Watching the Seabirds at Waitara

We need a new conversation about a very old land grab

by vivian Hutchinson

July 2016 35 min read download PDF for print

1.

It is perhaps quite appropriate that the Taranaki Peace Walk to Parihaka started on the same day that submissions on the Waitara Lands Bill were being heard by the New Plymouth District Council.

The Waitara lands remain a political hot potato because they are part of a shameful history of conflict going back to the 1860s. The first shots fired in anger which sparked the New Zealand Land Wars were fired over the Waitara lands.

It is worth reflecting on the fact that the war that followed was known to many Maori as Te Riri Pakeha, or “the White Man’s Anger”.

The wounds created by this anger have been with us for 160 years, and at one time or another the stories of these wounds have been on the table of everyone who has sought to govern the Waitara lands.

The fact that we, as New Zealanders, still have to resolve the question of Waitara just shows us how such anger can still have its effects felt many generations later.

It also tells us about the sorry state of our governance.

Half of the Waitara leasehold titles are on the Pekapeka block. It was the disputes over purchasing this block which led to the outbreak of the first Taranaki Land War of 1860. Five years later, the local iwi and hapu lost most of their tribal lands by legislative confiscation.

It was upon assuming title by this confiscation, that the Crown gradually gifted pieces of these lands to various local authorities, who then leased them out.

The New Plymouth District Council now has “ownership” of these lands largely because it inherited the political pass-the-parcel that had occurred during the shifting sands of local government restructuring and treaty settlement negotiations.

Today, the New Plymouth District Council owns 778 leasehold titles in Waitara, the majority of them in residential sections. The annual rental for these leases is around $1.3 million.

The draft Waitara Lands Bill proposes to enable these leasehold sections to be freeholded. And the public debate at the moment is largely about the price that current leaseholders will have to pay once the bill is passed into law.

But the story of this particular land is also a good illustration of what the Taranaki Peace Walkers have been talking about when describing the need to “...walk into a new conversation” about race relations, civic inclusion, and peace and safety in our communities.

In the context of the New Plymouth Council hearings taking place last month on the Waitara Lands Bill ... perhaps the Peace Walk itself was a submission.

2.

The current conversation we are having about the Waitara lands is just not capable of serving the deeper needs of our communities at this time ... as it only continues the old story of picking winners and losers.

This old story is policed and mediated - at considerable ongoing public cost - by council and government lawyers and policy advisors who do not seem capable of laying out a pathway that will lead to authentic peace and reconciliation.

There is an assumption in the proposed bill that “freeholding” is a widely held goal. It is argued that this freeholding will open up Waitara to new economic development, as investors and home buyers and shop-keepers will not be constrained by the current leasehold arrangements.

But the privatisation of the leasehold titles can also be seen as the latest iteration of the land grabs of the 1860s. The bill as it stands simply continues the process of alienating the original owners from their assets ... assets that are still very much needed to be working in their interests.

The freeholding process itself - in our current and crazy housing market volatility – is most likely to lead to a feeding frenzy by real estate agents, valuers and mortgage brokers.  And the release of these market pressures will see poorer people - Maori and Pakeha, and especially the elderly and people on fixed incomes - ultimately forced to move on from their homes on formerly leasehold properties.

Of course there are other options. But it is much harder for them to emerge out of the current conversation, or the current processes of council submissions and governance.

 

3.

I say “good-on-you” to Te Atiawa for themselves choosing to pass ... when the Waitara lands were finally offered to them in the 2014 Treaty Settlement process.

The government would have been handing to them a real risk and burden, especially with various politicians over the years promising leaseholders that they will soon be able to freehold their homes. Te Atiawa would have been walking into a real powder keg of expectations that were not of their own making.

The Treaty negotiations over these lands even came with a price attached. Te Atiawa were being offered their own stolen lands at an average valuation of about $30,000 per lease — $23 million all up.

