1883, to mark the agreed limits of Tawhiao's authority. Amongst the first Maori Land Court subdivisions of Tauponui-a-tia West lands were the Pouakani, Maraeroa and Tihoi Blocks. Thus at 1887, the Hora'aruhe kite Pou-a-kani Block [expanse of fern root on the way to Pouakani] was perceived by the Native Land Court as a 122,000 acre block bounded in the north and the east by the Waikato river, in the south by the 8 Tihoi Block and in the west by a tribal boundary line determined as between the tribes Maniapoto and Tuwharetoa. It is this last boundary that is in dispute. The waters of the Waikato are retarded to some extent by ',several power dams that cross the river which constitutes the north-eastern boundary. These hydroelectric schemes meant that some of the original Pouakani lands are now flooded or covered in a dam construction. The land, even today, appears as very broken. The valleys and plateaux that once contained stands of totara, matai, miro, fields of fern, fields of tussock type grass, are mostly covered in grass farmlands or exotic forests. The land is dominated by forests of radiata pine. Tokoroa, the urban centre, lies just to the north of Pouakani Block. It was purpose-built to serve the massive Kinleith timber mill. In the south-west corner of Pouakani stands the Pureora State Forest, one of the last podocarp forests in the central North Island. Subsequent internal partitions have meant that today two blocks Pouakani B9 A (containing in part the Pureora State Forest) and B9 B (owned by the Claimant Trust) are the actual boundaries in dispute, though their boundaries are to a large extent dependent on the correctness of the Tauponuiatia West Boundary and the peripheral boundary of the original Pouakani Block. 1.3 HISTORY OF THE CLAIM There is little on the public record of a continuous line of protest or petition since the Native Land Court Hearings completed their investigation 97 years ago, though the Treaty issues that this claim raises were matters of debate, discussion, and petition from Maori throughout New Zealand's history (see Appendix B, doc A 27). There was a petition in 1960 laid before the House, in which Wirihana Peti and 16 others requested to be included on the list of owners for Pouakani B9. 1 The first application, challenging the Maori Trustee's right 1 AJHR, 1960, 13, p4 9 to control Pouakani B9 B was made by Mr J H Paki in 18 March 1981 (MI28/80), at the Rotorua High Court, Mr Justice Crieg presiding. Case was adjourned sine die until 1983, where Mr Justice Prichard found in favour of the Maori Trustee. Recently the Claimants ,exercising their perceived ownership rights have been in "- conflict with the Crown, having entered the Pureora State Forest, felling and removing about 30 large rimu. They were subsequently prosecuted by the Department Of Conservation (DOC) in the High Court for trespass, with their $600,000 bulldozer held by DOC as a surety of non-repetition, pending judgment. The proceedings to date have resulted in a preservation order. The Claimants have also made two applications to the Maori Land Court pursuant to sections 452 and 30 (1)(a) &(I)(i) of the Maori Affairs Act 1953 (doc A 7) asking for the NLC orders of 1891 and 1899 pertaining to the Tauponuiatia West Boundary as it affects Pouakani, be re-examined and that the Pouakani B9 A and B9 B boundaries be re-examined, their boundaries clearly defined, and their ownership be investigated.