Bastion Pt land sale: the Government view

Press, 16 March 1982, Page 15

Bastion Pt land sale: the Government view

Parliamentary reporter , The Government says that the planned sale of I.7ha of Bastion Point land is legal, and conducted with the full agreement of most elders of the local Maori community.

The sale of the land by the Housing Corporation forprivate housing has been strongly opposed by protesters led by. Mr J. P. Hawke, who says the local tribe, the Ngati-Whatua, has been cheated.

The land in dispute, .the I.7ha, is a small part of 24ha of land that was divided up between interested parties in 1978 in a way welcomed by most elders of the NgatiWhatua, says the Minister of Housing (Mr Quigley). The elders wrote to all Maori members of Parliament in 1978 at the time legislation was drafted ratifying the agreement on the partitioning of the land. “ ... The bill is our bill as much as it is a Government ' measure, and we most earnestly appeal to you for your help to us in ensuring that it now becomes law,’,’ they said. The letter was signed by the elders of Ngati-Whatua, led by Te Puru 0 Tamaki (Tommy Downes) paramount chief of the Ngati-Whatua of Orakei.

Mr Justice Speight in his 1978 Bastion Point judgment that preceded the bill, the Orakei Block (Vesting and Use) Bill, said after an exhaustive study that the scheme proposed in the bill was a “handsome remedy of ■ long-felt wrongs, whether ' real or imagined." i It was acceptable to most tribal elders and to the Government. and appeared to bring peace with honour. He was referring to alleged misconduct by the Government in its original acquisition of a big block of Orakei land last century, of which the 24ha is a part. Also party to the 1978 1 agreement embodied in the I bill were the Auckland City Council and the Auckland I Regional Authority.

The arrangement to which the Ngati-Whatua elders put their seal was:— © That 12.3 ha be set aside as recreational reserve, and 7798 sq. m as a reserve for local (community facilities) purposes, both' areas to be run by the Auckland City Council for the benefit of the general public. ©•That the freehold of 11.6 ha be vested in the Ngati-Wha-tua of the Orakei Maori Trust Board.

© That 4.304 sq. m be marked for local community health purposes and made available to the Youthline Trust for a hostel site. • That small areas totalling 1734 sq. m be added to the existing Orakei marae to square off boundaries for surveying purposes. ® That I.7ha be vested in the Housing Corporation for residential development. The 11.6 ha vested in the tribal trust board had a value at the time of $1.6 million. Rents from 30 houses on the land were going into the trust board's account, and the I trust planned to erect more s houses on the land. The Bastion Point protesters were now saying -that some Ngati-Whatua people were excluded from the meeting which reached the 1978 agreement, said Mr Quigley. Quoting from Mr Justice Speight’s judgment, Mr Quigley said that representatives of the Protest Action Group were excluded from the meeting with the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) and two other Ministers of the Crown because the elders believed the group "had behaved in a manner inimical to Maori tradition” in that they had ignored the wishes of their elders by not withdrawing their protest.