Tupuna Awa

People and Politics of the Waikato River

Marama Muru-Lanning

• Publisher: Auckland University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781775588627
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Australian & Oceanian History
• Index: History

'We have always owned the water... we have never ceded our mana over the river to anyone', King Tuheitia Paki asserted in 2012. Prime Minister John Key disagreed: ‘King Tuheitia's claim that Maori have always owned New Zealand's water is just plain wrong'. So who does own the water in New Zealand – if anyone – and why does it matter? Offering some human context around that fraught question, Tupuna Awa looks at the people and politics of the Waikato River. For iwi and hapu of the lands that border its 425-kilometre length, the Waikato River is an ancestor, a taonga and a source of mauri, lying at the heart of identity and chiefly power. It is also subject to governing oversight by the Crown and intersected by hydro-stations managed by state-owned power companies: a situation rife with complexity and subject to shifting and subtle power dynamics. Marama Muru-Lanning explains how Maori of the region, the Crown and Mighty River Power have talked about the ownership, guardianship and stakeholders of the river. By examining the debates over water in one New Zealand river, over a single recent period, Muru-Lanning provides a powerful lens through which to view modern iwi politics, debates over water ownership, and contests for power between Maori and the state.

223Index

Agreement in Principle for the Settlement of the Historical Claim of Waikato-Tainui in Relation to the Waikato River, 16 December 2007, 11, 93f, 174

Akuhata, Karla, 12, 149f, 151–52

Altman, Jon, 139–40

Arapuni, 51, 64

Arapuni hydro power station, 62, 64, 126

Araroa River, 55

Aratiatia hydro power station, 62, 63, 126

Aratiatia rapids, 44, 63

Ātiamuri, 28, 44, 47, 49, 50, 63

Ātiamuri hydro power station, 62, 63, 126

Auckland, 33, 42, 55, 56, 57, 114; see also Ōrākei

Ballara, Angela, 10, 75–76, 92, 97, 108f, 178

Barlow, Tinirau, 138

Barth, Fredrik, 4, 38–39, 148, 168–69, 170, 179, 180

Belich, James, 52, 56, 66

Bender, Barbara, 29–31, 147, 162

Bennett, David, 12

Best, Elsdon, 97

Biggs, Bruce, 40, 42, 50, 51, 66, 66f, 71, 75, 83–85, 86, 109, 156f, 178

Blackstone, William, 39, 73

Blair, Tony, 124–25

Buck, Sir Peter (Te Rangi Hiroa), 72, 74, 97

Caftanzoglou, Roxane, 147, 162, 163–64

Cambridge, 19f, 49, 51f

Cameron, General, 57

Cheater, Angela, 39, 95, 96, 97, 101, 115, 139, 182

Clifford, James, 22, 25, 38

coal deposits, rights to, 57–58, 93

Coal Mines Amendment Act 1903, 57–58

Cohen, Anthony, 35, 137–38, 140

commodification, see Waikato River: commodification of

common law rights, 1, 57, 57f, 68, 71–72, 73–75, 77, 78–79, 91; see also Kīngitanga, and primogeniture; land tenure, ‘ownership’ and land use; ownership, meaning and concept of

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction Captive Waters
• One The Two-Headed Taniwha: Waikato River Co-Governance
• Two Belonging to the River
• Three Mapping River Culture
• Four Different Understandings of ‘Owning’ the Waikato River
• Five Claiming Property and Rights through Māori Descent and Group Identities
• Six Stakeholders, Guardians and Co-Governors: Framing the Subjects of Power
• Seven Rethinking Boundaries: From River Ancestor to Ancestral River
• Conclusion Uncharted Waters
• Epilouge Asset Sales vs Water Ownership
• Appendices
• Glossary
• References
• Index
• Plates