When you consider that Te Atiawa – like so many of the other tribal groups around New Zealand – were signing a “settlement” of their Waitangi Treaty claim for less than 1% of the value of the land stolen from them ... then perhaps you might appreciate their response.

I would argue that it is the business of government to sort out these historical grievances without further burdening the original owners. Perhaps it might be more correct to say that it is the business of the Pakeha-led government to sort it out.

The Waitara lands are definitely a case where Pakeha need to wake up and talk with other Pakeha.

 

4.

New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd himself has certainly woken up. It was the case of the Waitara lands that led the Mayor to a personal realisation that his own attitudes on race relations needed to change.

The Mayor made national headlines in May when he announced he wouldn’t be standing for re-election following a backlash from voters after he’d tried to introduce a Maori ward in New Plymouth. Judd described himself as a “recovering racist” and spoke about a cultural awakening that had made him realise his attitude towards Maori needed to change.

Until Andrew Judd read the historical accounts of the Waitara lands, and saw “through Te Atiawa’s eyes” how they’d been alienated from their assets, he’d been on the other side of the issue – seeing the leaseholders as the victims of unreasonable Maori demands.

As he’s said: “What jumped out so loud to me was ... not only what had happened, but how it had happened in our past. And that planted a seed that has been a constant journey for me about why I didn’t know this. Why didn’t I know?”

This realisation was the beginning of his own unusual journey that led to last month’s Taranaki Peace Walk to Parihaka.

But it is significant that Mayor Judd has also realised something else: that we will just keep on making the same mistakes unless we fundamentally change the conversation we are having.

5.

The Peace Walk to Parihaka was in some ways an echo of the Maori Land March to Parliament led by Whina Cooper in 1975 – particularly in the way that both walks were dignified events which bore none of the media protest clichés of placards, banners, flags or chanting.

Such hikoi are designed not to shout at you, but to invite people to talk with one another ... and to talk in ways that break new grounds of possibility.

I was involved in the organising of the 1975 Land March and it was not an event that was primarily motivated by historic grievances. It was a reaction to the very contemporary legislation that was still alienating Maori land – the Public Works Act, the Town and Country Planning Act, and the Ratings Act.

Legislation was still the preferred instrument of theft in the 1970s, as it was with the massive land confiscations of the 1860s.

In 1972, the poet James K. Baxter summed up the attitude of the government by likening it to a dog crouching under the table on which somebody is crumbling a loaf of bread.

“... Each time that crumbs fall to the ground the government licks them up with its tongue. It hopes in time to devour the whole loaf.”

The bill which the current New Plymouth District Council is sending to government for approval is just another step in the breaking up and devouring of the loaf that is the Waitara Lands.

In the privatisation of the Waitara leases, the old dog still hopes to devour it all.

6.

When we change the conversation, we just might get to listen to the words of Wiremu Kingi Te Rangitake, the Waitara chief of great influence and authority in the 19th century. As the leader of Te Atiawa, he spoke for the original owners of these lands.

Wiremu Kingi often wrote of his wish for friendly relations with Pakeha settlers, but he did not believe he should have to sell land to achieve this result.

The main street in Waitara today is named after Donald McLean, the chief land purchase commissioner of the 1850s. This man shares no small responsibility in fostering the conflicts that led to war, the alienation of the Waitara lands, and the confiscation of most of Taranaki province.

Just before the first shots were fired at Waitara, Wiremu Kingi wrote a letter to Donald McLean about the pressure to sell. He said:

“These lands will not be given by us into the Governor’s and your hands, lest we resemble the seabirds which perch on a rock. When the tide flows the rock is covered by the sea, and the birds take flight, for they have no resting place.”

War and the legislative theft of land did follow. And this forced so many families of Te Atiawa into becoming the seabirds that Wiremu Kingi predicted in his letter to McLean.

The seabirds are an ongoing legacy that has come down until the current day.

The continuing and widening gaps in well-being between Maori and Pakeha in Taranaki are a real consequence of a people spending decades dodging the tides, and not always finding a rock on which to land.

7.

Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa Taranaki is the post-Treaty settlement governance entity of Te Atiawa, and it has come out in support of the draft bill that is now being sent to parliament.

Under the bill, the iwi authority will also be given a couple of council reserves, a block of land zoned for residential development, and first refusal rights on other surplus land.

While acknowledging the return of a small portion of the disputed land to the iwi, the authority is also clear that the bill is not the deal that they would have preferred.

In their statement on the proposed legislation, the authority first points out that the bill “...does not fully recognise or compensate for the fact the land confiscations [of the 1860s] were wrongful, unjust and in breach of the Treaty of Waitangi.”

But Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa says it is prepared to support the freeholding initiative in the interests of “compromise” and “moving things forward”.

The authority says that Te Atiawa iwi and hapu “...have been expected to make immense compromise in order to progress these issues.” The authority also remarked that it hoped that others are open to working with them “... so that our community can move forward together”. 

8.

It is worth noting that Mayor Andrew Judd has also got in behind the freeholding bill even though he, and several other influential councillors, have had serious doubts.

Here too, they are speaking the language of “compromise” in the interests of getting “political movement” over a vexing issue. And when questioned, it is also clear that they are trying to be pragmatic about what they think they can get approved by their political colleagues.

Yet I am left thinking: Why on earth are we expecting that the settlement of this, the original land dispute that broke our new country into war, to be based on such a significant level of compromise?

What is it about our settlements process that just expects such a significant level of compromise from the negotiating partner that has the least resources?

In especially this case of the Waitara lands, shouldn’t the Pakeha-led governance be going the extra mile to do the right thing ... rather than just what might be easily palatable to the current crop of politicians?

There is a real problem here that too much “compromise” means that we are left with just the lip service of reconciliation.

And this means that the real issues of justice over the Waitara lands will still be left for a future generation to more fully resolve.

9.

The position of compromise taken by Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa Taranaki, is a stance that is not supported by all its contributing members. The iwi authority has faced significant opposition by the Waitara-based hapu of Manukorihi and Otaraua, as well as the nearby hapu of Ngati Tawhirikura.

These three hapu opposed the signing of the $87m Treaty deal in 2014 between the Crown and Te Atiawa, because they felt the deal undermined the position of those tribal members who would rather have their confiscated lands returned. This is one of the reasons why the signing ceremony for the Treaty settlement did not take place at Te Atiawa’s primary home of Owae Marae at Waitara.

Part of the problem here is that government authorities had already pre-determined that their settlement process will be negotiated between the Crown and iwi ... and not at the more local level of hapu.

In 2014, some members of the local hapu ploughed a section of land in central Waitara and held a peaceful protest... an action imitating the historic Parihaka passive resistance ploughing campaigns of the 1880s. This dissent was aimed as much at the Te Atiawa authority as it was at the Crown.

And members of the Waitara hapu also spoke at the most recent hearings on the Waitara Lands Bill. Again, they restated that they didn’t want their iwi to sell and take the money ... they wanted their ancestral land back.

As one of the Manukorihi elders told the hearing, the original declaration by Wiremu Kingi – that this land will never be relinquished – was as strong today as it was in 1860.

10.

Former rugby league star Howie Tamati has been a New Plymouth District Councillor for the last 15 years, and is the only Maori at the District Council table. Like Mayor Judd, he also plans to step down later this year, at the end of the current term of office.

Tamati says he has been unable to sleep well since he read the papers on the Waitara lands, and he realised that this issue was going to be one of the last things he would have to deal with as a District Councillor.

On Tuesday, 5th July 2016, at the Council meeting to finalise the details of the Waitara Lands Bill, Tamati stunned his colleagues with a speech that broke with their collective intention to “move things forward” on the basis of selling the leases.

Warning his fellow councillors that he was close to tears, Tamati said that his thoughts were with the men and women of Te Atiawa nui tonu who, along with other tribes of Taranaki, had protested against the injustices placed on them by the confiscation of their ancestral lands.

