No amicable solution
p. 18 · Read in the full issue
MAORI land grievances go back to the first days of European settlement in New Zealand. All attempts to resolve them over the last 150 years have failed dismally and the loss of land to the first white immigrants remains one of
Maoridom’s most outstanding injustices.
Despite this discouraging history of failure, the government is making an other attempt to settle the issue. Maori Affairs Minister Doug Kidd concedes: “We’re trying to achieve the impossible, but the problem cannot be left unad dressed for ever. Something must be done.”
What he is addressing is known as Maori reserved land. This totals about 74,600 acres and is only a fraction of the land to which Maori have lodged claims, but is a particularly difficult question to resolve because both Maori and pakeha
have equally legitimate interests to be taken into account.
In the early days of colonisation, the government and the New Zealand Company made deals under which certain pieces of land were reserved for Maori ownership and use.
The Crown was to look after the land on behalf of the Maori owners, and much of it was leased to new settlers for farming and housing.
In what would today be seen as a scandalous procedure, the leases were struck without agreement or even discussion with the Maori owners, who had no say in the administration of their land.
The settlers naturally w anted long term leases to justify the time and effort they had to donate to make the land productive and they also wanted renewal guarantees to ensure they would not be thrown off after they had developed it. Rents were reviewed only every 21 years.
It was a good deal for the settlers who effectively won security of tenure for generations at low rents. It wasn’t such a good deal for the Maori owners who never gained control of their land and saw the Value of their rental income dwindle away because of the 21-year fixed rent period.
The situation was legalised in 1955 by the Maori Reserved Land Act. It maintained the perpetual leases (which had been abolished in Britain in 1926) and set rents at 5 per cent of the government valuation for farmland and 4 per cent for residential land in townships, retaining the 21-yearly rent review.
The next effect was in recent years the Maori owners have been getting an average return of only about 1.6 per cent, while other commercial landowners were earing more than 10 per cent. And this on some prime land, including fertile orchards in the Nelson region, profitable dairy farms in Waikato and Taranaki, the town centre of Greymouth and rugby’s Athletic Park in Wellington.
On top of this, the amount of land has dwindled over the years. It was known as the Tenths Reserves, stemming from the New Zealand Company’s'original undertaking in 1839 to preserve one-tenth of all land ceded by Maori in trust for
the tribal owners. The original 20,000 acres in the Nelson area, for instance, had reduced to little more than 4000 acres by 1929.
A commission of inquiry in 1975 found, understandably, that the Maori landowners had been treated unfairly from the beginning, but the government of the day did nothing other than allow title to the land to be handed over to Maori trusts and incorporations to look after.
Maori resentment at the unfairness of the leases has built up since then, with leaders pointing out that Maori economic development was being hindered by having a land asset base locked up, and with miserly returns.
At the same tie, pakeha lessees, generations removed from the orig
inal ones, have, come to think of the land as theirs but have no security, fearing that eventually the historic wrong will have to be righted at their cost.
There are over 2300 separate leases on the affected land, which is spread throughout the country, but the biggest pockets are on the west coast of both islands, the Nelson- Motueka region, the Waikato, Wellington and Palmerston North.
The government’s dilemma is obvious by the fact it sat on the report of a review team it set up in 1991 to look at the question for 17 months unable to decide what to do about it. Kidd finally released the report, along with his own proposals, in April, launching what he called a consultation phase to try to get a consensus on resolving the issue.
He ruled out “a quick painful fix” as likely to do more harm than good, saying: “After 150 years, any attempt to solve this problem in less than a generation is doomed to failure.”
His key proposals were that all rents should be raised to market levels after 14 years (with seven-yearly reviews thereafter) and that tenants should have two further 21-year leases after their current term expires, with arrangements after that subject to negotiation. Residential tenants would have security of tenure as long as they and their spouses lived.
Kidd favours a hands-off approach by the government, in the hope that landowners and tenants will negotiate their own agreements. But in the most extreme cases of disagreement, it could be 84 years before the land reverts to its Maori owners.
Both sides agree the issue must be resolved, but neither was exactly ecstatic about the proposed solution. The most controversial point was the government’s rejection of financial compensation for either party compensation the review committee estimated could cost $3OO million.
Maori say they should be compensated for their past losses.
The tenants say they should get compensation because changing the lease terms breaks a legal contract. An amicable solution is a long time off. C