Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.
He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).
The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.
Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.
Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.
I heard Phil Goff on RNZ today bleating on about how NZ’s taxpayers should foot the bill to solve Auckland’s water problems as “what’s good for Auckland is good for NZ blah blah’’. Not a word about constraining sprawling growth or living within their means This is the man, I remind myself, that bought 105 light armoured vehicles and 321 even more useless Pinzgauers for about 750 million dollars in 2005 and had the gall to say in 2015 “ with the benefit of hindsight we bought a few too many”. How about “I accept we made the wrong choice” Phil? The one good thing is, when I get angry about our duplicitous mayor, it is somewhat consoling to think Auckland has one almost as bad.