Tamati read the names of many prominent Te Atiawa elders over the past 160 years who have fought to try and reclaim what was taken ... telling his fellow councillors, “Those people are with me now.”

“I look at the hapu of Otaraua and Manukorihi, like all hapu members around the country have forcibly had their rights and views put aside by the government to allow ease of negotiations with iwi entities which represent all the collective hapu. This [bill] is not the making of Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa, but is based on agreements made before their establishment, and abiding by the rules of the Crown.

“Waitara is in the rohe of Otaraua and Manukorihi and it is their taonga, their turangawaewae ... it’s their place to stand. They have had little say in this decision today – and they are hurting and they are aggrieved.

“I stand here today and say I can’t and will not support this bill going forward to parliament. My tupuna are saying to me: Do not sell the Pekapeka. The lands in Waitara were stolen illegally, and they should be returned to those it belonged to, and they should not be required to buy it back.”

After Tamati’s short speech, there was a long silence from his peers.  And then all the other councillors voted in favour of accepting the bill and sending it to Parliament ... with Tamati being the only voice saying “No”.

His dissent was not recorded in the official minutes of the meeting.

11.

The push to privatisation of the Waitara leases, without returning the lands to the original owners first, is the primary reason for the failure so far of all the governance attempts to “move things forward” over this issue.

Everything else that has been tried is simply a way of avoiding the plain fact that the various statutory authorities are acting as the receivers of stolen goods.

I am Pakeha, and yet I join with Howie Tamati in the hope that the proposed Waitara Lands Bill – with all its compromises and good intentions – fails to be passed by government. We can, and should, be doing much better.

As New Zealanders, we should be asking a lot more of ourselves. Even at this very late stage, we should be doing all we can to roll back this final incarnation of the very old land grab that is woven into the origins of our nation.

I am reminded that similar attempts to sell the Waitara leases have already failed in the past, and for good reasons.

It was in my grandfather’s time, in 1927, that the Sim Commission concluded that the wars of the 1860s were wrong, and the confiscations were unjustified. The Waitara lands were not returned then ... but at least it was the beginning of saying: Sorry.

In 1996, the Waitangi Tribunal upheld the long-held Maori claims over these confiscated lands, and also concluded that the Crown had acted wrongly. The Tribunal acknowledged the ongoing impact that the loss of confiscated lands has had on Maori communities.

A bill to freehold the Waitara leases was attempted in government two decades ago, and thankfully the then Treaty Minister Doug Graham stopped it. He wanted to see the lands available for the Settlement process with Te Atiawa.

But just because Te Atiawa did not pick up this option when it was offered by later treaty negotiators, doesn’t mean that the Pakeha-led governance responsibilities over these lands has ended.

The pressing responsibility of Pakeha here is not to sit at a table and hear yet more painful “submissions” from the real owners of the land. Our responsibility is to transform the conversations we’ve been having with each other over these important issues.

Waitara remains a continuing invitation from Maori to Pakeha that, as New Zealanders, we should be doing the right thing. 

Why is it so difficult for the statutory authorities to get their heads around the idea that the right thing is to simply hand the control of these leases back to the original owners ... with no-strings-attached?

The Pakeha-led governance responsibility here is to get out of the way. 

Like really.

 

12.

One of the most interesting things in this story is that we can have a great deal of confidence that when we actually get out of the way, Pakeha people in our communities will still be treated with civility and respect.

It is important to note that the Te Atiawa voice of compromise is being offered in the face of some over-the-top demands and threats from a section of the leaseholders. 

There have been street protests, and the threat to disrupt some World Cup Cricket qualifying matches in New Plymouth, as a way of drawing attention to their situation.

A few of the leaseholders have threatened to set fire to their own houses if they are unable to freehold their leases on favourable terms (... a threat being taken seriously enough by the local fire brigade who has visited the people to tell them not to do anything stupid). 

But any fears and inverted projections that Maori landlords will enact some sort of economic revenge on the Pakeha residents of leasehold lands, is not something that holds real credence when you look at the actual history of the area.  

