News

Occasional news and views related to HistoryWorks and Treaty of Waitangi claims processes in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

HistoryWorks Director Receives LLB Degree

HistoryWorks Directors are fully committed to increasing and developing their professional expertise in order to provide enhanced client services. This was demonstrated recently when HistoryWorks Director David Armstrong received his Bachelor of Laws Degree at a Victoria University graduation ceremony in May, 2007.

David studied part time over the past five years. His focus was on Maori land law, indigenous rights and Treaty of Waitangi issues. David found the study demanding,  but has benefited from an enhanced knowledge of the law and legal processes, as well as the intellectual disciplines and rigour inherent in the study of law. [Added 17 July 2007]

CNI Report Released

The Waitangi Tribunal recently released the first volume of its report covering the huge Central North Island (CNI) claim area. More than 120 claims from the Taupo, Kaingaroa and Rotorua inquiry districts were considered by the Tribunal, and the first part of its report, intended to be released progressively over the coming months, examines a grievance common to many of these: the Crown’s failure to respect and protect te tino rangatiratanga of the CNI hapu and iwi. In the Tribunal’s view, the loss of authority which followed resulted in the social and economic marginalisation of Maori for generations to come. HistoryWorks Directors Bruce Stirling, David Armstrong and Dr Vincent O’Malley all presented multiple submissions to the CNI Tribunal on behalf of claimants. The report is available from the Waitangi Tribunal website. (See our links page). [Added 17 July 2007]

HistoryWorks Director Attends Privy Council

In early July 2006 HistoryWorks Director David Armstrong attended the Privy Council in London as a guest of the Ngati Apa Ki Te Waipounamu Trust. Mr Armstrong has provided research assistance to Ngati Apa since 1997, and presented extensive evidence for the iwi during their Waitangi Tribunal claims in 2003.  

(Photo caption: David Armstrong (left), with Ngati Apa counsel Quentin Davies (centre) and R. D. Crosby outside the Privy Council (counsel were not required to wear wigs and gowns during the proceedings, but donned them later for photographs).

The Privy Council case involved an administrative law issue relating to a Maori Appellate Court decision in 1990. The Appellate Court determined that the northern boundary of the Ngai Tahu iwi on the West Coast of the South Island was at Kahurangi Point. Ngati Apa claim that the boundary is much further south – at the Paparoa Ranges south of Westport (Kawatiri).

After the 1990 Appellate Court decision Ngati Apa embarked on a lengthy appeal process, which finally led them to the Privy Council last year. HistoryWorks understands that this may have been the last civil case to come before the Privy Council, making it an even more notable event.

The issue before the Law Lords was whether Ngati Apa had been represented at the 1990 Appellate Court. Ngati Apa insisted that they had not been represented, while Ngai Tahu argued to the contrary. The decision, released in October 2006, went against Ngati Apa. The iwi were greatly disappointed by this outcome, and now await the release of the Northern South Island Waitangi Tribunal Report (scheduled for late 2007), which may provide some support for their claims. The iwi remain adamant that the historical evidence supports their claims to customary interests south of Kahurangi.

The Privy Council sat in its Downing Street chambers – a few doors down from No. 10. Mr Armstrong notes that the atmosphere was remarkably informal, with a lack of wigs and gowns perhaps encouraged by 40 degree temperatures. Nevertheless, the extended and close questioning by Britain’s preeminent legal minds clearly provided a stern and perhaps intimidating test for all the counsel involved. [Added 11 February 2007]

HistoryWorks Turns Two

HistoryWorks recently marked its second anniversary. Formed in June 2004, the company has since completed over 80 separate projects for a wide range of clients, ranging from iwi and hapū organisations, Treaty sector agencies, heritage organisations, the tertiary sector, government departments, publishers, museums and others. In this time HistoryWorks has engaged the services of more than 20 separate contractors, quickly establishing itself as the largest private sector provider of historical research expertise in Aotearoa/New Zealand and a premier deliverer of culturally-grounded mapping services to Māori and others. Offering integrated historical research and mapping services, HistoryWorks has been able to offer comprehensive solutions to our clients. We look forward to another productive and challenging year or two ahead. [Added 11 July 2006] 

Labouring on

This Labour Weekend promises to live up to its name for the HistoryWorks’ team – we are moving offices.

Effective from Tuesday 25 October 2005 our new physical/courier address will be:

Level 4, Navigate House

69-71 Boulcott Street

WELLINGTON

Please note that our phone and fax numbers have also changed:

Phone (04) 473-1480

Fax (04) 473-1487

Our postal address remains unchanged:

PO Box 27-043

WELLINGTON

We look forward to greeting visitors at our new premises in the near future. [Added 12 October 2005]

Waitangi Tribunal Conference

A conference on the issues confronting historians, lawyers, and negotiators in the Waitangi Tribunal and the Treaty claims process is being convened in Wellington on 17–18 November 2005 by the New Zealand Law Society. Maori Land Court Chief Judge, and Waitangi Tribunal Chairperson, Joe Williams is the driving force behind the Waitangi Tribunal Conference 2005.

The focus of the conference workshop sessions is on lawyers, but the role of historians in the Treaty claims process is also on the agenda. HistoryWorks director Bruce Stirling is presenting two sessions to the conference.

