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The hearing was welcomed into Te Kiri Omaha Marae in Leigh.
Omaha Marae chair Annie Baines.
Kaipara Ltd managing director Steve Riddell and legal representative Morgan Slyfield.
Political manoeuvring among iwi and hapu took centre stage at a special hearing at Te Kiri Omaha Marae in Leigh. The hearing was for Kaipara Ltd’s application to extend its consent to extract sand offshore from Pakiri.
Omaha Marae chair Annie Baines told commissioners that Kaipara Ltd had been withholding its “cultural liaison fee” for a year, without the knowledge of the marae.
As part of Kaipara Ltd’s consent, 17 years ago, it had agreed to pay 50 cents for each cubic metre of sand extracted, worth $1 million over the 20-year period. Half was paid to the Ngati Wai Settlement
Trust and the other half to the Omaha Marae, which sits within the Ngati Wai iwi.
However, Ms Baines presented commissioners with the minutes from a meeting held in April last year that Omaha Marae had not been privy to.
At the meeting, Ngati Manuhiri Settlement Trust chair Mook Hohneck, Kaipara Ltd and executives of Ngati Wai Trust agreed that funds would be withheld and later redistributed.
The meeting minutes record that Ngati Manuhiri Settlement Trust told Kaipara Ltd that in its project agreement, Kaipara had agreed that fees would be allocated to “hapu most affected”.
Ngati Manuhiri lawyer Jason Pou argued, therefore, that Ngati Manuhiri ought to receive the funds.
Mr Hohneck also suggested that a further royalty fee of $1.70 per cubic metre paid to the Crown ought to instead be paid to Ngati Manuhiri.
The minutes state that Mr Hohneck said that Ngati Manuhiri would do its own investigation, and if any reimbursement or arrangement [from the Crown] was forthcoming, it would go to Ngati Manuhiri and no other entity.
Kaipara Ltd has withheld this fee from the Crown since October 2016, after Ngati Manuhiri argued the validity of the Crown’s right to the royalties given that ownership of the adjacent land had changed. At
150,000 cubic metres extracted each year, this would likely now amount to about $1.1 million.
According to the minutes, Ngati Wai and Ngati Manuhiri were to agree on how funds would be redistributed going forward. Further, it was agreed that Hohneck would lead discussions between iwi and Kaipara Ltd for fees for the new consent.
However, Ms Baines said that leading up to the consent hearings, Kaipara Ltd had a change of heart and paid the due fees to Omaha Marae. However, Ms Baines told commissioners that for the Pakiri whanau of Te Kiri Omaha Marae, it was not about money – the sand extraction should simply stop.
“But we have been pushed out of the way. It seems like once these memorandums of understanding are signed, companies like Kaipara Ltd can do whatever they like,” she said.
“That is the problem with settlement trusts. But a settlement trust is not an iwi, it’s a governance entity to administer the assets of a settlement.
“Pakiri was never part of Ngati Manuhiri’s settlement and we never gave them rights over our land.”
She said her whanau had always lived at Pakiri and had mana whenua (rights) as kaitiaki (guardians).
Ms Baines and Pakiri G trustee Sammy Williams presented photographs of great sand dunes at Pakiri Beach that have now disappeared. Ms Baines said the tide was encroaching on the nesting grounds of dotterels and kaimoana (seafood) had disappeared from the seabed.
Mr Williams said that as a young man he had built a fence to protect the dunes, but had watched as it eroded over the years. He believed this was due to sand extraction.
“The environment has paid a price that even a blank cheque can’t fix. Our sand has been taken for too long,” he said.
Although Kaipara Ltd representatives present were not required to answer questions, Ms Baines addressed them.
“Can Kaipara Ltd, hand on heart, say the dredging has not contributed to the loss of the dunes?”
In a surprise twist later in the hearing, Ngati Manuhiri also alleged Kaipara Ltd withheld funds and was making arrangements with other hapu, behind its back.
Ngati Manuhiri legal representative Jason Pou said he had only learned that the cultural fees had ultimately been paid to Omaha Marae, despite what had been arranged in the meeting, when he heard about it at the previous week’s hearing.
He said Kaipara Ltd had “undercut” Ngati Manuhiri by making the payment to Ngati Wai.
“It reeks of bad faith, and it is clear that engagement with iwi has been about fishing for a ‘yes’ and the bait on the hook is royalties for mining.
“Kaipara has damaged Ngati Manuhiri’s internal relationships and has, consequently, destroyed any relationship with Kaipara Ltd.”
A commissioner asked Mr Pou whether any cultural liaison fee agreement was currently before Ngati Manuhiri from Kaipara Ltd. Mr Pou said Kaipara Ltd had sent one but that Ngati Manuhiri had not responded.
He said that Ngati Manuhiri opposed the application and viewed it as “pillaging the whenua”.
Mr Pou equated the extraction of sand with historical grievances in which the Crown allowed neighbouring iwi to illegally sell land in Mahurangi.
He said the seafloor was part of the land and that that land was being “sucked up and taken down to Ngati Whatua’s rohe”.
The hearing was due to finished last Friday and commissioners will hear Kaipara Ltd’s right of reply at the Warkworth Town Hall on May 31.
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