A PLACE TO STAND
Meri Jacobs has spent 34 years trying to build a home on her own land. The complex barriers she has faced are typical of historical laws designed to prevent Ma¯ori developing their reserve land. Jody O’Callaghan reports.
An old twisted and lichen-covered tree sits snugly against Meri Jacobs’ new home. Brought as a seedling from the Muttonbird Islands to Tuahiwi by her tı¯puna, the ethereal-looking plant has prospered without the harsh southern winds.
Retaining roots on their land in the North Canterbury settlement has been harder for the 75-year-old and her hapu¯ .
Ma¯ ori have been battling generations of legislative impasses to build on their whenua – something authorities are only now starting to remedy.
It’s a complex history differing between iwi and areas. Crown agreements were not met in the south, and land was confiscated in the north.
Aside from ongoing hurt, with the past contributing to the country’s current housing crisis, the Government can no longer ignore it.
An auditor-general’s report in 2011 found that ‘‘despite good intentions, the process to build a house on Ma¯ ori land is fraught’’.
Agency staff had a lack of understanding, central and local government did not always work together, costs were high, and getting agreement from often absent multiple shareholders was challenging. Banks were also reluctant to accept Ma¯ ori land as security for a loan.
Three years later, improvements to the issue were reported to be steady, but slow.
So how about for Ma¯ ori on the ground, so to speak?
Jacobs knows that, as soon as her paddock 20 minutes north of Christchurch leaves her wha¯ nau, there is no going back – which is why she went on a 34-year fight against red tape to finally build there in October.
The now freehold land was divided and handed down through the generations from an elder her great-grandfather cared for – an original grantee of 14 acres when the Crown bought most of Canterbury from Nga¯ i Tahu in the 1840s.
Kaiapoi Pa¯ was the hub of the iwi, where members lived and busily traded food and resources from across the country. That was until the pa¯ was captured, after a long siege, by Nga¯ ti Toa, who later returned to the north.
Today its descendants’ land bears a stark contrast to nearby Pegasus, a lakefront subdivision created as a utopia for the ‘‘traditional Kiwi family’’ by a Pa¯ keha¯ property developer.
Despite unearthing an ancient pa¯ during its development in 2007, causing a few tweaks to the town, residents began moving into their new homes just a year later.
On the other side of the roaring State Highway 1, development is slow on the land to which Ma¯ ori were funnelled by colonists.
Ma¯ ori Reserve 873 comprises 1068 hectares between Kaiapoi and Rangiora, also known as Tuahiwi of the Nga¯ i
Tu¯ a¯ huriri subtribe of Nga¯ i Tahu.
It became a designated home for Ma¯ ori after Kemp’s Deed purchase of Canterbury, signed by the Crown and Nga¯ i Tahu leaders aboard a ship in Akaroa Harbour in 1848.
Promises for the iwi to have 10 per cent of its land returned as reserves, schools and hospitals were not met. The smallerthan-promised reserves were divided into 10-acre blocks per grantee – later amended to 14 acres.
Nga¯ i Tu¯ a¯ huriri was given a mandate to control the running of its land. But the blocks were too small to provide a farming future for wha¯ nau, unlike the minimum of 50 acres the Canterbury Lands Act 1851 stipulated be allocated to Pa¯ keha¯ .
The reserve was quickly surrounded by Pa¯ keha¯ and their profitable farms.
‘Beastly communism’
With little knowledge of Ma¯ ori or their land, 1858 minister of native affairs William Richmond set out to civilise their ‘‘beastly communism’’ under British law.
Canterbury University law lecturer Adrienne Paul says a flurry of legislation was enacted to extinguish the land through Crown purchases such as Kemp’s Deed, the Native Land Court, and the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 used to confiscate land from any North Island tribe rebelling against the Crown.
The creation of the Native Land Court in 1865 meant Ma¯ ori were forced to prove to the court that they were rightful landowners in order for title to be given, and for the land to be recognisable by British law.
