Raglan issue still festering

Press, 12 May 1979, Page 25

Raglan issue still festering

Wellington reporter

The issue of the ownership of the Raglan Golf Course continues to fester even though the lease held by the golf club was last year found by Mr A. D. Richardson, S.M., to be invalid. Raglan Maoris, Maori leaders outside Raglan, the Maori Land Court, and the Minister of Lands (Mr V. S. Young) still seem to be in conflict over what will happen to the land.

Raglan Maoris were reported during April to be furious about remarks attributed to the Minister on how he proposed to settle the dispute. Mr Young was accused of “directing” the Maori Land Court to let him nominate to whom the golf course would be returned and to set his own conditions for that return. These assertions were made by representatives of the beneficial owners, the Tainui Awhiro. Speaking for Tainui Awhiro, Mrs Eva Rickard said she had begun preparing a “major battle” to

contest the terms of the proposed vesting order. The issue was further inflamed by a Waikatobased newspaper article which stated as a fact that Mr Young had directed the Maori Land Court, instead of attributing the statement to Mrs Rickard. This drew a strenuous cenial from Mr Young which did not receive the same degree of publicity as the original and incorrect statement.

The Maori Land Court is now in a quandary. Judge K. B. Cull of the court is reported to be considering what authority, if any, the Minister of Lands has to direct or otherwise influence any decision of the court,

After asserting that Mr Young had directed the court, Mrs Rickard went on to say that the Minister wanted the nominated owners to pay $61,000 for the land, which they would not be permitted to occupy until the year 2035. This is the date of expiry for the Raglan Golf Club’s lease of the

land, which Mrs Rickard said the Minister was demanding the owners validate as a condition of a proposed vesting order. Mr Richardson, S.M., found the lease to be invalid when he dismissed trespass charges against 17 supporters of the Tainui Awhiro owners. They had been arrested during a protest of 150 persons calling for a return of the land. This land had been confiscated for war effort in 1941, but never returned as promised in a verbal agreement.

Mrs Rickard then went on to say she had begun preparing to contest the terms of the proposed vesting order but, failing that, there would be a bigger confrontation than any yet held over a land issue. She was having difficulties restraining the young people from acting now.

After this, the chairman of Te Matakite O Aotearoa (Dr D. Sinclair) promised to take the issue to the World Court if the Tainui Awhiro people did not get justice in their own country. He said that the only difference between what happened in New Zealand and South Africa was that here things were done under a cloak of good will, equity, and conscience.

Mr Young replied that he had announced in October last year the course that was going to be followed, and this was well known to Mrs Rickard, Dr Sinclair, and other interested parties. It was now in the hands of the Tainui Awhiro people to make their case to the court. The Minister’s first preference was for the Tainui Awhiro to accept the Government's offer to return the land and pay $61,000 in compensation to the Government. If this proved impossible, it was for the Maori Land Court to decide whether the beneficial owners, the Tainui Trust Board or some other body, could properly represent the interests of the

Maori people in that piece of land. It was virtually being left to the court to decide. The Government had decided that the land was to be returned to its original owners the Court would decide who the owners were. Proper legal procedures were being used to determine in whom the land should be vested. Mr Young said it was ridiculous to say the court was being used to “rubbish the Maori people.” “It is also a slur on the court to suggest it would accept any such direction or influence from a Minister of the Crown,” he said. Mrs Rickard and Dr Sinclair had always been aware of the terms under which the land would be offered back. The Minister acknowledged that they had certainly not been happy with all the terms, but compensation had been paid by the Government when the land had been confiscated in 1941. For those times it had been fair compensation: and if the land was to be returned to its original owners they must pay compensation to the Crown.

Mr Young accused both Mrs Rickard and Dr Sinclair of being “emotive” and not recognising the efforts the Government had made to reach a solution. He also accused Dr Sinclair of having changed his opinion about reimbursement of money for the land. He doubted that either of them were speaking for the majority of the Tainui Awhiro people, and accused them of “just creating an unnenecessary division in the community.” In a meeting held at the office of the Commissioner of Crown Lands in Hamilton, attended by the Minister. and where a number of parties had been present, Dr Sinclair had told Mr Young that he would have no trouble in finding the $61,000 should the Government go ahead and have the land vested.

Mr Young said that was Dr Sinclair’s undertaking; and he could not understand why Dr Sinclair had seemed to change his opinion, unless he had spoken without authority on that occasion. Nonetheless, Mrs Rickard said she had discovered only recently the Minister’s intention to have the lease validated. This was a complete “about face” from his offer in July, 1978, to resite the golf course.

She would have been quite happy to “battle it out with the judge,” she said, but instead her hands had been tied as the Minister had directed the court to “rubber stamp" his vesting order application. It was the Tainui Awhiro people who should be paid $61,000 compensation for damage caused be delinquent tenants and loss of use of ancestral lands of 35 years that had scattered her people from Raglan.

Mrs Rickard threatened to take the issue to the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. If unsuccessful, she had threatened to plough up the golf course and occupy the sacred burial grounds there.