The 1 LAW 4 ALL Party website respects your privacy. We will not sell, rent or give away any of your personal information held by us, including your email address, to any other organisation for any reason. We operate an "opt-in" process for all user email newsletters distributed from the 1 Law 4 All Party website. To receive our newsletters and event reminders you need to actively subscribe for them. If you wish to unsubscribe to either email service you may do say at any time by emailing us. 1 Law 4 All Party members will receive email newsletters from time to time, providing them information about their membership and current relevant news. If you are a 1 Law 4 All Party member and do not wish to receive these emails please email us You can request at any time to see any personal information we hold about you in our website database. You may also request amendments to this information at any time. For any such requests, please email us
We would like to hear from you. Please send us a message by filling out the form below and we will get back with you shortly.
Are you currently a member of 1Law4All *
HQ@1law4all.kiwi.nz
www.1law4all.kiwi.nz
Standard Business Hours
For a Fair and Equal New Zealand
Original Home Page
1Law4All In The News
Current MPs email addresses
Treaty Industry Con
Myths 1 to 6
Myths 7 to 12
Myths 13 to 18
Attack on Private Property Rights
Legislation dividing New Zealanders by Race
Daily Archives: 13 July, 2013
1law4all > 2013 > July > 13
The Fiction of Maori Land Ownership
1Law4All
customary rights, maori, maori land courts, Treaty of Waitangi, treaty settlememts Customary Rights, Maori, Treaty of Waitangi, Treaty Settlements
I recently found this lengthy comment by a very knowledgeable individual, who unfortunately did not give his name. So this article is by 'Anonymous'.
In "Maori Land Law," Sir Hugh Kawharu blatantly sets out to fabricate a universally recognised body of Maori property rights pre-dating the Treaty of Waitangi. By implication, these were rudely subsumed by white-settler governments, who substituted their own Eurocentric notions of property ownership. This now widely accepted thesis was explicitly created to fudge or remove the fact that "customary title" is in practical terms no title at all.
The functional social unit of pre-European Maori society was the hapu, or sub-tribe. Each hapu was in a Hobbesian state of nature ("War of every man against every man") with every other hapu, thus rendering life "nasty, brutish and short."
Within the hapu-controlled estate, whanau groups sometimes enjoyed exclusive rights of occupancy or usufruct as Kawharu has identified, but the only universally accepted concept of land ownership BETWEEN hapu was "Te rau o te patu" or "The Law of the Club."
In the absence of a settled form of civil government, hapu used or occupied land only until someone else took it off them. This position was somewhat modified by Article II of the Treaty of Waitangi, which purported to change this temporary "customary" Maori use and occupation of land into permanent legal ownership.
It should be noted the Treaty was never meant to convey to Maori ownership of the entire land area of New Zealand. It was intended to secure the various hapu in their "ownership" of land that they actually used or occupied as at February 1840.
In practice, this meant "ownership" of land identifiably occupied and cultivated. At a most generous assessment, such "ownership" might stretch to include a reasonable hunting and gathering range around a Maori settlement. At the time the Treaty was signed, even in the more populous North Island, such settlements were typically few and far between
In 1840, the North Island was home to an estimated 100, 000 Maori. Edward Dieffenbach, a German-born naturalist who travelled throughout the North Island in 1844, reported that "even in the areas of greatest Maori habitation, there are huge tracts of land, even up to hundreds of miles, between the various tribes [hapu]."
The South Island lay practically deserted. Edward Shortland's 1846 census found some 2, 500 Ngai Tahu, resident at several coastal locations. To suggest that 2, 500 people [a] lived on; cultivated; or [c] hunted and gathered over 13 million hectares of the South Island is sheer casuistry.
Even in the North Island, aside from the immediate areas around a Maori settlement, the "waste lands" were uninhabited, unimproved, uncultivated, and untrod by human feet, other than those of an occasional war party or traveller. The exclusion of other groups, whether by law or by force, was in practical terms impossible, meaning the "waste lands" had neither "customary" nor legal owners.
The mischievous notion that the property rights set out in Article II of the Treaty applied to the entire land area of New Zealand, including the "waste lands," was implanted in the Maori mind by the missionaries over the decade following the signing of the Treaty. They were well aware the Crown had little money for land purchasing and a mere handful of troops to enforce its edicts. The missionary agenda was to keep secular, worldly Pakeha confined to areas already settled, thus ensuring missionaries remained the only European influence in the all-Maori hinterlands they wanted to Christianise.