The Crown could not sell the land to settlers until it was converted to individual titles.
Grantees within the Tuahiwi reserve
Dr Te Maire Tau, right
were relatively autonomous. ‘‘No-one bothered us,’’ Jacobs’ son Te Maire Tau, upoko (head) of Nga¯ i Tu¯ a¯ huriri, says.
Until 1953.
Like ‘reservation eviction’
The Town and Country Planning Act meant the local council, formerly Rangiora County Council, rezoned the area as rural – with only one house allowed per 10 acres.
Until then, landowners could apply to subdivide their land for wha¯ nau through the Native Land Court, but now they became beholden to council rules.
The traditional practice of elders dividing up portions of their land for their children to live on was stymied when the promise in Kemp’s Deed giving all control of Ma¯ ori reserves to the local ru¯ nanga was forgotten over time by authorities.
Of the 12 brothers and sisters in Tau’s father’s family, none were allowed to build on their land. Only two from his mother’s family of 10 were able to live in Tuahiwi.
When she separated from Tau’s father in 1984, Jacobs wanted to build a new home on her family land, but the council prohibited it.
Similarly, in 2000, Tau was prohibited from building on land gifted to him by his father – the late upoko Rik Tau.
In order to live in Tuahiwi, Te Maire Tau bought a house from a Pa¯ keha¯ family who had been allowed to subdivide their land and build.
His older brother, also prohibited from building, bought outside the reserve to raise his young family.
Tau stands on an empty 14-acre paddock pointing to ‘‘pockets of areas where other people have been allowed to build’’ around it.
Whether through racism, or poor design, Ma¯ ori suffered. Most Tuahiwi land was alienated through the acts and omissions of government agencies over more than 150 years. But Jacobs and, until recently, her nephew, held fast to their wha¯ nau land. Meanwhile, despite the local mantra – hoko whenua, hoko mana (to sell your land is to sell your mana) – the land became worthless for many, particularly land with multiple owners.
The Mao¯ ri Affairs Amendment Act 1967 paved the way for the Government to compulsorily convert Ma¯ ori land with four or fewer owners into general land if deemed ‘‘uneconomic’’.
It was another way for non-Ma¯ ori to gain ownership.
Ma¯ ori were either urbanised in search of homes and jobs (and elders left with no option but to follow for support as they aged), or those remaining have spent decades trying to build on land designated for farmers, not families.
‘‘You can talk about people selling land, you can talk about urbanisation, but fundamentally the reason why this village was destroyed was because [Ma¯ ori] weren’t allowed to live here,’’ Tau says. ‘‘By the 80s and 90s, everyone had left.’’
It is like Native Americans being forcibly evicted from reservations, but ‘‘we don’t see it directly because it happened here slowly, over decades’’.
Taking on the system
The 100-year-old original home Jacobs and her children grew up in had to be demolished in the 1980s.
When she moved back after the Christchurch earthquakes, she lived for two years in an unconsented sleepout hooked up by an extension cord and pipe to power and water on the property.
Her wha¯ nau worried about her, but she felt safer on her homeland.
With the other owner – her nephew – living in Australia, Jacobs bought two houses to relocate to the 3.5-acre property. Historically, there were always two houses there for wha¯ nau. That dream was crushed with a visit from a council worker who told her she could not live there – while the two wha¯ nau members could not agree on its use.
Jacobs bought and lived in other houses, but they were never home to her.
The whenua (placentas) of her grandchildren are buried under a tree next to remnants of a footpath that led to the original home.
Family disagreements over what to do with land is a common consequence of multiple ownership and, even with just one person to contend with, Jacobs took decades to reach an agreement to buy out her nephew’s share, and another 14-acre block.
Over the fence, there is a ‘‘pretty much valueless’’ seven acres split between 67 owners who cannot agree on its use, Tau says. ‘‘What you’ve got is dead capital now.’’
