Greens Announce Historic Hoki Whenua Mai #LandBack Policy

The Green Party dropped a major policy announcement last week, Hoki Whenua Mai, aimed at fixing the approach to redress for stolen Māori land.

“The impact of the loss of Māori land, the theft of Māori land, has had intergenerational mamae,” Co-leader Marama Davidson told RNZ. “Hoki Whenua Mai is about restoring wellbeing, restoring equity for whānau Māori, but it's also about justice.”

Hoki Whenua Mai hopes to redress historical land injustices by pursuing multiple measures, including ending perpetual leases and restoring full land rights for original owners (iwi, hapū and whānau), amending the Public Works Act to prevent future whenua Māori from being taken, and establishing a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the “full extent of land dispossession". 

The policy would also reinstate the Waitangi Tribunal's ability to make recommendations in relation to privately owned land, as well as allowing iwi, hapū, and whānau to progress additional historic claims through the Tribunal. It would abolish the Tribunal’s amended 2008 historic claims deadline. 

The party has proposed a $350 million fund to buy back land, although the final cost cannot be confirmed until a full inquiry into the extent of Māori land confiscation has been undertaken—which Davidson confirmed would begin before 2027 if the Greens are elected into the next government. 

“Returning land to tangata whenua is the right thing to do to address the ongoing injustices that Māori experience,” the party wrote in an online policy outline. 

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has quickly shut down the proposed policy, saying  "we don't intend to re-open Treaty settlements that have been closed where the settlement has been reached. They were full and final settlements."