Landmark Waitangi Tribunal report recommends Govt return Ngāpuhi land

A landmark report by Waitangi Tribunal into extensive Treaty breaches against northern Māori has finally been presented to iwi in Northland.

The 2000-page report lays out two key recommendations: for all Crown-owned land in Northland to be returned to Māori, and for the Crown to enter talks about reworking New Zealand's constitutional framework.

The report is reinforced by the decades-long Te Paparahi o Te Raki, or Northland Inquiry, which considered half a million pages of evidence.

In a day northern Māori have been awaiting, including Ngāpuhi, the country's largest iwi, the report laid bare the Crown's Treaty breaches across Northland, stretching back to its signing in 1840.

Following the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the report describes the Crown as an aggressor using military force to impose sovereignty over northern Māori.

The military instructed its forces to "spare no rebels", leading to the destruction of homes, property and waka, and the eventual taking of two thirds of Ngāpuhi land.

“Following stage one of the inquiry” the Tribunal concluded that northern Māori rangatira (chiefs) who signed the Treaty in February 1840 did not cede sovereignty, meaning they never agreed to give authority to the New Zealand Government and allow it to govern them.

They did agree to share power, allowing Pākehā and Māori to govern their own people, confirming what Ngāpuhi have always believed.

Judge Craig Coxhead of the Waitangi Tribunal affirmed Ngāpuhi's generations-long stance on the shape of their history.

"The report says yes, what their tūpuna (ancestors) said in terms of nga hara, the things important to Ngāpuhi, was correct," he said.

Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Paul Goldsmith told 1News he is open to discussing the recommendations.