With no other owners to contend with, and the Waimakariri District Council changing zoning rules in 2015 to allow local Ma¯ ori to build, Jacobs moved into her new home in October.
‘‘I was always wanting to come back here. If it hadn’t been so hard, I never would have left,’’ she says.
Putting it right
It became clear after legal advice in 2008 that Kemp’s Deed had not been honoured by the council, and by 2015 it had rezoned the reserve, Waimakariri Mayor Dan Gordon says.
A government act to help with postearthquake recovery gave a shortcut to change the District Plan to allow further development in the village.
Descendants of original grantees can now build single dwellings on smaller allotments, as well as clusters of developments of up to seven dwellings on larger sections.
Some development has occurred, but not much, he says, due to provisions being ‘‘more prescriptive and less enabling than initially envisaged’’.
A Te Puni Ko¯ kiri/Ministry of Ma¯ ori Development-funded papaka¯ inga housing development stalled during a contractual dispute, set for arbitration, between Mana Waitaha Charitable Trust (MWCT) and building company Homeco.
Gordon says the council now works in close partnership with the ru¯ nanga on future decisions.
It will next spend $3.6 million on waste and water services in Tuahiwi, after a persistent lack of infrastructure and community facilities made it impractical for wha¯ nau to stay, develop, or return.
‘‘We have a far greater understanding now than we did some years ago, and it’s time to remedy past failings,’’ Gordon says. ‘‘One hundred and seventy years later, we have put this right.’’
Further north on East Cape, Ma¯ ori are showing what investment in the regions can achieve. Raukokore hapu¯ chairman Willie Te Aho says using a $16.4m regional growth fund grant, grazing land once earning $164 a hectare each year is now yielding $40,000 a hectare from kiwifruit and macadamias.
With a $2.75m housing fund, the iwi found a way to build 15 kit-set houses to bring its people home, at a third of normal costs – $1000 a square metre – and faster than any government initiative.
But legislation and large costs show ‘‘systems are geared up to making it difficult’’.
Local government has no template for dealing with Ma¯ ori land development, NZTA demands huge fees for clearance to access highways, and getting clearance from Heritage NZ in many areas is a ‘‘headache’’, Te Aho says.
‘‘It’s $20,000 before you even get the right to build on your own land. Why would people go through that process when they can bang up a lean-to and hook it up to gas.’’
There are more than 200 unconsented houses within the tribe, he says. ‘‘If we truly want to address the huge housing problem that we’ve got, it’s going to require local government processes to change.’’
Adrienne Paul, who is also a practising Ma¯ ori land lawyer, says Ma¯ ori need project manager skills in order to get other owners, local authorities, and the land court on the same page before being able to build. ‘‘It’s very personal and emotional too, so they need good leadership in the wha¯ nau.’’
She believes two jurisdictions clash – the Resource Management Act giving councils authority to issue subdivision consents, and Te Ture Whenua Ma¯ ori Act giving the Ma¯ ori Land Court power to divide land between multiple owners.
Amendments to Te Ture Whenua Ma¯ ori Act come into effect today, Waitangi Day, that will make building for Ma¯ ori cheaper, faster, and hopefully, less stressful.
Ma¯ ori Development Minister Willie Jackson is proud of the Government finally removing many barriers for Ma¯ ori to use their land after historically being ‘‘treated like kids’’ by restrictive laws.
The Ma¯ ori Land Court’s purpose has changed from easing the process of acquiring land to recognising it as taonga to be kept within wha¯ nau and hapu¯ .
Now it is about tidying up 170 years of restrictive legislation, Jackson says.
As for Jacobs, she will leave strict orders for her mokopuna never to sell the land she worked so hard to keep, and hopes it never falls into a multiple-owner holding pattern like the land over the fence. ‘‘They can’t say they have nowhere to live, because that’s why I built it.’’
‘‘The reason this village was destroyed was because [Ma¯ ori] weren’t allowed to live here.’’