The first of these considers the effective presentation of historical evidence to the Waitangi Tribunal and the relationship between historian and lawyer in the Tribunal environment. The second session, ‘Right Answer, Wrong Question’, focuses on cross-examination, and how historians and lawyers can best prepare for it. Bruce and the other HistoryWorks directors can testify from their own long experience that cross-examination in the Waitangi Tribunal can be a gruelling ordeal. On the other hand, while it is sometimes challenging for historians cross-examination is also an opportunity to present and advance their ideas in a robust public forum. [Added 12 October 2005]

CNI Hearings

Waitangi Tribunal hearings involving stage one of the Central North Island (CNI) claims will conclude early next month with closing submissions from the Crown and claimant submissions in reply.

Stage one, which commenced at Rotorua in February 2005, involves an investigation into the wider (or 'generic') historical issues common to the whole region, which includes the Rotorua, Taupo and Kaingaroa districts. It is yet to be decided whether the Tribunal will proceed with Stage II, which would involve an investigation of particular or specific iwi and hapu claims.

Covering three separate districts and multiple iwi and hapu claims, the CNI hearings have required a huge commitment from all parties. Given the sheer scale of the area covered, the historical issues involved have been varied and complex.

HistoryWorks Research Directors Dr Vincent O'Malley, Bruce Stirling and David Armstrong  presented and faced cross-examination on a total of 7 historical reports prepared for this inquiry. Dr O'Malley's recently completed doctoral thesis on Maori political movements in the nineteenth century, and his 1998 book Agents of Autonomy: Maori Committees in the Nineteenth Century, were also placed on the record of inquiry.

Whether this ambitious hearing process will be judged a success will ultimately be determined by the Tribunal. All parties to the inquiry hope for an expeditious report from the Tribunal, which will enable them to advance the settlement of their claims, including those involving significant Crown forestry assets in the region. [Added 12 October 2005]

Indigenous Realities

The Indigenous Knowledges Conference held at Victoria University in June 2005 proved a hugely successful gathering. Directors of HistoryWorks Ltd were in attendance throughout the four-day gathering in their capacity as sponsors of the conference.

Moka Apiti, Mapping Director and member of the conference organising committee, also accompanied about 20 conference delegates who began the conference with a hikoi from Auckland down to Wellington, including a two-day noho marae at Ngati Whare’s Murumurunga marae at Te Whaiti, on the fringes of the Urewera National Park. The hikoi, intended to provide an insight into the day-to-day issues confronting local Maori communities, proved hugely popular with international and some local delegates.

Among their number was Erykah Kyle (pictured), who as a keynote speaker at the conference proper, provided a riveting and impassioned insight into the problems confronting her own Aboriginal community on Palm Island. In 1974 Amnesty International described conditions on Palm Island as akin to those of a concentration camp. Her sobering message to the conference was that little appeared to have changed in the past thirty years and that little would change until Aboriginal people were properly empowered and resourced to manage their own affairs. [Added 12 October 2005]       

Tangata Pasifika

A new book published this month by the University of Hawai’i Press considers the foundational texts in Pacific Islands history. Texts and Contexts: Reflections in Pacific Islands Historiography, edited by Doug Munro and Brij V. Lal, focuses on 35 pioneering historical works published between 1938 and 1992.

HistoryWorks director Dr Vincent O’Malley contributed a chapter on two seminal works of New Zealand race relations history. Keith Sinclair’s, The Origins of the Maori Wars, first published in 1957, constituted a major breakthrough in the writing of New Zealand history, while Alan Ward’s, A Show of Justice (1974), remains the standard reference work on nineteenth-century ‘native’  policy.

According to O’Malley, both works rank among a handful of the most important histories published in New Zealand – and both made significant contributions to the process of revisiting and exposing some of the more uncomfortable truths of the nation’s past. Texts and Contexts provides a timely reminder of previous paths travelled in writing the region’s past and a guide to those ahead. This is a book which is likely to become recognised as itself a foundational text in the historiography of the Pacific. [Added 12 October 2005]

Historians in the Negotiation Process

In the past the involvement of historians working for claimant groups tended to cease when the Waitangi Tribunal inquiry ended. Although Crown historians have always been fully involved in the negotiation process, claimants and their lawyers generally entered into negotiations with the Crown armed with either a Tribunal report, or evidence prepared for them as part of the hearing process.

That trend is now being reversed, and claimants are increasingly seeking the assistance of historians in the negotiation process, especially in developing agreed statements of historical facts, composing recitals (the Crown apology), and in the identification and mapping of particular wahi tapu (sacred places) and other sites of significance which require protection or recognition.

HistoryWorks directors Dr Vincent O'Malley, David Armstrong and Moka Apiti have all recently been involved in assisting claimants in various aspects of the negotiation process, and have developed particular expertise in the mapping and identification of wahi tapu sites of significance. [Added 12 October 2005]

Northern South Island  (Te Tau Ihu)

Lengthy Waitangi Tribunal hearings into the Northern South Island claims concluded in early 2004. The claims involved eight separate iwi and covered a vast area north of the Buller River on the West Coast and the Clarence River on the east coast. Each iwi was afforded the opportunity to present its claims in a series of intensive week-long hearings in Nelson, Blenheim, Motueka, and Takaka.

The claims focused on the nature and extent of overlapping customary rights, New Zealand Company claims, Crown purchases and the actions of the Native Land Court in the nineteenth century.

A Tribunal report on the claims is expected in 2006. Ngai Tahu claims were reported on by the Tribunal in 1991, and the conclusion of this inquiry thus marks the end of Waitangi Tribunal hearings in the South Island, at least as far as historical claims are concerned.

HistoryWorks director David Armstrong was fully involved in this hearing process, and presented extensive evidence on behalf of two Northern South Island iwi  - Ngati Apa and Rangitane.
[Added 12 October 2005]

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