Waikato-Tainui sign Deed of Settlement with the Crown

22 May 1995

Queen Elizabeth and Dame Te Atairangikaahu, 1995
Queen Elizabeth and Dame Te Atairangikaahu, 1995 (Alexander Turnbull Library, EP/1995/4375B/33A-F)

Waikato–Tainui was the first iwi to reach a Treaty of Waitangi settlement with the Crown for injustices that went back to the wars and land confiscations (raupatu) of the 1860s. The Deed of Settlement included cash and land valued at a total of $170 million.

The agreement was a major landmark in New Zealand’s developing treaty settlements process. As historian Richard Hill explained in his book Maori and the state (2009):

The settlement was for some $150 million more than the government had been prepared to offer less than five years before. A mere six years before the signing, in fact, there were no state plans to supersede the 1946 agreement. Matters had, certainly in international terms, moved fast.

The agreement also included a formal apology from the Crown. Queen Elizabeth II signed the Act that made the agreement law during a state visit later in 1995. Tainui established a commercial framework to manage its tribal assets and, by 2014, Tainui Group Holdings and Waikato–Tainui Fisheries had assets of over $1 billion.

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Antony

Posted: 22 May 2015

Hi - while the Waikato-Tainui deed was certainly the first major settlement, it wasn't the first settlement. Ngati Whakaue settled for $5 million in 1994 and several other smaller settlements. Go to the OTS website.