December 17, 2019
Tauranga land returned to tangata whenua
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A Tauranga councillor believes there is no confiscated land in the city and no cause to return land to local hapū.
Andrew Hollis was one of three councillors who voted against a motion yesterday to give 11 Mission Street to the Otamataha Trust.
The land will be perpetually leased to the Elms Foundation which looks after the adjoining mission house.
Councillor Hollis said the gift was about political correctness and virtue signaling, but new Mayor Tenby Powell said it was about having moral courage to do the right thing and give some mana back to iwi.
The mission station was part of the Te Papa peninsula which was placed with the Church Missionary Society in 1838 but on-sold under pressure to the crown during the wars of the 1860s when large tracts of land around Tauranga Moana was confiscated.
Mr Hollis told Radio Waatea host Claudette Hauiti iwi in Tauranga already have plenty of land.
"The point of the whole Te Papa peninsula in Tauranga was it was a legitimate sale. It wasn't confiscated land. There is no confiscated land in Tauranga at all," he says.
The Elms Foundation intends to build an education centre on the land.
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