At the dawn service at the “upper marae” next to the treaty house at Waitangi on February 6, 2013, the presiding minister told a little story about Maori learning to pray.

“We were taught to close our eyes and pray”, the minister said. “And when we opened our eyes, all our land was gone”.

This little untruth raised a chuckle. But the idea behind it has passed into the national subconscious as a fact. But in fact, chiefs did not lose their land. Chiefs sold their land. The colonial government bought almost every hectare of New Zealand land.

New Zealand has 26.8-million hectares of land. A total of1.2-million hectares were confiscated during the 1860s wars (much of which was returned at the time).

As at September 2009, there was approximately 1.47 million hectares of Maori land (including customary land).

Therefore, successive governments bought 24.13-million hectares.

Chiefs sold the land. They did not lose the land. The term “land loss” has come into vogue because treaty settlements are calculated on the difference between the area of land a tribe claimed ownership of in 1840 and the area of land remaining in that tribe’s possession today, and the claimed tribal membership today.

Therefore, it is in every claimant’s interest to inflate both area of land “lost” and current tribal membership.