Ministry of Transport - Aotea Harbour

These files from the Ministry of Transport deal mainly with the administrative aspects of structures, reclamations, power, telephone, and pipeline crossings of waterways around the marine foreshore and in navigable rivers and lakes. There is not a lot of environmental information in these files but occasionally there is a copy of a report that deals with the environmental aspects of a structure. In about 1964 the Ministry of Transport (MOT) took over the role of licensing structures on the foreshore from the Marine Department (MD) and employed the Ministry of Works and Development (MWD) as its environmental advisers. Reports from the MWD therefore contain much of the environmental information available in these files. Purpose: The Ministry of Transport (MoT) was responsible for the administration of structures in the CMA and in navigable rivers and lakes from 1964 to 1997. These files are now held in Environment Waikato’s archives. Useful information is contained on the history and legal status of existing coastal structures.

54/44/486 Marine Farming. Maori Trust Board 1982: west coast harbours such as Kawhia, Aotea and Whaingaroa were regarded as being under the authority of the Board. A report was produced by the Centre for Maori Studies, University of Waikato titled “Maori Trust Board Cultural and Ethnic attributes”. This document is a detailed discussion of land rights of the Maori people and the importance of some locations to the tribal history and religious beliefs. This discussion is followed by a discussion of the west coast harbours. There are a number of reports on Maori connections in the Waikato and west coast harbours. This application raised the question as to who controls the harbours and why should the Maori Trust Board be the controllers. MoT explained (February 1983) that Maori did not own the sea-bed. (that riparian rights do not mean ownership of the seabed). Also the Board did not have wide enough representation to accommodate community needs/concerns. 54/44/608 Marine Farm, Morrison Aotea Harbour 1981 54/49/16 Marine Farms, Woodhams, Aotea Harbour Tahuri Point. 1981. 54/1/649 Pakoka Bridge replacement, Aotea Harbour. File opened and closed 1980 legalised construction. 54/16/1 Reclamations, Aotea Harbour 1914. 1958: road realignment at Aotea Morrison road deviation, which was over part of the harbour.

Aotea Harbour and surrounds

Files were written in the 1980s but refer to events back to 1914.

Frequency of collection: Infrequent

Verbal reports of past events as recorded on earlier files. Very dependant on individual doing the recording. Large gaps as many files just summarise known information. These records only represent that information availalbe on specific files. It is important to note that Ministry of Works files contain further environmental information relating to these files.

Physical files and some scanned to .pdf.

Coastal management. Provides background information about the history of a given site.

This data is publicly available in EW archives (many as .pdf). Some files scanned and attached. No confidentiality

Files closed. Include a note where this record continues after end date of file where possible – e.g. Dept of Conservation files.

Additional comments: This record becomes more difficult when records handed to DOC who amalgamated a number of files together under a new file name and number. Related information: These files are related to the Ministry of Works and Development files and also catchment Board files. References to these have been included in the file summary.