The bill’s effects
Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Bill was widely reported in New Zealand and overseas for one particularly innovative effect: it confers a legal personality on the Whanganui River. A legal person is an entity that has the same rights and responsibilities as a person. In New Zealand law, a number of entities have legal personhood including companies, trusts, and societies.
The move reflects Whanganui iwi’s unique ancestral relationship with the river. Iwi who lived along the river not only relied on it as an essential food source, but held with it a deep spiritual connection.
From the 1880s to 1920s, the Crown – with little or no iwi consultation – conducted works to establish a steamer service on the river and extract minerals from its bed, eroding its ecological quality, destroying eel weirs and fisheries, and degrading the river’s cultural and spiritual value Whanganui iwi first petitioned Parliament in the 1870s, continuing for decades to seek compensation and justice through several courts and the Waitangi Tribunal.The bill will provide a settlement of $80 million to redress these “actions and omissions” of the Crown. It will recognise Te Awa Tupua as an indivisible and living whole, comprising the Whanganui River from the mountains to the sea, and all its physical and metaphysical elements.
An additional $1 million contribution will establish a legal framework to support the Whanganui River. Two people, a representative of the Crown and a representative of Whanganui iwi, will be appointed to Te Pou Tupua, which will act on the river’s behalf and protect its interest. A $30 million contestable fund will also be created to advance the river’s health and restoration.
Setting an international example
While it’s believed the Whanganui River may be the first river in the world to be bestowed with legal personhood, it is no longer the only one. Merely five days after the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Bill passed in the House, India’s Uttarakhand High Court granted the same legal personhood to the river Ganges – perhaps showing just how influential and innovative New Zealand’s approach is.
Here, the practice is not entirely new. Parliament previously granted Te Urewera – once a national park – the same status as part of the Crown’s settlement with Tūhoe in 2014.
Read more about the river Ganges gaining legal personhood
Progress through Parliament
Iwi and public submissions on the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Bill were heard by the Māori Affairs Committee.
“This bill is an innovative and world-leading solution to a very complex and, at times, a very, very controversial issue,” said Nuk Korako, chair of the Māori Affairs Committee, in his speech on the bill’s third reading. “It is not easy to balance the competing interests of multiple iwi and those other users in the way they appropriately respect the river—tangata whenua and all who now use and benefit from the river.”
Whanganui iwi were present in the debating chamber gallery for the bill’s third reading on 14 March. It received Royal Assent on 20 March, officially passing it into New Zealand law.
Read the full record of the bill’s progress in Hansard
Watch the Whanganui iwi singing waiata after the bill passed its third reading