We are looking into the Sale of Gifted land. We think we have discovered a huge case of theft.

This shows how local drainage schemes and national public works takings were formally extended during wartime. Let me unpack it in relation to tangatawhenua lands and the dispossession pipeline we’ve been mapping.

📜 Key Parts of the 29 April 1943 Gazette

1. Christchurch Drainage District Extension

Boundary alteration expanded the Christchurch Drainage District to include new land (about 2 acres in Riccarton).

Proclaimed under the Christchurch District Drainage Amendment Act 1920.

These drainage extensions were very common — they added small parcels into centralised schemes.

🔗 Tangatawhenua impact:

In Canterbury, Ngāi Tahu lands were already heavily alienated, but drainage schemes historically targeted wetlands and waterways that were taonga ecosystems and traditional food sources (mahinga kai).

Each extension meant further loss of autonomous use of swamp and wetland areas.

2. Public Works Act Proclamation – Taking of Land, Interests, Crown Land, and Easements

This was the big one:

Land was taken outright (First and Second Schedules).

Private Māori and settler leaseholds were extinguished (Third Schedule – examples include John Francis McMahon’s Hauraki Pastoral License and Deferred Payment License).

Crown land set apart (Fourth Schedule).

Easements compulsorily taken (Fifth Schedule) for rights of way, access roads, and service corridors.

The wording:
“vesting in His Majesty the King full and free liberty, right, license, and authority in perpetuity…”

🔗 Tangatawhenua impact:

Māori leaseholds and licenses (often under restrictive Native Land Acts) could be cancelled with proclamation.

“Crown land” often meant former Māori customary land already vested in the Crown but then repurposed again under Public Works law.

Easements gave the state permanent rights of access, effectively fragmenting Māori tenure.

⚖️ How it Fits the Pipeline

Labour control (Essential Undertakings, 1942–45): Māori workers directed into “essential” industries (lime, wool, abattoirs).

Land control (Public Works Act proclamations, 1943): Crown could proclaim takings, easements, or reclassifications almost anywhere, including leasehold Māori land.

Regional schemes (Northland 1947): Māori lands targeted for large-scale drainage, afforestation, and industrial development.

Together:

Māori labour was conscripted,

Māori land rights were extinguished or reclassified,

and Māori resources were redirected into Crown development projects.

All this was done without consent, and proclaimed in the Gazette as if it were administrative housekeeping.

🌍 Today’s Lens – UNDRIP Breaches

Looking back with modern international law:

Article 10 – No forced removal from lands without free, prior, informed consent.

Article 20 – Right to engage freely in traditional occupations.

Article 25/26 – Right to maintain relationships with lands, waters, and resources.

Article 32 – Development projects only with FPIC.

Every Gazette proclamation you’ve shown — drainage, essential undertakings, public works takings, Northland scheme — breaches each of these articles.

⚡ Would you like me to prepare a chronological evidence table (1942–1947) showing Gazette entries against:

What power was used,

Whose land/labour was affected, and

Which UNDRIP article it would breach today?

What you’ve surfaced here is a cluster of Gazette proclamations from 1937–1939, all issued under the Public Works Act 1928, signed off by Governor-General Viscount Galway and Minister of Public Works Robert Semple.

They look scattered, but when placed side by side, they show how the Crown used its powers of proclamation to compulsorily take or reassign land for a wide range of purposes — some temporary (defence) and others permanent (cemeteries, quarries, pumping stations).

📜 Key Examples in Your Extract

Revocation of Defence Proclamation (Cloudy Bay, 1937)

Earlier defence land proclamation (1935) was cancelled in 1937.

Shows that land could be proclaimed, held, then revoked at Crown discretion.

Quarry Lands (Belmont Survey District, Wellington)

Land taken for quarry purposes, subject to existing easements.

This linked directly to infrastructure projects (stone for roads, rail, defence works).

Ohakea Defence Lands (Rangitoto Survey District, Manawatū)

Multiple sections of the “Ohakea Settlement” taken for defence purposes (1937–39).

This became part of the Ohakea Air Base, one of the RNZAF’s strategic WWII assets.

These were formerly farming settlement blocks (some Māori leasehold included).

Gravel Pit (Belmont, Wellington)

Another extractive taking (4 acres, 2 roods).

Shows how even small parcels could be proclaimed for resource use.

Pumping Station (Christchurch, 1939)

Land in Christchurch compulsorily taken for municipal water infrastructure.

Cemetery (Wellington, 1939)

Land in the capital taken for cemetery purposes — a permanent alienation.

⚖️ Pattern of Public Works Act Use

The Public Works Act 1928 gave the Crown sweeping authority:

Take land, Crown or private, urban or rural.

Impose easements or rights-of-way.

Repurpose Māori land that had already been “settled” or leased under restrictive licences.

Once proclaimed, land passed into Crown or local authority control in perpetuity, unless revoked.

🔗 Tangatawhenua Implications

Ohakea Settlement is key: this was whenua originally taken from Rangitīkei–Manawatū Māori through earlier confiscations, then on-sold as “settlement blocks.” In the 1930s, further chunks were proclaimed again for air force purposes.

Drainage, quarry, and gravel pit takings affected rivers, wetlands, and mahinga kai.

Cemeteries and pumping stations overrode local hapū authority over wāhi tapu and water.

Even when proclamations were revoked (like Cloudy Bay defence land), there was no guarantee of return to tangatawhenua control — land often reverted to Crown estate.

🌍 Today’s Human Rights Lens (UNDRIP)

Each of these proclamations would raise red flags today under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP):

Article 10 – No forcible removal from land without free, prior, informed consent.

Article 25–26 – Right to maintain relationships with traditionally owned or otherwise occupied lands, waters, and resources.

Article 28 – Right to redress (including restitution) for lands confiscated without consent.

Article 32 – Development or use of resources only with FPIC and fair compensation.

The 1937–39 proclamations you’ve highlighted are pre-WWII building blocks of the same system we see in the 1942–47 pipeline:

Compulsory takings under the Public Works Act,

Wartime “Essential Undertakings” to lock in labour,

Regional “reconstruction schemes” (e.g. Northland, 1947) that cemented dispossession.

✅ In short: These Gazette proclamations show that by the late 1930s the Crown had normalised compulsory land takings for every purpose imaginable (defence, quarries, roads, cemeteries, utilities), with no meaningful recognition of tangatawhenua authority.