Photo: Te Māngai Pāho
Photo: NZ On Air
Senior NZ First MP Shane Jones says politicians who drafted a 2008 bill to allow local iwi a say in how to protect historic sites in the Waitākere Ranges never intended "co-sovereignty".
The act recognised the area as nationally significant, and specified it needed to be protected. It also said it would progress a Deed of Acknowledgement that the Auckland Council, the Crown and the nominated iwi would enter into.
Seventeen years later, submissions on proposals to put those ideas into action closed this week.
Minister Jones was part of the Labour government which passed the bill in 2008. He stood by that decision.
“The legislation correctly enables Te Kawerau ā Maki, or as I colloquially call them the Maki People, and Ngāti Whātua to have historic associations and what not identified, which is not a bad idea.”
But he doesn’t support the current proposals.
“The thing that made me allergic is that I don’t accept that the way for them or any Māori group to imprint and further their influence over 27,000 hectares, a third of which is privately owned, is by setting up yet another council committee. That council committee in my view will never be set up.
“That’s quite different than what the law intended… We never ever imagined that that law would morph into the creation of a committee where co-sovereignty would be shared over 27,000 hectares.”
Jones told Mata with Mihingarangi that iwi such as Te Kawerau ā Maki were seeking more than a seat at the table.
“If you read their documentation their agenda is to substantially close down access to a large part of that reserve on the basis that it might save the kauri trees.”
“The Kauri Dieback experience has been a disaster. Money has been squandered, common sense went out the door, and what Te Kawerau ā Maki are proposing has a lot of merit, but where I will never ever agree, or NZ First won’t, is that should morph into them being a stakeholder, and that growing to have 50 percent of either managerial, governance authority over 27,000 hectares. It’s just never gonna happen.”
Edward Ashby, who heads Te Kawerau ā Maki, said the central government MPs like Jones were spreading "misinformation" and "scaremongering".
He said the council committee would be a "non-statutory" body, and would be used to coordinate a plan for the area.
Ashby maintained the proposal was not co-governance and said MPs were up to "mischief".
Jones conceded he has a point: “I’m a politician and I’m entitled to interpret what I see.”
“I know that people find, in Māoridom, often what I’m saying to be awkward and jarring, so meet me at the ballot box.”
*An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the Government’s proposed changes to early childhood sector regulations would remove the requirement to have adult toilet facilities. This is not the case. Instead the review recommended removing the licensing requirement to have an adult suitable toilet, as it is already stipulated by the Building Code. Therefore, the requirement for adult toilets remain.
