(1) Wai 72: Ngati Paoa

Wai 72 was lodged in October 1987 by Hariata Gordon on behalf of Ngati Paoa kaumatua and descendants of Paoa and Tukutuku.¹⁵ Part of the Ngati Paoa rohe was the subject of a settlement with the Crown in respect of the Report on the Waiheke Island Claim (Wai 10). Another large part is included in the Wai 100 claims relating to the East Wairoa confiscation and the alienation of lands on the western Firth. Other issues including the large Fairburn purchase have been included in the South Auckland consolidation, Wai 406. According to Wai 72 claimant counsel’s closing submissions:

This is a claim by Ngati Paoa concerning Wairoa East. The land was confiscated without justifiable authority in 1865. The Crown purported to pay compensation but the compensation hearings were fraught. The outstanding claim against the Crown is that Ngati Paoa were wrongly described as rebels so far as the East Wairoa lands were concerned, their interest was not properly recognised in the compensation hearings, and that in the event inadequate compensation was paid.¹⁶

Claimant witnesses spoke of Ngati Paoa holding ahi ka over parts of East Wairoa, stressing the importance of the Hunua Ranges for their inland food resources, wahi tapu, and places of healing, and of the demise of Ngati Paoa’s position on the Tamaki isthmus through intertribal war, the impact of whalers, timber cutters, and others, of land purchase, and the confiscation - and the loss of resources through confiscation - of East Wairoa.¹⁷ It is claimed that Wi Hoete’s submissions with regard to the confiscation of Ngati Paoa interests ‘were not given proper consideration by the Crown’, that the Compensation Court ‘had the effect of dividing Maori’, and that ‘Maori were also mislead [sic] into believing that if they declared that they were loyal that they would retain their land’.¹⁸

(2) Wai 96 and Wai 423: Ngai Tai ki Tamaki

Wai 96 was filed in September 1989 by Rachael Ngeungeu Te Irirangi Zister.¹⁹ Mrs Zister died in 1997 at the age of 103, and the claim was continued by her great-nephew, Stephen Zister.²⁰ Wai 96, as described by claimant counsel in his opening submissions, focuses solely on the allegation that ‘the Crown breached the Treaty by confiscating the East Wairoa block and subsequently failed to adequately compensate Ngai Tai’.²¹ This claim has been brought under the umbrella of Wai 100, to which Ngai Tai (as represented by the Wai 96 claimants)

15. Claim 1.2

16. Document Y9, p 4. The relevant submissions and evidence in relation to the Wai 72 claim include documents H6, T3, T12, T13-T16, T38, T39, and Y9.

17. Documents T38, T39; doc T15, p 1

18. Document T15, p 1; doc T13, p 1

19. Claim 1.2(a)

20. Document A68, pp 1, 2

21. Document A41, p 4