May 18, 2022
Colonial leases keep whānau from whenua
The Māori Party says it would back a law change to unwind a discriminatory 999 year lease.
Whānau in Tokomaru Bay have been told they have to pay full market price if they want to buy back a lease on their whenua, after a century of peppercorn rents which were only adjusted every 21 years.
Ngāti Porou lawyer Darrell Naden says the central area of the small East Coast town was turned into a so-called native township to be leased to non-natives, which was then turned into a perpetual lease through an administrative slip of the pen.
Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi says such colonial era leases have no place in today’s Aotearoa.
“The pen has been slipping for too long so they need to control what they are doing. This is moving towards having more mana over our whenua and not having these peppercorn leases or these perpetual leases over a 999 year period locking us out,” he says.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson says Tokomaru Bay is the sort of situation the Green’s Hoki Whenua Mai policy aims to address.