Taonga claim based on bad advice says academic

Treaty expert Paul Moon says the lawyer representing the woman trying to gain resident status for her husband by having him declared a taonga (treasure) by the Waitangi Tribunal lacks a basic understanding of the Treaty process.

"Many people feel sympathy for the situation Ms Rosina Hauiti and her husband Mofuike Fonua find themselves in", he says, "but pursuing a remedy through the Tribunal will ultimately prove fruitless," says AUT's professor of history at the Faculty of Maori Development.

Professor Moon says the couple's lawyer Tuariki Delamere clearly has a "deficient" understanding of the Waitangi Tribunal, the Treaty itself, and the legislation that supports the claims process.

Delamere plans to use Article 2 of the Treaty in a second attempt to prevent Fonua's expulsion from the country but Moon says this legal avenue is totally misguided.

"Article 2 - in both Maori and English versions - refers specifically to property rights. The list of properties includes lands, estates, forests, fisheries, villages and other properties or treasures. By claiming that a husband can be a taonga under the Treaty would be converting a person into a piece of property. This was neither the intention of the Treaty's British authors, nor the understanding of the Maori signatories.

"There is a danger here that a great deal of time and effort will be invested by Ms Hauiti for absolutely no benefit to her cause," he says.

Professor Moon is the author of 13 books on New Zealand history and biography, and his latest - The Newest Country in the World - was published last month.

ENDS

© Scoop Media