Geoff Parker: The NZ Herald's Cherry-Picked History.

The facts the Herald left out

The Weekend Herald's article (26 Sep 2026) “Horse trading: The troubling history of Māori-Pākehā land deals” presents a highly selective account of New Zealand's land history. It takes readers through disputed purchases, confiscations, the Native Land Court and Treaty settlements, while giving far less attention to the events that preceded those grievances.

That matters because history is chronology. If the beginning of an episode is removed, the events that follow can be made to look entirely different.

The Herald has published its version. Here are the facts it leaves out.

1. THE HERALD: Europeans Simply Took Māori Land

• Before the Treaty, Europeans and Māori entered into numerous land transactions, some of which were later disputed or found to cover far less land than the purchasers claimed, or unfairly purchased.

• After the Treaty, Crown pre-emption meant that the Crown held the exclusive right to purchase Māori land. Māori land was purchased by Crown agents. The Crown subsequently granted or resold land to settlers.

• The exception was the brief period from 1844 to 1845/46, when Governor FitzRoy waived Crown pre-emption and allowed private purchasers to buy directly from Māori, about 100,600 acres changed hands in this period. Grey then restored the Crown pre-exemption monoply.

The distinction matters because the Herald's presentation can give the impression of a continuous process in which private European settlers simply acquired Māori land. For most of the period from 1840 to 1865, that is not how the legal system operated: the Crown was the main purchaser.

2. THE HERALD: “sold For A Pittance”

• The £200 Auckland example is real — but "bought for a pittance" is an interpretation, not the whole story

• Ngati Whatua OCCUPIED the Auckland area (53,100 hectares city area or 108,600ha greater Auckland) from around 1750 before being driven out by a Ngapuhi war expedition led by Hongi, Rewa and Patuone in November 1822.

• The Tamaki isthmus was largely unoccupied from 1822 to 1840 because the desirability of the land made it too dangerous for tribes to live there.

• Ngati Whatua chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi on March 20, 1840, after which a delegation of chiefs invited Captain William Hobson, the new Governor, to settle in the Tamaki isthmus.

• The Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei settlement account confirms the 1841 transaction: approximately 13,000 acres for £200 plus four horses, 30 blankets, 10 cloaks, a tent and a desk.

• But there is something important the Herald article doesn't explain. These were 1841 transactions, not modern real-estate transactions, and the land was not being sold with today's infrastructure, roads, population, services, productive improvements or established property market.

• More importantly, the Crown's acquisition system had a particular constitutional and economic purpose: acquiring land for settlement and then making land available to settlers was part of the colonial government's development model.

• That does not make every transaction fair. It does mean that simply converting an 1841 acreage and purchase price into a modern moral judgement — "land for a pittance" — is historically incomplete.

Anyone who thinks settlements that Maori are getting are only a shadow of what they should be receiving, is either ignorant or lying. (or both)

3. BOUNDARIES — Disputes Were Not The Same As Land Being Taken Without Agreement

• The Herald gives considerable weight to disputes over boundaries, but a disputed boundary does not automatically mean that the underlying land purchase never occurred.

• Crown land purchases were recorded through formal deeds, identifying the blocks being acquired and the payments made. The subsequent difficulty was often determining the precise location or extent of the land described in those agreements.

• In some cases, Crown surveyors and purchasing agents interpreted boundaries differently from the Māori vendors. That produced genuine disputes, particularly where natural features, landmarks or Māori descriptions were being translated into European survey boundaries.

• Ngāi Tahu provides a particularly important example. Its grievances included disputes over the boundaries of purchased lands. NZHistory records that Ngāi Tahu protested from 1849 that reserves had not been allocated.

• But that is precisely why we need to distinguish between the existence of a purchase and a later dispute about its boundaries. The historical record contains both: formal purchases took place, while disagreements subsequently arose over exactly what those purchases covered.

The Herald's treatment risks turning every subsequent boundary dispute into evidence that the original transaction itself was illegitimate. Those are two different historical questions.

4. NGĀI TAHU — Ten Major Land Purchases, Then 150 Years Of Grievances And Negotiation

• Here we have a group tribespeople that could probably fit into a large high school's assembly hall managed to assert ownership over most of the South Island, much of which they had never seen let alone set foot upon it.

• Ngai Tahu had sold much of the South Island before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and the treaty commitment to investigate pre-1840 sales enabled chiefs to sell the land again

• Between 1844 and 1864, the Crown made ten major purchases from Ngāi Tahu: Ōtākou, Canterbury (Kemp's), Port Cooper, Port Levy, Murihiku, Akaroa, North Canterbury, Kaikōura, Arahura and Rakiura. This is expressly recorded in the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998

• Those purchases covered approximately 34.5 million acres — around 80% of the South Island — for a total purchase price of £14,750, according to the Waitangi Tribunal findings recorded in the 1998 Act.

• The payments appeared to be satisfactory at the time because this group of people kept doing these deals for approx 20 years.

• It must be remembered that the land was largely minus forest cover burnt off by earlier generations to flush out game. There were no towns, roads, farms. there was no development whatsoever.

