Geoff Parker: Land Back? The Greens’ Dangerous Rewrite Of New Zealand’s History

The Green Party says “returning land to Māori is the right thing to do”. It sounds morally compelling — until you ask the obvious question: which land, taken from whom, and owned by whom today — and on what legal and historical basis?

There is no question that New Zealand's nineteenth-century land history was complex. There were land purchases, sales, disputed transactions, confiscations following the New Zealand Wars, and later changes in the way Māori land ownership was administered. Some transactions were contested then and remain contested today.

But that history cannot simply be reduced to a story of Māori land being “stolen” by the Crown and therefore remaining subject to an automatic claim for return.