Yes, the leaseholders at Waitara have been living off a privilege that was delivered to them by war and theft. They may not have personally engineered this predicament, but nevertheless they have been the beneficiaries of it.

And yes, this privilege has come at an inter-generational cost to the individuals and whanau of Te Atiawa.

Yet despite all this, under the continuing influence of the prophets Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi of Parihaka, the Maori families and the communities around Owae Marae at Waitara have preached and tried to demonstrate a message of peace and forgiveness.

For Pakeha people, this is a message that is not intended to just give us good feelings ... but it should be a message that awakens our responsibilities.

Peace and forgiveness are the qualities that give us the space to enable a different conversation. One of the purposes of peace and forgiveness is to foster the hope that we will indeed wake up, and then act for real justice and reconciliation.

 

13.

The land in dispute here is often referred to as the Waitara “endowment” leases ... as if the word “endowment” itself implies some sort of philanthropic gesture or legacy from a former generation.

There is some irony in this ... yet perhaps these lands are indeed an ongoing legacy: a legacy that keeps on inviting us to do the right thing.

The new bill proposes that the proceeds of land and leasehold sales be vested in a continuing fund that will benefit “the people of Waitara”. Some of the uses of this fund, as proposed, would include such things as repairing the Waitara riverbanks, or upgrading the Waitara Library ... things that will benefit “all the residents”.

The administration of the fund will be a convoluted arrangement that splits the proceeds between the Taranaki Regional Council and the New Plymouth District Council.

The Regional Council share of the funds will be used “...to perform TRC statutory duties in Waitara”. The New Plymouth share of the fund will be overseen by a six-member statutory authority (yet to be established), with three members appointed by Te Atiawa.

In other words, in the end, the original owners will only be left with minority stake in making decisions on the total income from the Waitara lands.

And, as some of the submitters to the bill pointed out last month: Why should such a fund be set up to pay for the very things that Waitara people are already paying rates for?

The proposal smells like the establishment of a Waitara slush fund, and one of the primary beneficiaries will be the various Council administrators who are trying to find revenue for local services.

There are many faces to a land grab ... or a value grab ... and to this one I believe we should continue to say: hands off!

The Taranaki Peace Walk was sparked by the backlash experienced by Mayor Andrew Judd when he called for better representation of Maori in local government affairs – something that is already a requirement enshrined in law, and by the spirit of the Treaty of Waitangi. 

If the existing statutory authorities of the Taranaki region are unable to properly include Maori in their decision-making right now, then why should anyone trust these institutions to properly administer the proceeds of the sales of the Waitara lands or the leasehold rents?

 

14.

Freeholding the Waitara leases may well be the ultimate outcome of all this ... but that should be a decision made by the original owners, and not a choice primarily made by the political descendants of the thieves.

Similarly, it should be the choice of Te Atiawa and its hapu as to any special arrangement made for those low-income leaseholders who would be struggling to meet their commitments under fair market levels of rent for the land.

It is just patronising for anyone to assume that Te Atiawa is unable to make its own choices for the common good of Waitara and its most vulnerable residents.

This is what “no-strings-attached” really means when you hand things back to the real victims of this historical disgrace.

“No-strings-attached” means that Maori communities and their political institutions get to grow up and mature into their own sense of real authority. They get to make their own mistakes, have their own arguments between each other, and sort things out on their own terms ... just like any other group of families who don’t always act with one mind.

The restored Maori owners may indeed make choices in the interests of community stability which would put some of the current District Council proposals to shame ... choices that might include freezing the rents until a vulnerable leaseholder dies, or decides to sell their property.

The current Council proposal in the Waitara Lands Bill is only to freeze rents to leaseholders for a year ... to give people the “breathing space” to sort their finances out.

15.

There is good reason to think that the restoration of Maori ownership might lead to some innovative solutions of their own. That’s what “getting-out-of-the-way” really enables.

