The High Court has overturned an Environment Court ruling that ordered $70,000 in costs against three Poutama rangatira and kaitiaki involved in the Mt Messenger bypass dispute.
In a decision released yesterday, Justice Robinson ruled that the Environment Court had no jurisdiction to impose costs on Haumoana White, Russell Gibbs and Tamawaru Hunt, as they were not parties to the 2019 Mt Messenger RMA proceeding. He noted: “The Environment Court … is always bound by the RMA. The words of s 285(1) are quite clear. The Environment Court may order costs against ‘any party’. The trustees were not parties.”
The case centred on a 2023 costs judgment that, according to Justice Robinson, would have unfairly left NZTA free to pursue bankruptcy proceedings against the three men while depriving them of their right to appeal. “I do not consider that would be in the interests of justice,” he said.
Poutama rangatira Haumoana White welcomed the decision, saying the unlawful order had been a heavy burden: “To have an unlawful costs judgment hanging over our heads for two years is an abomination under the Resource Management Act. The costs judgment appeared to us to be a punishment against Māori for simply participating in the NZTA Mt Messenger RMA processes to the best of our ability.”
The decision follows years of dispute over the Mt Messenger bypass, during which Ngā Hapū o Poutama contested their exclusion from recognition as tangata whenua in the project area. White accused NZTA and Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Tama Trust of withholding a “secret report” in the Māori Land Court that excluded the descendants of 174 Poutama ancestors from voting on whether to sell treaty settlement land to NZTA. He described the omission as causing “a significant and ongoing miscarriage of justice.”
NZTA’s handling of the case has long attracted criticism, with RNZ in 2019 exposing what Poutama described as an “aggressive campaign” against their hapū. At the April 2025 appeal hearing, NZTA conceded it was the first time the agency had argued the Environment Court could award costs against non-parties.
Justice Robinson has now invited the former trustees of the Poutama Kaitiaki Charitable Trust to seek costs against NZTA. White said NZTA’s actions had undermined its own Māori strategy, which includes commitments to a Treaty-based partnership.