By the mid-1840s, Maori had learned that the Crown would pay to acquire the "waste lands," in order to avoid the trouble it had no military force to quell. Each hapu became an instant "owner" of huge tracts of "waste land" adjoining its settlement. This created multiple competing ownership claims.
To convey a clear title to subsequent purchasers and ensure incoming settlers remained unmolested, the Crown was obliged to extinguish this Maori "ownership" by paying all potential claimants. In many early land purchases the Crown paid out anyone asserting a right to be paid.
The Native [now Maori] Land Court was originally set up to deal with these competing claims to the "waste lands." "Ownership" was typically awarded to whoever could spin the most convincing whakapapa about how his remote ancestor had travelled over the land 500 years before naming natural features after parts of his body.
Had the missionaries not queered the pitch for the Crown, the "waste lands" and appurtenant rights would have simply been assumed by everyone to be vested in the Crown, to be held, managed, onsold, or otherwise used for the benefit of ALL New Zealanders, irrespective of race.
To discuss this article, please go to the forum here.
Christchurch Gondola Heritage Time Tunnel Offends the Perennially Offended
1Law4All Once Again Subjected to Media Bias
1Law4All Subjected to Racist & Hate Speech Attacks
Treaty Con Booklet Published
LEGAL FIRST: MAN WITH COMPENSATION FOR ANTI-WHITE RACISM
Steve on Treaty Con Booklet Published
Paul Gilbertson on Christchurch Gondola Heritage Time Tunnel Offends the Perennially Offended
Gerald Stewart on Christchurch Gondola Heritage Time Tunnel Offends the Perennially Offended
I on Christchurch Gondola Heritage Time Tunnel Offends the Perennially Offended
Archives Select Month July 2020 (3) March 2020 (1) November 2019 (1) April 2019 (1) December 2018 (1) November 2018 (1) October 2018 (3) September 2018 (3) August 2018 (7) July 2018 (4) May 2018 (2) April 2018 (9) March 2018 (2) February 2018 (8) January 2018 (1) November 2017 (3) October 2017 (1) September 2017 (1) August 2017 (1) July 2017 (5) June 2017 (2) May 2017 (4) April 2017 (7) March 2017 (10) February 2017 (2) January 2017 (1) December 2016 (2) November 2016 (1) September 2016 (7) August 2016 (3) July 2016 (2) June 2016 (1) May 2016 (5) April 2016 (4) December 2015 (2) November 2015 (2) October 2015 (1) August 2015 (3) July 2015 (2) May 2015 (1) April 2015 (6) February 2015 (5) January 2015 (5) December 2014 (7) October 2014 (1) September 2014 (2) August 2014 (3) July 2014 (3) June 2014 (6) May 2014 (4) April 2014 (4) March 2014 (1) February 2014 (3) January 2014 (3) December 2013 (1) November 2013 (1) October 2013 (2) September 2013 (5) August 2013 (7) July 2013 (21) June 2013 (17) May 2013 (3)
Categories Select Category 1law4all (43) Aotearoa (3) Auckland Draft Unitary Plan (5) Bruce Moon (1) co-governance (11) Constitutional Review (3) Councils (9) Cultural Appropriation (1) Customary Rights (15) democracy (59) Education (8) Federation of Maori Authorities (2) Foreshore & Seabed (20) Freedom of speech (6) General Elections (1) Islam and Muslims (1) Letters for Members (1) Maori (80) Maori Charitable Trusts (5) Maori King (2) Maori Language (10) Maori Privilege (72) Maori Seats (14) Maori wards (3) Media (4) Missuse & Abuse of Taxpayers Money (5) New Zealand (57) New Zealand History (29) New Zealand Maori Council (1) Propaganda (17) Race Relations Commissioner (4) Racism (61) RMA (5) Tax Payer Funding (25) The Loony Left (1) The Maori Party (11) Treaty of Waitangi (42) Treaty Settlements (35) Uncategorized (26) Waitangi Tribunal (21) Western Civilisation (5)
1Law4All Membership Renewal
Copyright © 2021 1law4all. All rights reserved. Website customised and installed by Radenbrea Studios