• The land grew in value as settlers invested capital and labour, developing farms, building roads, towns, industry, schools, hospitals.....

To date Ngai Tahu have had at least five questionable grievance claims settled, with a relativity clause for further top ups.....

5. THE HERALD: The Land Disputes Were Simply Māori Versus Europeans

• The historical record repeatedly shows disputes between Māori themselves over land and authority.

• That is not a peripheral issue. It is central to understanding the Waitara dispute.

• In 1859 Te Teira offered the 600-acre Pekapeka block to the Crown.

• Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke opposed the sale and disputed Te Teira's authority to sell the land.

• The Crown accepted Te Teira's offer.

• Surveyors entered the disputed block.

• Kīngi's supporters obstructed the survey.

• Kīngi built a fighting pā on the land.

The dispute over who had the right to sell the land existed before the first British shot was fired.

6. THE HERALD: The Taranaki story starts with Crown aggression - It doesn't.

• The Waitara dispute was rooted in a conflict over Māori authority to sell land.

• Tribal in-fighting broke out in March 1860.

• The conflict then spread beyond the original land dispute.

• On 28 March 1860, five settlers at Ōmata — including two boys — were killed.

• Attacks on settler properties followed.

• Farms were burned and settlers were killed.

• By the 1861 truce, approximately 200 settler farms had been destroyed and £200,000 worth of property had been lost.

The truce required Taranaki Māori to return plundered property and surrender those responsible for killing unarmed civilians. - Neither happened.

7. THE HERALD: Confiscation caused the Taranaki conflict - The chronology makes that impossible.

The sequence was:

• tribal infighting → one chief tries to block another chief from selling to the govt → sale proceeds→ resistance to the survey → armed conflict → settlers killed → farms and property destroyed → Taranaki War → subsequent confiscation.

• The confiscation legislation came after the armed conflicts. Confiscation did not cause the First Taranaki War or any war for that matter.

• The New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 subsequently authorised confiscation of land from tribes or sections deemed to have been in “open rebellion” against the Crown.

The later question of whether confiscation was applied too broadly is a different historical question. It does not change the order of events.

8. THE HERALD: The confiscation story can be told without mentioning Māori rebellion

• It cannot be told accurately that way.

• The Crown's legal justification for the confiscations was rebellion against Crown authority.

• The Taranaki conflicts had involved armed attacks, deaths, destruction and plunder by tribes in breach of the Treaty.

The 1861 truce specifically required the return of plundered property and surrender of those responsible for killing unarmed civilians. The property was not returned and the alleged killers were not surrendered. Those facts are part of the context of confiscation.

9. THE HERALD: Confiscation was automatically contrary to the Treaty

• Ngata's Inconvenient View Of Confiscation

• Sir Apirana Ngata, one of the most influential Māori leaders and scholars of the 20th century, did not accept the modern proposition that confiscation was inherently contrary to the Treaty of Waitangi.

• Ngata argued that the Treaty placed sovereignty and law-making authority in the hands of the Crown. Where Māori sections subsequently violated that authority and war followed, he regarded the resulting confiscation as the operation of law following rebellion.

• Ngata put it bluntly: “War arose from this and blood was spilled. The law came into operation and land was taken in payment.”

• He went further, saying: “The confiscations cannot therefore be objected to in the light of the Treaty.”

Ngata did criticise how much land was confiscated and how the confiscations were applied, particularly where people who had not participated in the fighting suffered because of the actions of others. But that is very different from claiming that confiscation itself was necessarily unlawful or incompatible with the Treaty.

10. THE HERALD: Waikato was simply an unprovoked Crown attack

• The Kīngitanga had established an alternative centre of Māori political authority and challenged Crown authority.

• Kīngitanga fighters had already participated in the Taranaki conflict.

• Governor George Grey then prepared for military action.

• Roads and redoubts were constructed.

• Troops were concentrated.

• In January 1863 Grey stated his intention to “dig around” the Kīngitanga until it fell.

• On 11 July he issued an ultimatum demanding allegiance to Queen Victoria.

• On 12 July, Cameron crossed the Mangatāwhiri.

• The Kīngitanga subsequently fought the Crown.

• The Crown defeated Kingitanga and legally confiscated a huge area of Waikato land.

That is the chronology.

        PARIHAKA

11. THE HERALD: Parihaka begins with a peaceful Māori community being attacked

Again, the Herald starts the story too late (cherry-picked).

• Parihaka's history is inseparable from the Taranaki wars and the confiscation of Māori land that followed them.

• The land question did not suddenly appear at Parihaka.

• It grew out of the earlier Taranaki conflicts.

• Following the confiscations (in section 7 above), Parihaka was established in the mid-1860s and became a centre for Māori who had lost land or opposed Crown occupation.

• By 1879 the government was surveying approximately 16,000 acres of legally confiscated Waimate Plains land.

• Te Whiti and Tohu responded by organising resistance.

• Followers deliberately ploughed land occupied by settlers. They built fences across roads and obstructed Crown surveying.

• More than 400 ploughmen were arrested, followed by hundreds of others involved in fencing campaigns.

