Although the Native Lands Act 1862 waived Crown pre-emption, the notion of aboriginal title has been revived in the 20th century to deal with Māori property rights.

[2] When Governor George Grey took office in 1845, he decided to take a test case, with a claimant seeking a writ of scire facias to "justify his refusal to award Crown grants over land to persons whose claims were based on those certificates.

[5] As David Williams has noted, "The essential political issue at stake in the Gipps/Wentworth debates and in The Queen v Symonds related to the extent of Crown control over the profits to be made in the process of extinguishing Māori title and making land available to incoming settlers.

[8] Governor Grey introduced a new system of land acquisition for settlement whereby a government commission negotiated purchases from iwi and hapu at tribal meetings.

[10] As a Waitangi Tribunal report put it, "Despite the fact that FitzRoy had exceeded his 'lawful authority', settlers had been able to rely on the Government's clemency, or be taken to have a strict legal right as long as they had complied with the proclamations.