October 22, 2012
Maori Council and Pouakani in court on water
Lawyers for the New Zealand Maori Council and other claimants will be in the High Court in Wellington today seeking an injunction to stop Mighty River Power being taken out of the State Owned Enterprise Act.
The council is trying to stop the sale of shares in the state power companies until the Maori treaty interest in water is recognised and accounted for.
Lawyer Donna Hall says the Government’s consultation on the Waitangi Tribunal’s shares plus idea was kept deliberately narrow.
She says last week’s offer for iwi to take shares instead of cash in their treaty settlements had nothing to do with water.
“There’s been no discussion on how water is recognised. The problem here is that it is the Crown that is doing all the offering, doing all the deciding, and what has not been addressed is what the Maori Council and Maori have asked for and that is what are our rights, what is our interest in this specific water body, how have you defined it and can we see it? Ms Hall says.
Lining up with the New Zealand Maori Council will be claimants from Pouakani, whose case for ownership of the part of the Waikato River on which three of Mighty River’s hydropower dams stand was recently upheld by the Supreme Court.