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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 10. May 15 1978

The Reserves Act

The Reserves Act

This piece of legislation was a slap in the face for the Maori people who bent over backwards to help the government. The inherent susceptibility of Maori land to the act is spelled out in the following:

"A great deal of the land which has remained in Maori ownership is rather more rugged, less fertile and more sparsely populated. These factors have combined to make much of the remaining Maori estates undeveloped and unspoilt and thereby attractive as parks and domains, and as scenic and foreshore reserves"(7)

The Maori people expressed their strong opposition to the alienation of the freehold title to Maori land. Instead they offered a system whereby the enjoyment of these areas can be made available to the public while the land is retained in Maori ownership. Opposed to the notion of leases in perpetuity they offered two alternative:
1)that leases to the acquiring body be subject to periodic reviews. This would get rid of any notion of compulsion.
2)that the Maori people be able to declare the land a reserve themselves and control its use as a reserve according to their own customes.

These submissions were rejected. It is now open slather for Maori land for all local bodies. Perhaps dilapitations like the Te Porere Redoubt (historic Maori fort near Tokaanu worn down and virtually ruined by endless sightseers—adminstered by the Historic Places Trust) will be more common.

But the disregard of the Maori doesn't stop there. What if land is taken for a certain "public" purpose and not used for that purpose? Can the original owners get the land revested? This is what has arisen in the Raglan Golf Course controversy(8).