breached the Treaty. However, the Crown argued that, because the remainder of the district was returned, the extent of Treaty breach that adversely affected Tauranga Maori was relatively limited. We therefore devote much of our report to analysing post-raupatu events at Tauranga. This is done to enable an evaluation of the extent of Crown Treaty breach and resulting prejudice arising from the Tauranga raupatu. The events covered in this report include: the Tauranga ‘bush campaign’ of 1867, the Te Puna–Katikati Crown ‘purchase’, the Crown acquisition of the Te Papa blocks, the return and subsequent alienation of much of the Tauranga district before 1886, and Crown responses to the attempts of Tauranga Maori to gain some redress for their raupatu grievances. In all these events, we find that the Crown breached the Treaty in significant ways.

A summary of our findings of Treaty breach is included in the final chapter, followed by a discussion of the prejudice to Tauranga Maori. It is the firm conclusion of this Tribunal that, both the nature of Crown Treaty breach and the prejudice affecting Tauranga Maori in the period 1864 to 1886 are comparable with that suffered by the Taranaki, Waikato, and eastern Bay of Plenty iwi as a result of raupatu in their districts. We therefore recommend that the Crown move quickly to settle the Tauranga claims with the various claimants. In our opinion, generous remedy will be necessary to accomplish this.

Finally, we note that one of our members, the Honourable Dr Michael Bassett, has dissented on what he describes as ‘a number of points in the main report’ but he adds that his ‘conclusions do not warrant any lessening of the quantum of settlement made with Tauranga Maori.’ His minority opinion follows that of the majority.

Heoi ano