The Government is putting $8 million into the Waitangi Treaty Grounds to help keep the Northland site open and look after its buildings. It is the latest in a run of Crown payments to a trust that, for most of its 94-year history, ran without any government money for its day-to-day costs.
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and MΔori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the grant from the Regional Infrastructure Fund on Thursday 10 September. Their joint statement says the money will “support the continued operation and preservation” of the grounds, and pay for the infrastructure and assets needed to keep the site open to the public and to run educational, cultural and commemorative programmes.
“Waitangi is where the story of modern New Zealand began. It is a place of immense national significance, a place of nationhood,” Jones said. He described the upkeep of “heritage buildings, museums, cultural facilities and public infrastructure” at the site as “an essential and ongoing investment”.
Potaka said Waitangi is where many New Zealanders come to better understand the Treaty and “reflect on the events and people who shaped our nation”.
According to the ministers, the grounds draw more than 160,000 visitors a year and are one of Northland’s biggest visitor attractions. Jones linked the grant to 2040, the bicentenary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840.
The grounds have belonged to the public since 1932. The Governor-General of the day, Lord Bledisloe, and his wife Lady Bledisloe acquired the land where the Treaty was first signed and gave it to the country. Parliament passed the Waitangi National Trust Board Act in December that year to set up a board to look after it. The Act’s preamble says the couple meant the land to be “a place of historic interest, recreation, enjoyment, and benefit in perpetuity to the inhabitants of New Zealand”.
For decades the trust paid its own way, relying on visitors. That changed with two shocks. In April 2019 the Government gave the Waitangi National Trust a $1 million grant to help it recover after a manager siphoned $1.2 million from its bank accounts in 2017. Then Covid-19 shut the border. In May 2020 RNZ reported that a $4 million subsidy from the Arts, Culture and Heritage budget was believed to be the first government funding for the trust’s baseline operations since it was established in 1932.
Greg McManus, then the trust’s chief executive, said at the time that with international tourism gone the trust “faced some stark choices, including closing to the public and laying off most of our staff”.
The sums have grown since then. In November 2024 Jones and Potaka granted $10.2 million from the same fund for repairs and upgrades. According to the trust’s own statement, the work included a new floor and restored carvings in the carved meeting house, new roofing for Busby’s House and the original visitors’ centre, and a replacement shelter for the grounds’ giant ceremonial war canoe, which the trust describes as the world’s largest. Eru Lyndon, chair of Waitangi Limited, said the money would help put the site in the best condition for Waitangi commemorations and for “the nation’s bicentenaries in 2035 and 2040”. The earlier of those dates marks 200 years since the Declaration of Independence was signed at Waitangi in 1835.
In February this year Jones marked the sealing of Haruru Falls Road, a secondary route into the grounds, paid for with $1.57 million from the fund and $400,000 from the Far North District Council. “Anyone familiar with the road will know that it was a dusty, uneven and sometimes treacherous route because it was partially unsealed,” he said.
Adding up the grants reported by RNZ and in government statements, the Crown has committed at least $23.2 million to the trust and the Treaty Grounds since 2019. That total counts $1 million in 2019, $4 million in 2020, $10.2 million in 2024 and Thursday’s $8 million. It leaves out the road money and the $14.5 million from the Provincial Growth Fund for the MΔori Battalion Museum at Waitangi, which the ministers also listed.
The Waitangi money is a grant, not a loan. When applications for the Regional Infrastructure Fund opened in July 2024, RNZ reported that hopeful applicants were cautioned the fund would mostly be allocated as loans and equity investments rather than grants.
The relationship between the minister and the trust has not always been smooth. In February 2025, after a disrupted welcome for MPs on the Treaty Grounds, Jones told reporters that future government funding for the trust should not be given unless they “buck their ideas up”, Newstalk ZB reported. National minister Paul Goldsmith said at the time that he did not support restricting funding on that basis. Nineteen months later, Jones is one of the two ministers announcing the latest grant.
The grant is one of several funding announcements ministers have made this month, less than two months before the general election on 7 November. If you are still working out where the parties stand on regional spending, heritage and everything else, try our voting tool to see which party best matches your views.
Have you visited the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, and do you think the Crown should be helping to keep it running? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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