Lady Smith did not get High Court support for a representative class action seeking to hive off $50 million dollars from Ngati Porou’s Treaty Settlement to be controlled by herself and other landowners claiming to be affected by iwi plans for a Gisborne-Opotiki tourist trail.
Ms Smith alleges power over Ngati Porou settlement assets is concentrated into hands of a few, making decisions without transparency or accountability. Dissent has been marginalised, she claims.
Her primary complaint is that decisions to construct a five hundred kilometre round-trip tourist trail between Gisborne and Opotiki, linking marae across the region, have been made without consent of landowners such as herself.
She wants a detailed audit of iwi trust activities.
She asked the High Court to approve a representative action, automatically including in her claim all those of Ngati Porou descent supporting her view. She claims to have over one thousand supporters asking to be included in a class action.
Trustee of Ngati Porou’s Treaty settlement alleges there is no such support; the unsigned list of supporters produced by Ms Smith is in fact a list of people who objected to the much-disputed Treaty Principles Bill, it suggested.
Justice McQueen ruled there is no practical benefit in progressing Ms Smith’s claim as a representative action. Any successful action by Ms Smith, calling the Trustee to account, benefits all affected Ngati Porou. Procedural complications of a class action are not needed, she said.
In any event, Ms Smith’s claim does not fit the requirements for a class action, Justice McQueen ruled.
Approval of a class action requires all those eligible for compensation within the named class to have the same interest; as seen with recent multi-million dollar class actions by customers seeking compensation following bank errors.
There is no evidence each of her supporters have the same interest in her specific complaint, Justice McQueen ruled.
Ms Smith is free to continue, in her own name, a legal challenge to decision-making by Ngati Porou’s post-settlement organisations.
Smith v. Te Ara Tipuna Charitable Trust – High Court (3.12.25)
25.033