New Plymouth Raceway chief executive Carey Hobbs. Photo: Supplied
New Plymouth's racecourse has refused a bid from the Stop Co-Governance organisation to hold a meeting at the venue this weekend because of safety worries.
Julian Batchelor's Stop Co-Governance tour has held dozens of meetings across the country this year, spreading his message that co-governance "promotes apartheid and racism".
The tour has attracted vocal protest from opponents who accuse Batchelor of promoting racist disinformation and inciting disharmony between Māori and non-Māori.
Many venues, from Scout Halls to yacht clubs and bowling halls have declined or cancelled bookings.
New Plymouth Raceway (NPR) chief executive Carey Hobbs said people's physical and emotional safety could not be guaranteed during the meeting, so a tentative booking of La Mer Lounge was cancelled.
"It's our personnel, it's people within the meeting and people outside the meeting protesting - and obviously with what's happened recently there are serious health and safety concerns."
Hobbs said NPR was especially wary after a woman protesting a Stop Co-Governance event on Saturday night in Palmerston North was dumped from her chair, had a whistle wrenched from her mouth, and was dragged out by her feet by two men in the crowd.
Calls on social media prompted more than 100 emails to NPR opposing the meeting, including some that added to safety concerns.
"There were a lot of positive comments hoping that we would not take the booking - there were a small number of threatening and quite nasty emails," Hobbs said.
Some staff had also received "not very nice" personal emails.
"We were contacted by the police: they haven't instructed us on what they thought was the best option but we got the feeling … probably from all the feedback we got, that the most appropriate thing to do was to decline."
New Plymouth district councillor Te Waka McLeod. Photo: Supplied
New Plymouth district councillor Te Waka McLeod was among those who wrote to ask NPR not to host Stop Co-Governance.
McLeod also posted her email on social media as an example for others also to write in opposition to a kaupapa "that's separating society".
"The raceway is a space anybody can book, but it's about asking any venue owners to make sure the kaupapa you're allowing to come into your space is something you would want to be associated with, something you would align to."
Organisers would probably try to book another venue and McLeod encouraged objectors to consider lessons from Parihaka and approach the issue "with grace and understanding".
"I think Tohu and Te Whiti have given a prime example of how we can peacefully protest, or not protest, and offer different suggestions rather than simply fight."
Laws like Local Government Act and the Resource Management Act require councils to foster Māori participation in decision-making and "give effect" to the Treaty of Waitangi.
Taranaki councils have set up many arrangements to better include iwi and hapū in setting policy and in day-to-day management and operations.
For example, Taranaki Regional Council pays for two independent Māori environmental officers based at Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa to boost iwi input into policy - particularly implementing government changes in freshwater rules.
And NPDC helped broker an agreement between three hapū and the Fitzroy Golf Club to co-manage Mātai Ngā Takapū (Peringa Park North), to recognise its cultural and environmental context while accommodating the golf course.
Councillors of all political stripes have approved such arrangements as useful ways to meet community and legislative demands.
But Batchelor said they were wrong and there was no place for such agreements.
"Your councils are woke - and history-ignorant. Why aren't you consulting with the 150 cultures who live in New Zealand, why just iwi?"
Batchelor rejected the decades of effort through courts and Parliament to define treaty principles and implement them.
"There's nothing about this in the treaty, there's no mandate for iwi to do any of this."
McLeod said Batchelor was incorrect.
"The Treaty of Waitangi simply tells us that both non-Māori and Māori originally agreed on working together. Co-governance is the outworking of that original treaty intent.
"The very reason for bringing to life co-governance is to help us as a nation move together for the betterment of all people."
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air