• Many were imprisoned without trial. - under the Maori Prisoners’ Trials Act

This was an organised confrontation with Crown authority that had been developing for years before 5 November 1881.

12. THE HERALD: Te Whiti's non-violence proves Parihaka was simply peaceful

That confuses non-violent resistance with the absence of resistance.

• By 1881 Parihaka had become the centre of a large organised resistance movement, with association to the rebel Hauhaus.

• After 14 years of negotiation, the government responded by sending almost 1,600 armed volunteers and Constabulary Field Force troops to remove the 2,000 illegal squatters on Crown land.

• The Crown force therefore had an overwhelming military advantage.

• The leaders were arrested.

• The inhabitants were dispersed.

• The settlement was systematically destroyed.

Maori nationalists and their non-Maori sycophants often spin the narrative - ‘Waikato invasion’, ‘Parihaka invasion’, ‘Urewera invasion’ and maybe others....

The FACT is that since 1840 all of New Zealand was and is sovereign territory so any move within that territory by the authorities to suppress a rebellion, incipient or otherwise, was not an invasion.

13. THE HERALD: Parihaka was an entirely unarmed community

• Contemporary reports recorded hundreds of firearms and quantities of ammunition at Parihaka and surrounding settlements.

• One report recorded approximately 200 stands of arms.

• A later New Zealand Herald report recorded 335 firearms captured.

• A later Crown investigation recorded 339 guns and rusty swords recovered in searches following the occupation.

• The firearms were real. The ammunition was real. The organised resistance was real.

The fact that the inhabitants did not use those weapons against the 1881 Crown force does not erase the existence of weaponry.

14. THE HERALD: The rape allegations are simply settled historical fact

This is where the Herald should have examined the evidence trail instead of simply repeating the conclusion.

• Mike Butler used the Official Information Act to ask the Office of Treaty Settlements for specific evidence concerning the rape allegations. He asked for:
• dates of the alleged offences;
• specific locations;
• number of alleged offences;
• names or descriptions of alleged offenders;
• names or number of victims;
• ages of victims; and
• the date the allegations were first reported.

• The material supplied did not provide those particulars.

• Instead, it included testimony given to the 1927 Sim Commission, an 1882 newspaper report, an assertion in Dick Scott's Ask That Mountain (apparently a member of the Communist Party of New Zealand), later oral testimony to the Waitangi Tribunal and a traditional poi.

• Butler reported that the OIA response supplied no dates, no specific locations, no number of alleged offences, no identified perpetrators, no number of victims and no ages. In other words, if such evidence was taken to a rape trial, there would be insufficient evidence to support conviction.

• The earliest evidence identified in that response was testimony to the Sim Commission in 1927 — 46 years after the occupation.

• The Crown subsequently incorporated an acknowledgement that rapes were committed by Crown troops into its Parihaka apology and settlement.

But a later Crown acknowledgement is not a criminal conviction, and it does not supply the missing particulars Butler specifically sought.

The Herald should have told its readers about that evidential history.

15. THE HERALD: The Native Land Court story is proof of a continuous Crown land grab

• The Native Land Court was created in 1865 and converted customary Māori interests into individualised legal titles.

• Its ten-owner system could separate land from wider tribal ownership and make individual interests saleable.

• Grievance specialists claim that the Native Lands Act 1862 “aimed to extinguish all Maori land titles”. But if the colonial government wanted “to extinguish all Maori land titles”, why did they enact a 37-clause piece of legislation which recognised Maori title, established courts to recognise such title, enabled those courts to ascertain and define Maori ownership, enabled the governor to make reserves and settlements to benefit Maori owners, and enabled the court to issue certificates of title to Maori owners.

• A much simpler way to extinguish all Maori land titles could be by an Act of parliament saying just that – and the parliament of the day had the numbers to do it.

Despite the numerous complaints about what was wrong with the Native Land Act, it lives on as the Maori Land Court, and many Maori land owners throughout the country were able to sell their land and do well out of it. Maori land-owners were not dragged to the court to be divested of their land. They lined up for court sittings. A number of tribes opted not to sell and set up land-ownership trusts that survive and continue to pay dividends.

16. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LAND AFTERWARDS?

But if the purpose is to understand the history behind the land on which modern New Zealanders live, the story cannot end with the purchase price.

It must end with who built the infrastructure, businesses, farms, towns and institutions that eventually became the New Zealand we know today?

The answer is not simply "the Crown".

Generations of many ethnicities contributed to the development of the New Zealand we know today.

ROUNDING UP:
The issue is not whether every Māori grievance was invented, nor whether every Crown action was beyond criticism. The issue is whether New Zealanders are being given the whole historical record.

The Herald’s account repeatedly starts the story where the Māori grievance begins and leaves out what came before — the land transactions, competing Māori claims, resistance, violence, rebellion and the circumstances surrounding confiscation. That is not history in full; it is history selectively assembled to support a particular narrative.

New Zealanders deserve better than that. They deserve the history — all of it.

Geoff Parker is a passionate advocate for equal rights and a colour blind society.