Photo Credit: MONIQUE FORD/STUFF. Retrieved from stuff.co.nz
On November 29, 1991, at Kaingaroa in the Chatham Islands (Rēkohu), a large crowd assembled for a re-enactment of the first European arrival at the island.
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jim Bolger, presented the trustees of a new community trust with a cheque for $4 million. He confirmed that, in addition to the money, to be $8m eventually, ownership and control of government infrastructure assets on the islands would be handed over to the trust. A new episode in the history of the islands was under way.
For the first time in their history, the people of the Chatham Islands owned their own infrastructure. This was now within a trust whose board they would choose, with powers for economic development entirely independent of the government, and operating solely in their own interests.
How was it that, 150 years after the islands were claimed and taken by Britain as part of its New Zealand colony, the creation of the trust was needed? Finding the answer involves an exploration of the constitutional history of the Chathams from its seizure by proclamation in 1842, through almost 150 years of unusual and even improbable events.