Dr Carwyn Jones describes the main elements of both the Tūhoe Claims Settlement Act 2014 and the preceding inquiry and report of the Waitangi Tribunal into claims located in the Te Urewera inquiry district. read more
Dr Jacinta Ruru sets out and comments on the main elements of Te Urewera Act 2014. The legislation both facilitates management of Te Urewera by a new Te Urewera Board and declares that Te Urewera is a legal entity. Te Urewera ceases to be a national park as a result of the Act. read more
Māmari Stephens examines Mana Motuhake redress in the Tūhoe-Crown settlement as expressed through a Service Management Plan to improve the social circumstances of the Tūhoe people. read more
The Waitangi Tribunal is always busy. Currently it is busier than usual as Judge Craig Coxhead explains.
Download the Waitangi Tribunal's Strategic Direction 2014-2025 (16.1MB PDF) here. read more
Professor John Borrows, consultant editor to the Māori Law Review, notes the recent Aboriginal title decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia [2014] SCC 44.
Download Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia [2014] SCC 44 here. read more
Tipene v Tipene – Motatau 2 Section 49A4F
Māori Land Court (2014) 85 Taitokerau MB 2 (85 TTK 2)
19 August 2014
Trustees applied for confirmation they owned a dwelling on a block. Ownership was confirmed but subject to a constructive trust in favour of the prior occupant. Along with her husband (now deceased), the prior occupant had renovated and lived in the dwelling consistently with a family agreement.
Download Tipene v Tipene – Motatau 2 Section 49A4F (173 KB PDF) here. read more
Eru v Kīngi - Whakapoungakau 24
(2014) 101 Waiariki MB 1 (101 WAR 1)
25 July 2014
The two remaining trustees for Whakapoungakau 24 sought directions about where a general meeting of beneficial owners should be held, as they could not agree on whether the meeting should be held at Mataikotare marae. On balance the Court considered that the marae was an appropriate venue to hold the meeting.
Download Eru v Kīngi - Whakapoungakau 24 (125 KB PDF) here. read more
Justine Inns, partner at Ocean Law, reviews Māori involvement in the seafood sector. read more
Renika Siciliano, lead co-ordinator for Te Hunga Rōia Māori o Aotearoa's hui a tau, outlines two upcoming events. read more
The panel of experts reviewing Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993 has released its final report and recommendations. The Government has announced that it is drafting a new Te Ture Whenua Māori bill to reform the governance and management of Māori land based on the Panel's findings.
Download the Review Panel's final report (1.3 MB PDF) and the Government's subsequent announcement about law reform. read more
Te Mātāpunenga – A Compendium of References to the Concepts and Institutions of Māori Customary Law
Compiled, Edited and Introduced by Richard Benton, Alex Frame and Paul Meredith – Te Mātāhauariki Research Institute, University of Waikato.
Victoria University Press 2013 (ISBN: 9780864738899)
Reviewed by Matiu Dickson, Senior Lecturer, Te Piringa, Faculty of Law, University of Waikato – Ngāiterangi Iwi read more
David Randal and Julia White from Buddle Findlay’s environment and Māori law team review natural resource management law affecting Māori in 2013. read more
He Papakupu Reo Ture: A Dictionary of Māori Legal Terms
Māmari Stephens and Mary Boyce
LexisNexis New Zealand 2013 (ISBN: 9781927183748)
Reviewed by Pānia Papa - Ngāti Korokī-Kahukura, Ngāti Mahuta. read more
In February 2014 Jon Altman from the Australian National University, Canberra[ref]Jon Altman is a research professor in economics/anthropology at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University, where he was inaugural director 1990–2010. He would like to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of Francis Markham over the last year, dependent on his GIS mapping skills, and Craig Linkhorn for comments on this paper, based on a seminar delivered in the Māori Law Review’s Indigenous Law Speaker Series, at the Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington on 13 February 2014. An earlier version of the paper was delivered as a keynote address to The Australia New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics annual conference ‘Opportunities for the Critical Decade’ at the ANU in Canberra in November 2013.[/ref] delivered a seminar for the Māori Law Review’s Indigenous Law Speaker Series. Using a series of maps, Professor Altman's paper from that seminar examines a land rights revolution in Australia over the past 40 years. He explains that after two centuries of assertion that indigenous peoples did not own the continent in any proprietorial sense, the Mabo High Court judgment in 1992 revolutionised Australia’s land tenure. A combination of native title and earlier statutory land rights regimes have seen a rapidly growing proportion of the continent re-vested in indigenous land owners. Most of this estate is in remote and very remote Australia and it has two critical features, high conservation value because of remoteness; and high mineral prospectivity.
Download The political ecology and political economy of the Indigenous land titling ‘revolution’ in Australia (1.9 MB PDF).
Bugmy v The Queen
High Court of Australia [2013] HCA 37
2 October 2013
Max Harris considers the judgment of the High Court of Australia in Bugmy v The Queen where the Court considered – amongst other things – the argument that Aboriginal Australian offenders should be entitled to a sentencing discount on the basis of their indigenous background.
Download Bugmy v The Queen [2013] HCA 37 here.
Sir Edward Taihakurei Durie student essay competition 2013
Turbulent times: speculations about how the Whanganui River's position as a legal entity will be implemented and how it may erode the New Zealand legal landscape
The Māori Law Review is pleased to publish Laura Hardcastle's prize winning essay on recognising the Whanganui River as a legal entity. read more
Memorandum - Directions in the New Zealand Māori Council Māori Community Development Act Claim
Waitangi Tribunal (Wai 2417, 2.5.8)
24 December 2013
The Waitangi Tribunal will inquire urgently into the process adopted by the Crown for the reform of the Māori Community Development Act 1962, under which the New Zealand Māori Council and the Māori Wardens are governed.
Download Memorandum - Directions in the New Zealand Māori Council Māori Community Development Act Claim here (544 KB PDF). read more
The Māori Land Court bench has issued a new Practice Note about the citation of Māori Land Court and Māori Appellate Court decisions.
Download the 2013 Practice Note regarding the Citation of Māori Land Court and Māori Appellate Court decisions here (276 KB PDF). read more
Lords of the Land – indigenous property rights and the jurisprudence of empire
Mark Hickford
Oxford University Press 2011 (523 pages, ISBN: 9780199568659, eISBN: 9780191731273)
Reviewed by Māmari Stephens, senior lecturer, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington. read more
The Native Land Court: A Historical Study, Cases and Commentary, 1862-1887
Richard Boast
Thomson Reuters, Wellington, 2013 (xiii + 1407 pages, ISBN 978-0-86472-765-7).
Reviewed by Professor David V Williams, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland read more
Māmari Stephens, senior lecturer in law at Victoria University of Wellington and consultant editor to the Māori Law Review, spoke at the function held on 28 November 2013 to celebrate 20 years of publication for the Māori Law Review. read more
The Government has agreed to change criteria for the Kainga Whenua Loan and Infrastructure Grants schemes for lending relating to Māori land.
Kainga Whenua Loan and Kainga Whenua Infrastructure Grants criteria to change read more
The Legal Research Foundation is holding a conference, with the support of Te Hunga Rōia Māori o Aotearoa The New Zealand Māori Law Society, on Māori Legal Issues.
The conference will be held on Friday 29 November at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland.
Justice Joe Williams will chair the conference. Speakers and commentators will cover four areas – corporate governance, local government, land and the Treaty of Waitangi.
The conference brochure contains full programme details and the conference speakers. There are special rates for academics and students. Members of the Māori Law Society are offered the Legal Research Foundation member registration rate.