Three Hauraki iwi marked the end of a 15-year journey today as their Treaty settlement bills passed their final reading in Parliament, delivering formal Crown apologies, more than $20 million in redress, and the return of dozens of cultural properties across the Coromandel and Hauraki Plains.
The bills covering Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu, Ngāti Tara Tokanui and Ngāti Hei completed their parliamentary passage on 13 May, with Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith describing the moment as a reflection of “the commitment, resilience, and determination” of all three groups. Each iwi sat through generations of waiting before reaching this point, with formal negotiations only beginning in 2011 after decades of preparatory work and historical research.
Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu, based around Te Aroha, will receive $5.5 million in financial and commercial redress, 17 individual and two joint cultural redress properties, and the right to purchase two commercial properties from the Crown. Ngāti Tara Tokanui, whose rohe sits around Paeroa, will receive $6 million along with seven individual and two joint cultural redress properties, and a two-year right to purchase the Paeroa College school site if it becomes surplus. Ngāti Hei, whose territory stretches along the eastern Coromandel from Onemana to Whangapoua and out to Ahuahu (Great Mercury Island) and Cuvier Island, will receive the largest of the three packages at $8.5 million, alongside 15 individual and two joint cultural redress properties and three commercial properties available for purchase.
Each of the three settlements includes an agreed historical account, Crown acknowledgements of Treaty breaches, and a formal apology to the iwi. The accompanying redress packages include protocols with conservation, fisheries and heritage agencies, plus formal relationship agreements with the Department of Conservation that recognise mana whenua interests in conservation land. The financial redress is small relative to the size of better-known settlements such as Waikato-Tainui or Ngāi Tahu, reflecting the more limited size of the three iwi rather than any diminution of the historical harm.
In his statement to Parliament, Goldsmith said all three iwi “entered formal negotiations with the Crown in 2011 and have worked persistently and in good faith over many years to reach this point.” He added that “while no settlement can fully compensate for the Crown’s injustices towards Ngāti Rāhiri Tumutumu, Ngāti Tara Tokanui and Ngāti Hei, I sincerely hope this redress will support these Hauraki iwi to strengthen their economic, cultural and environmental aspirations.” The Minister also said the Crown had formally acknowledged “the cumulative impacts of its historical breaches of te Tiriti” against the three groups, language consistent with similar settlement legislation passed under earlier governments.
The Hauraki settlements form part of a wider cluster of overlapping claims in the region that has frustrated successive governments. Twelve iwi share interests across the peninsula and plains, and the negotiations have been complicated by competing customary interests, environmental claims tied to the Hauraki Gulf, and the legacy of mining and forestry on iwi land. Settlement deeds with all three iwi were signed in previous parliamentary terms but had to wait until 2026 for their enabling legislation to clear the House. Reporting on the final reading noted that the legislation was the product of cross-party support sustained across multiple governments.
The bills passed today follow a series of Treaty settlements progressed in recent months under the coalition government, including settlements for Ngāti Hāua and Te Korowai o Wainuiārua earlier in the year, and Ngāti Pāoa in November 2025. Goldsmith has also been advancing the Ngā Hapū o Te Iwi o Whanganui Bill, which passed its first reading this week after nine years in negotiation, suggesting the legislative backlog of unfinished settlements is finally clearing.
Beyond the dollar figures, the practical effects of today’s legislation will be felt most directly on the ground. Place names will be officially restored or co-named in dozens of locations, statutory acknowledgements will give the iwi a formal voice in resource consent decisions affecting their rohe, and a number of sites of significance will be vested back into iwi ownership for the first time since the 19th century. The cultural redress properties returned today include urupā, customary fishing places, and a series of headlands and reserves along the eastern Coromandel that have been used as marae overflow and gathering sites by hapū members for generations.
The financial redress, modest in absolute terms, is generally invested by post-settlement governance entities into commercial portfolios that generate ongoing distributions to iwi members. For Ngāti Hei in particular, with strong existing fishing and tourism interests around the Coromandel and offshore islands, the $8.5 million injection is expected to be put to work supporting kaitiaki roles, language revitalisation programmes, and education scholarships rather than distributed as one-off payments.
The three settlements close one of the longest-running chapters in the Hauraki Treaty negotiations process, but they do not exhaust the wider Hauraki collective settlement, which remains under negotiation and continues to involve complex overlapping interests with neighbouring rohe. Both Goldsmith and his Labour predecessors have signalled that the full resolution of the Hauraki collective remains a priority for the coming parliamentary term, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election.
Treaty settlements remain a contested area of policy in election year. If you want to compare where the parties stand on Treaty issues, justice reform and Māori policy heading into the 2026 general election, try our interactive voting tool which matches your positions on key issues to each party’s published platform.
What do you think — has the Treaty settlement programme served its purpose, or is there still substantial work to do before the historical grievances are properly addressed? Have your say in the comments below.
See also NZ Treaty Settlements Explorer — Newswire’s interactive map and timeline of every Treaty of Waitangi settlement to date.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply