CHAPTER 1
PARE HAURAKI CLAIMS : THE BACKGROUND TO THE INQUIRY

In 1987, the Hauraki Maori Trust Board (hereafter, the HMTB) was constituted under the Hauraki Maori Trust Board Act 1988 expressly for the purpose of preparing and submitting a consolidated claim for all the iwi and hapu of the Hauraki inquiry district. With Huhurere Tukukino as the named claimant, the hmtb lodged several claims with the Waitangi Tribunal, including the substantial Wai 100 claim. Subsequently, 55 other claims were lodged, some by groups that joined with the hmtb, and others by groups that did not wish to do so. In late 2001, the Marutuahu Claims Committee, comprising the Marutuahu groups within the hmtb, also lodged claims.

In this chapter, we give a brief history of the inquiry and a description of the claimant groups as they defined themselves to us. We then summarise the 10 key issues of Wai 100, followed by those of the ‘non’ HMTB claims. Lastly, we outline the structure of the report into the original 56 claims of Hauraki Maori.

Under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 (as amended in 1985), the Tribunal is required to investigate and report on claims made by Maori that the Crown has prejudicially affected them, by act of either omission or commission, through breaching the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi.

1.1 The History of the Inquiry

In April 1998, Dame Augusta Wallace was appointed presiding officer for the Hauraki inquiry, and in May 1998 John Kneebone, Professor Wharehuia Milroy, and Dame Evelyn Stokes were appointed members. Preparation for the inquiry had begun many years earlier, with the receipt of the first claims relating to the Hauraki district. All claims, both trust board and non-trust board, were consolidated into the Wai 686 inquiry in January 1998.

Hearings for the inquiry began on September 1998 at Ngahutoitoi Marae, with the opening submissions of the HMTB (Wai 100); those for non-HTMB claims began in October 1998. Hearings ran for over four years until November 2002, making this the longest running inquiry heard by the Waitangi Tribunal. There were 26 hearings in total, at many different venues, from the Thames Racecourse to many of the marae in the Hauraki district.