One of the many suggestions in the reports about the use of the funds from the Waitara lands is the establishment of an affordable housing strategy.  This is interesting to me because, ironically, the privilege given to Waitara leaseholders (over the hundred or more years) has been a privilege of affordable housing.

The leaseholders have been able to create their homes on lands that have had the advantage of relatively low rentals. (For example: a local real estate agent has estimated that some leaseholders had enjoyed 21 years of paying the equivalent of $5 a week rent.) 

One possible and practical act of reconciliation would be to see the Council lawyers and advisers offering to work with Te Atiawa to establish their own Affordable Housing Trust, based on the income from the Waitara lands. The beneficiaries of such a trust would be not only be the current low-income tenants of the leasehold lands, but also the young families of Te Atiawa’s future.

The biggest social issue of our current day is the growing gap between rich and poor in our communities. And the largest contributor to this gap is the lack of affordable housing. We are currently spiralling into a national vortex of pass-the-parcel on this issue. The current housing market bubble is putting more and more seabirds – Maori, Pakeha and new immigrant families – into a desperate search for a resting place. We are seeing too many New Zealand families living in overcrowded houses, rented garages, or even cars that are parked up in public parks.

The affordability issue affects the young families of Te Atiawa in Waitara no less than anyone else living on modest incomes throughout New Zealand. There are real governance responsibilities here in terms of ensuring that families have a pathway to affordable homes.

There are plenty of examples around New Zealand and the world of how Affordable Housing Trusts can be established and administered. It’s the sort of thing that the various advisers should be looking into, and working with iwi to fashion to their own needs.

Such a collaboration holds the possibility that a sense of stability in your own home, and the vibrant community that rests on this stability, could become a real “endowment” for Waitara and its future generations.

 

16.

Perhaps the final piece of a necessary conversation is about the naming rights and the memorials that we create as a legacy of the sorry tale of the Waitara lands.

We should be turning that legacy from one of anger, ignorance and amnesia ... towards one of memory, humility and reconciliation.

In a move championed by Mayor Andrew Judd and Councillor Howie Tamati, the New Plymouth District Council has just announced that it will buy the land at Te Kohia, the pa site over which the opening shots of the first Taranaki War were fired.

This is a good decision, and the establishment of a fitting memorial would at least remind all of us of the significance of what happened there. Mayor Judd’s hope is that Te Kohia will also fulfil a public education role ... filling in the gaps created by the constant forgetting of history by our majority culture.

And while we are at it, let’s also talk about changing the name of the main street of Waitara from “McLean” to “Wiremu Kingi Te Rangitake”.

That would be another act of remembering, and of peace-making. It would also be a clear signal that, all these generations later, we have seen the seabirds at Waitara ... and we have finally “got” Wiremu Kingi’s letter.

 

vivian Hutchinson
July 2016

 

Notes and Links

vivian Hutchinson QSM is a community activist and social entrepreneur who has worked mainly on issues of race relations, social justice, job creation and philanthropy. He is a co-founder of Community Taranaki www.taranaki.gen.nz, and author of How Communities Heal — stories of social innovation and social change (2012). He is also one of the creators of How Communities Awaken - Tū Tangata Whenua - a Masterclass for Active Citizenship which is run in partnership with Tu Tama Wahine o Taranaki www.tutamawahine.org.nz.

First published online in July 2016

portrait photo of vivian Hutchinson (right), taken outside the Len Lye Centre in New Plymouth (July 2015), by Graeme Lindup.

An edited version of this paper has been published on the e-tangata Maori and Pasifika Sunday Magazine, entitled “Waitara – a new take on an old crime” Sunday 24 July 2016 http://e-tangata.co.nz/news/waitara-a-new-take-on-an-old-crime

Cover illustration of seabirds on the rocks by Cliff Whiting, from “Bitter Payment: The Taranaki Troubles”, by Michael Keith, New Zealand School Journal, Part 4, Nos 1 & 2, 1978 (Ministry of Education) courtesy of Cliff Whiting.

