Tribunal: Courts to rule on water

AWaitangi Tribunal report on freshwater makes sweeping recommendations about water management, allocation and ownership. It says it is time for the courts to decide whether Maori retain native title in water and a group, including Auckland mayoral contender John Tamihere, has just instructed lawyers to lodge such a case.

The 565-page report and nonbinding recommendations also says the Crown should devise a new

regime in partnership with Maori to allocate water, involving a national co-governance body.

“All allocation to iwi and hapu should be perpetually renewable and inalienable other than by lease or some other form of temporary transfer,” the report says.

It says if any local authority reports that catchment circumstances do not allow the allocation to be made, the national co-management body should consider alternatives, including the possibility of compensation.

It recommends that the Crown arrange for an allocation of water for the development of Maori land where it is sustainable.

It also says the national cogovernance body should investigate setting royalties for water.

“The national co-governance body should investigate other possible mechanisms for ‘proprietary redress’ including royalties, as there is insufficient evidence for the tribunal to make a recommendation to the Crown.

“We think this should include leading a wider conversation within Maoridom on proprietary rights and how these might be recognised.”

The report virtually invites a court case to be lodged in order to definitively test issues of ownership.

“It may now be necessary for a test case to be brought before the courts on whether native title in fresh water (as a component of an indivisible freshwater taonga) exists as a matter of New Zealand common law and has not been extinguished.”

NZ First’s Coalition agreement with the Labour Party specifically rules out any “resource rentals for water in this term of Parliament” but also promises to “introduce a royalty on exports of bottled water”.

The report was filed by the New Zealand Maori Council in 2012.

Maanu Paul, one of the original claimants, was “exultant” with the new report. “We feel absolutely vindicated,” Paul said.

“Our claimant group had a very strong sense that Maori have always owned and controlled the water and no legislation had ever appropriated our rights of ownership.”

Environment Minister David Parker said it was a “long, complex and challenging report”.

“Obviously we haven’t formed a view on it yet.”