August 05, 2014
Law change to empower Maori owners
The chair of a panel reviewing Te Ture Whenua Maori Act says a proposed rewrite will bring Maori land law in line with other company and trust law.
The panel is holding a series of hui aroiund the country, and Matanuku Mahuika says the turn out shows Maori are keenly interested in the issues raised.
The key proposal is to allow Maori owners to create a wider range of bodies to organise their land interests, and they will have more freedom to make decisions without having to get aproval from the Maori Land Court.
"Owners should be, as long as they meet minimum threshholds, able to do what they choose and organise their affairs as they please. We think that's important as a means of further empowering Maori landowners and it's also a direction that other areas of corporate law and trust law have moved towards in recent years," Mr Mahuika says.
He says a lot of Maori land disputes are essentially disputes between family members, so a mediation process with an agreed outcome may be better for long term relationships than a court order.
The next hui is at Rotorua on Thursday, followed by Dunedin on Friday and Gisborne and Hastings on Sunday.
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