The main issues of claim with regard to the alienation of Ngati Hei lands include old land claims, the implementation of the Native Land Acts, and their results: the undermining of Ngati Hei rangatiratanga; the breaking down of communal title; and the destruction of traditional ways of life, leading, it was submitted, to landlessness, survey liens, Crown purchase methods, timber leases, the loss of the Tairua and other reserves, gold, land taken for public works (including Ohinau Island for a lighthouse), the failure to protect wahi tapu, cultural taonga, and issues pertaining to the environmental degradation of rivers, the foreshore, and the seabed.³⁰

(4) Wai 148 and Wai 285: Ngati Pukenga

The Ngati Pukenga claims relate to the lands at Manaia on the western side of the Coromandel Peninsula, given to Ngati Pukenga (who are of Mataatua origins) by Ngati Maru. It was submitted that ‘Ngati Pukenga forms a distinctive Maori community at Manaia’, a community described as ‘probably the largest in Hauraki and … deserving of the Crown’s active protection, consistent with the Treaty of Waitangi’.³¹

A September 1999 amended statement of claim combines the claims made by Ngaruna Ronald Mikaere on behalf of himself and Ngati Pukenga (Wai 148) and those of Shane Ashby on behalf of himself and Ngati Pukenga ki Manaia Incorporated Society, Ngati Pukenga, and Te Tawera (Wai 285).³² In their ‘Historical Background Report’ for Wai 285, Buddy Mikaere and Shane Ashby note that ‘The historical documentation in respect of Ngati Pukenga often uses the appellation, Te Tawera. Ngati Pukenga and Te Tawera are one and the same people.’³³

The Ngati Pukenga claims relate to the exercise of Ngati Pukenga rangatiratanga over their lands at Manaia derived from tuku whenua. Counsel for the claimants submitted that the Crown, ‘in breach of the Treaty of Waitangi, acted to destabilise and destroy the functioning of Ngati Pukenga as a tribe particularly through the Crown promotion of individual over tribal rights’ and ‘failed to actively protect the special Maori community at Manaia, including Ngati Pukenga’.³⁴ The claims refer specifically to the loss of tribal control (rangatiratanga) under the Native Land Court and the subsequent alienation of much of the Manaia lands through Crown purchasing (including the purchasing of largely non-resident individual interests), land taken in lieu of payment for survey charges, and the conversion of uneconomic interests. The claim also refers to the loss of the Manaia 10 block, which was given for a school in 1897 and then sold by the Maori Trustee following the school’s relocation in 1962. Further aspects of the claim relate to the claimants’ relationship with local and

30. Documents N9, N12, Y9. The relevant submissions and evidence in relation to the Wai 110 claim include documents A15, G2, K4, M25, N1, N2, N3, N4, N5-N10, N12-N15, N22, Y9, and AA12.

31. Document Y7, p 2

32. Claim 1.8(c)

33. Document I2, p 4

34. Document Y7, p 3