ai o rātau pīere nuku, me te whakawātea atu i ngā taunahua kia tipu ai te rongomau me te rangimārie ki te whenua o o rātau mātua tīpuna.

Nō konei e te Minita, kua whakapototia te tauwhāinga kia whānau ko te tūhauora ko te huhuatanga.

Owhiti, tūturu whakamaua kia tīnā, tīnā!

We present to you our report on claims submitted under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 in respect of the Hauraki inquiry district. This district comprises the southern part of Tikapa Moana (the Hauraki Gulf) and its islands, the Coromandel Peninsula, and the Waihou and Piako Valleys inland to Ohinemuri and Te Aroha.

The report covers the claims of the Hauraki Maori Trust Board (HMTB), established by the Hauraki Maori Trust Board Act 1988 to research and present the claims of 12 iwi listed in the Act and their descendants, together with 55 additional claims from the various iwi, hapu, and whanau affiliated to HMTB, and some other groups not separately named in the 1988 Act. We have also considered the intersecting claims of HMTB and the Tainui Maori Trust Board to the Maramarua Crown Forest lands. The various claims have been consolidated under the designation Wai 686 in the Tribunal’s registration system.

Central issues of the claims include the various modes of alienation of Maori land in the inquiry district since 1840, war and raupatu in the 1860s, gold mining and the extraction of kauri and other timber, the protection of wahi tapu and of movable taonga, foreshore and seabed issues, public works takings, the rating of Maori land, the law relating to succession to Maori land, damage to the environment, and the socio-economic impacts of colonisation on Hauraki Maori.

Our findings are located at the end of each chapter in the report, and salient features of those findings are drawn together in the executive summary at the beginning of the report.

To our great regret and sorrow, one of our members, Dame Evelyn Stokes, died in August 2005. Fortunately, our report, to which she made an invaluable contribution, was close to completion by that time.

Dame Augusta Wallace
Presiding officer