The government will appeal Nelson’s latest ruling Decimos

The complaint has been the subject of a visit by the UN special rapporteur, Elisa Marchi (center right).
Photo: Supplied / Melissa Banks Photographer

The government is appealing an interim High Court ruling that will award South Island peak iwi thousands of hectares of Crown land and millions of dollars. in compensation for an 1830 land agreement that he failed to fulfill.

In a ruling handed down last month, Judge Rebecca Edwards largely on the side of kaumātua Rore Stafford who sued the Crown on behalf of the usual owners of Nelson Decimos.

The Court of Appeal confirmed that the Attorney General lodged an appeal on Wednesday. RNZ has contacted Judith Collins for comment.

the government allocated $3.6 million in the May budget to the Maori Crown Relations Office to appeal the decision, before its publication.

The tenths were parcels of land in Nelson representing 15,100 acres (6,110 hectares) that the The crown was intended to keep in confidence for the hapū of Ngāti Rārua, Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tama and Ngāti Kōata, the traditional owners of the land.

The dispute dates back to the New Zealand Company’s purchase of 151,000 acres of land at Te Tauihu (the top of the South Island) in 1839.

It was part of a much larger purchase of 20 million acres in the lower North Island and upper South Island and was confirmed at a meeting between rangatira and the New Zealand Company in 1841 at Kaiteretere.

The main payment for the land was the reserve of one-tenth of the land allotted to Nelson, which was to be held in trust for the customary owners and administered as an endowment for their future benefit.

Following the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840, the New Zealand Company’s purchase no longer had any effect.

New Zealand Land Claims Commissioner William Spain recommended that the company be granted 151,000 acres in Tasman Bay and Golden Bay in 1845, but on condition that one-tenth be reserved and pā, urupā and crops be excluded .

The Crown obtained the land, including the Nelson Tenths, but only a third of the tenths were reserved.

Further plots were taken, including the withdrawal of 47 tenths from the town as part of the redevelopment of Nelson township in 1847 and a grant of tenth sections to the Bishop of New Zealand in 1853.

The remaining 10,000 acres were never reserved.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that the government must honor the agreement reached in 1839.

The case was first brought by Rore Stafford, on behalf of the affected whānauagainst the Crown in 2010.

was back to the High Court last year examine the extent of the Crown’s breaches and remedies in the form of land and compensation.

Justice Edwards concluded that the Crown breached its duty by not reserving the 10,000 acres as expected; carrying out two land transactions that had been reserved; by not excluding pā, urupā and crops from eight of the approximately 72 claimed occupation land sites; and allocating tenths on pā, urupā and crops rather than reserving them from Crown lands.

“As a result of these violations, the Crown obtained land that should have been in trust for the customary owners, or should have remained in customary ownership. This land was taken and used by the Crown as if it were Crown land.” said the High Court.

The court found that, as a result, the customary owners suffered a loss of land and rents generated by that land.

“The form of compensation cannot be resolved until the final area of ​​land to be returned and other issues (such as the application and calculation of simple interest) are determined,” the court said.

The customary owners requested the return of the land and compensation for losses, with a total sum ranging between $4.4 billion and $6 billion.

However, Judge Edwards concluded that the monetary award was likely to be “substantially less than $1 billion” before interest.

“However, it will be a significant sum of money. An award of this nature against the Crown is unprecedented in New Zealand and is a consequence of the Crown’s breach of its private law fiduciary duties to the customary owners.”

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