Taranaki Peace Walk from New Plymouth District Council to Parihaka Pa, 15-17 June 2016. See and overview of this event at http://www.tutamawahine.org.nz/peacewalk2016

photo of the Taranaki Peace Walk arriving at Parihaka by Robin Martin/RNZ.
Caption: “Children at the front of Taranaki Peace Walkers arriving at Parihaka Pa, 17 June 2016. In the centre of the photo is New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd (wearing his Mayoral chains), with (on left) District Councillor Howie Tamati, and vivian Hutchinson.” photo Robin Martin/RNZ, with permission.

See also “Walking into a New Conversation – some thoughts on the Taranaki Peace Walk” (2016) by vivian Hutchinson published in the Taranaki Daily News 15 June 2016, and available from https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxbYoHP-24n7ZjJmc0lhX0xfLTg

Photos of Taranaki Peace Walk Community Conversation Groups by vivian Hutchinson
Caption: Community Conversations on the Taranaki Peace Walk – “Such hikoi are designed not to shout at you, but to invite people to talk with one another ... and to talk in ways that break new grounds of possibility.” photo vivian Hutchinson / Community Taranaki
Caption: Community Conversations on the Taranaki Peace Walk – “Peace and forgiveness are the qualities that give us the space to enable a different conversation.” photo vivian Hutchinson / Community Taranaki
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10208301137980342.1073741835.1060631424&type=1&l=b2e6352ca0

James K. Baxter ... He Tokotoko Mo Te Koroheke (A Walking Stick for an Old Man) published 1972 in the first New Zealand Whole Earth Catalogue edited by Owen Wilkes et.al. Published by Alister Taylor

Wiremu Kingi Te Rangitake ... Waitara chief and a signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi. He was the leader of Te Atiawa at the time of the 1860s land confiscations see http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1t70/te-rangitake-wiremu-kingi
Photo of Wiremu Kingi Te Rangitake, taken about 1880, photographer unknown Ref: 1/2-022668-F Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, Wellington, New Zealand. http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/wiremu-kingi-te-rangitake

McLean Street, Waitara ... see McLean Street in The Daily News 29 May 2010 http://ketenewplymouth.peoplesnetworknz.info/taranaki_street_names/topics/show/803-mclean-street-waitara-dn-29052010
Photo of Sir Donald McLean KCMG in the 1870s photographer unknown Ref: 1/2-005166-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22331041

the awakening of New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd ... see “Andrew Judd: An upbringing too white by far” interview with Dale Husband in e-tangata.co.nz 15 May 2016 http://e-tangata.co.nz/news/andrew-judd-an-upbringing-too-white-by-far

Waitangi Tribunal, Taranaki Report 1996 Wai 143 available at https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_68453721/Taranaki%201996.compressed.pdf

Report on the Waitara Lands Bill November 2002 by Rachael Willan available at http://www.newplymouthnz.com/nr/rdonlyres/ae2d4f22-f261-4579-93e6-6950db1f8ae0/0/waitaraendowments.pdf

Statement of Proposal – New Plymouth District Council (Waitara Lands Bill) available at http://www.newplymouthnz.com/NR/rdonlyres/ED24E472-F299-4375-B323-4F1F7FEEA59C/0/WaitaraEndowmentLandStatementofProposala.pdf

New Plymouth District Council Webpage on the Waitara Lands Bill
http://www.newplymouthnz.com/HaveYourSay/CurrentConsultations/NewPlymouthDistrictCouncilWaitaraLandsBill.htm

Video of the New Plymouth District Council special Community meeting on the Waitara Lands Bill (Waitara 15 June 2016) is at http://livestream.com/accounts/15233126/events/5593841

Other video of the New Plymouth District Council meetings can be seen at http://www.newplymouthnz.com/TheCouncilAndItsPeople/Meetings/MeetingsOnVideo.htm

Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa statement on the Waitara Lands Bill (April 2016) FAQ document available at http://teatiawa.iwi.nz/waitara-endowment-lands/
See also Waatea News 7th April 2016 "Te Atiawa sacrifice allows Waitara solution" http://www.waateanews.com/waateanews/x_story_id/MTMyOTE=/National/Te-Atiawa-sacrifice-allows-Waitara-solution
Radio New Zealand 13 April 2016 "Long-running land dispute nears resolution" by Robin Martin http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/301346/long-running-land-dispute-nears-end

Dissent by Waitara hapu ... see Taranaki Daily News 30 June 2014 “Owae Marae shuts door on ceremony” by Deena Coster http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/10213296/
Taranaki Daily News 25 August 2014 “Parihaka spirit present at protest” by Isobel Ewing http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/10418997/
Radio New Zealand 21 June 2016 "Te Ātiawa 'blood money' accusation" by Robin Martin
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/306870/te-atiawa-'blood-money'-accusation

Dissent from Waitara leaseholders ... see Background article on the Waitara Lands Bill by Jim Tucker in the New Zealand Herald 11 March 2014 “Leasehold fight drags over decades” available at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11217778
also Radio New Zealand 5 April 2016 “Land offer after iwi deal labelled racist” by Robin Martin at http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/300743/land-offer-after-iwi-deal-labelled-racist

Submissions to the Waitara Lands Bill ... see also editorial opinion from Jim Tucker “Hikoi date clash makes you wonder” Taranaki Daily News 25 June 2016 available at http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/opinion/81410763/jim-tucker-hikoi-date-clash-makes-you-wonder

Taranaki Daily News coverage of the Waitara Lands Bill hearings ...
Taranaki Daily News 21 June 2014 "Council criticised for sad leasehold saga" by Taryn Uiger http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/10184845/
Taranaki Daily News 4 April 2016 "Freehold titles on the cards for Waitara endowment land leaseholders" by Hannah Lee http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/78538316/
Taranaki Daily News 7 April 2016 "Bill offering freehold titles for Waitara leaseholders to unlock town's potential" by Hannah Lee http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/78646673/
Taranaki Daily News 12 April 2016 "Council elated as Waitara endowment land local bill put out for consultation" by Hannah Lee http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/78820774/
Taranaki Daily News 16 April 2016 "Waitara Leases Unfair" by Taryn Utiger http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/67787943
Taranaki Daily News 15 June 2016 "Waitara Land Bill public hearing debates the value of the town's lands" by Taryn Utiger  http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/81077839/
Taranaki Daily News 20 June 2016 "Council votes to have one year price-freeze if Waitara Lands Bill passes through Parliament" by Taryn Utiger http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/81241973/

Dissent from Councillor Howie Tamati ... see The Daily News 6th July 2016 “Waitara Lands Bill heading to Parliament but there's 'no winners here', councillors told” by Taryn Utiger
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/81797260/
Radio New Zealand 6 July 2016 "Māori councillor votes against Taranaki land sale" by Robin Martin http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/308061/maori-councillor-votes-against-taranaki-land-sale
Photo of Howie Tamati from e-tangata Maori and Pasifika Sunday Magazine Sunday 24 July 2016

Minutes of an ordinary meeting of the New Plymouth District Council held in the Council Chamber, Civic Centre, Liardet St, New Plymouth Tuesday 5th July 2016 at 4.30pm http://www.newplymouthnz.com/NR/rdonlyres/983EA8C1-97DF-4559-9DD7-6149E28077FC/0/Councilminutes5July2016.pdf

Affordable Housing Trusts ... see profile of the work of Brian Donnelly and The Housing Foundation at “Affordable Housing for All” extract from “How Communities Heal” (2012) by vivian Hutchinson, available at https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1QP9wfqqKMXWDBKak9kMF94OTg

Te Kohia Pa ... see Taranaki Daily News 27 June 2016 "Pa at centre of Taranaki Wars bought by New Plymouth District Council for $715,000" by Matt Rilkoff http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/81490524/
Taranaki Daily News 1st July 2016 "Council unanimously votes to buy historic Taranaki pa site behind closed doors" by Taryn Utiger http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/81587531/

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