A veteran Black Power member’s protracted legal fight to remain on coastal Māori land he has been illegally occupying for more than a decade is over.
Kevin Moore’s rejected application to the Supreme Court means he has now exhausted all legal remedies and an eviction order that was earlier put on ice will kick in.
The final appeal court released its decision this afternoon after his lawyer Charl Hirschfeld, who is legally aided, applied in June for leave to challenge a Court of Appeal ruling relating to Moore’s drawn-out battle to be recognised as tangata whenua of the Waitara East Beach site.
Moore, who began squatting on the Taranaki beachside property in 2013, has long argued he is a descendant of the land and it’s his right to live there. He built himself a house overlooking the ocean and has continued to ignore orders to leave by the Rohutu Block Trust that manages the area.
In 2018, the Māori Land Court approved Moore’s eviction, requiring him to vacate the property and remove his possessions, but also gave him immediate leave to file further information to establish his links to the land. A stay regarding the eviction was granted, with which the trust agreed.
Moore unsuccessfully took his argument up the chain to other courts.
Those courts have heard that Moore, in his 60s, believed his tīpuna was wrongfully omitted from the 1884 Crown grant, which listed the holding’s beneficiaries.
In 1958, a partition order was made by the Māori Land Court in respect of the same block. The beneficiaries identified in that order were the descendants of most of the original owners named in the Crown grant, but do not include Moore or his tīpuna.
In the application to the Supreme Court, Hirschfeld proposed an appeal on six grounds including that the Court of Appeal had erred by not finding the Māori Land Court was obliged to consider whether or not its orders were founded on error, in finding that this was not a proper case for the comity issue to be ventilated, and in its interpretation of several sections of Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993 (the act).
Hirschfeld submitted the Supreme Court should give leave to hear and determine the appeal because it involved a matter of general or public importance.
But the Supreme Court has disagreed.
In dismissing his application for leave to appeal, it stated the approach adopted by the Court of Appeal reflected a careful consideration of the act’s text and its legislative context.
“Nothing raised by Mr Moore gives rise to the appearance of an error in the approach to the question of interpretation that was before the court.
“In these circumstances, the criteria for leave to appeal are not met.”
Moore’s former lawyer Graeme Minchin previously told NZME that the eviction stay would automatically lift if the application to the Supreme Court failed and that he would have two weeks to pack up and move.
‘Anxious and afraid’
The trust, which manages about 8ha of Māori freehold land at the beach under the act, has previously told the court that Moore was a “squatter”.
It has argued he was not a beneficiary of the land nor did he have a lease to reside there.
Even if he could prove he was tangata whenua, the trust was not obliged to give him a lease.
The home he built himself was without consent from the New Plymouth District Council and he has not paid anything to be there.
According to trustees, Moore, who has been affiliated with Black Power for more than three decades, has entertained gang members at the property.
Before he took up residency, the community at Rohutu was “low-key and harmonious” but they say the community was now “anxious and afraid”. Currently, there are about 30 homes in the Rohutu Block.
After Moore was given leave to apply to have the list of block owners amended to include his tīpuna, the Chief Māori Land Court judge rejected that application.
His application to the High Court to review the decision of the Māori Land Court was later dismissed, and then the Court of Appeal rejected his challenge.
Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.
