Landcorp following claim

Press, 23 September 1987, Page 9

Landcorp following claim

Landcorp’s solicitor, Mr Kit Mouat, at the Waitangi Tribunal hearing of the Ngai Tahu land claim yesterday said that land boundaries would prove vital in determining whether the corporation was the rightful owner of pastoral leases. The corporation, which will manage Crown pastoral leaseholds on behalf of the Government, was concerned that its land could prove to have been unjustly taken from the Ngai Tahu. Ngai Tahu signatories to Kemp’s Deed testified at the Smith and Nairn Royal Commission in 1879 to 1880 that they believed they had sold land only as

far inland as Maungatere (Mount Grey), along the foothills to the Otakou boundary at Maungatua and Kaihiku. But the land purchase commissioner, H. Tacy Kemp, testified to the commission that he clearly stated during negotiations that the intention was to obtain the island from coast to coast. Mr Mouat said the corporation wanted to see a clarification of the boundaries of the land the Ngai Tahu believed they had sold.

“If the boundary lines end at the foothills the pastoral leaseholds will become available for their claim.”

Molesworth station could also be affected by other boundary. lines. It could represent land that would become available to the Ngai Tahu or crossclaimants if the boundary lines presented by the Ngai Tahu were accepted by the tribunal, he said. Mr Mouat said the corporation was awaiting some clarification about the lands where leaseholds could be affected and a better definition of the boundary lines. Mr Harry Evision, a historian presenting evidence on behalf of the Ngai Tahu Maori Trust Board, said that the boundary definitions had always been abundantly

clear to the Ngai Tahu. Kemp’s plan did not contain anything that would have indicated to a Ngai Tahu chief that the “erratic line forming the north-west boundary” was intended to represent the West Coast.

“It could as well have represented the foothills of the Southern Alps, which was, in fact, what the Ngai Tahu signatories believed the boundary to be.”

The Ngai Tahu signatories unanimously testified later that they had not seen the plan. “They were very surprised when Mantell fished it out before the commission. I regard the

plan as very suspect, not the fact that it had been drawn but that the Ngai Tahu ever saw it,” Mr Evison said. “If they had seen it — and they swear they did not — surely it would have been signed as evi-

dence. I find it very strange that it was not signed. “Certainly the Ngai Tahu believe to this day that the high country inland of the foothills to the

Main Divide has never been fairly purchased by the Crown. They always said it was from Mount Grey to Maungatua. They are adamant on that to this day and I have no doubt about that.”