Following on from my dissection of Simon Wilson, as promised, I turn my attention to Lizzie Marvelly. This young lady advises via her headline on page 16 of A Weekend Newspaper that Ihumātao is a complex case of Maori oppression. She informs us that there has been a battle raging there for generations. I would put it more accurately as a battle between the generations of a family. I am probably quite wrong, as Lizzie tells me the education system has let us down by not educating us about these little family squabbles.
Lizzie has subsequently diligently gone to the trouble to read everything she can find on the subject, and what she’s learned has filled her with sadness. Well, Lizzie, as I advised Simon, you should talk to iwi advocate Pita Turei and he will put a smile back on your dial. The houses are not being built on sacred land.
Lizzie gets to grips with reality in paragraph three where she says there is a group of New Zealanders for whom what is happening at Ihumātao is just another example of the bloody Maoris squabbling between themselves and standing (with their hands out) in the way of a housing development that Auckland sorely needs.
I couldn’t have put it better myself! As they were, she says, presumably when they stood (as legal owners) in the way of land that settlers needed to build farms. Building farms is a novel idea, but that aside, it appears Lizzie either wasn’t taught about land compensation payouts (dreadful education system we have), or she’s been living under the same rock as Simon.
Lizzie says that to this group, ie most of us here, the occupiers are troublemakers, as were the people on Bastion Point and we all know how that turned out, but many others don’t, and so history is doomed to repeat itself. Correct Lizzie. Every time a law is broken history will indeed repeat itself.
We then get a blow by blow description of the history of the land from 1860 onwards. A tiny sliver was returned in the 1950s, but in the 1960’s the owners copped more s**t when the harbour (their main food source) was closed to them to build oxidation ponds for the city’s sewage system. Adding insult to injury they were not connected to the sewage system until twenty years later. Their ancestral river was also closed which raises the question, where did they do their business?
According to Lizzie, Fletchers consulted with Te Warena Taua, the chief executive of one of the iwi in the area. The agreement he reached with Fletchers was accepted by some Maori but not by others. This, then, is for those Maori concerned to sort out. The law, as applied, means Fletchers own the land and have every right to build on it. My understanding is that an agreement was brokered with Fletchers as the need for affordable housing for Maori was recognised.
If, as Lizzie suggests, the land should be put back as it was prior to confiscation, then why shouldn’t that rule apply to all confiscated land throughout the country? Can I point out that if we did that then we would all be living in mud huts or tents, cooking over a fire and dangling a line in the water hoping to catch a fish for dinner.
Lizzie goes on to talk about Maori land confiscated for “public works” that never happened and then sold to pakeha buyers instead of being returned. She says even claimants in the Native Land Court were plied with alcohol by Crown agents and encouraged to sign their land away while drunk. Here’s something else to feel guilty about folks, just add it to the list.
As we were lectured by Simon, Lizzie says things must change. We must learn about our history in all its complexity and darkness. Only then will we see the light.
Well, Lizzie, the lights were switched on some decades ago and have been burning brightly ever since in terms of monies paid to those iwi who chose to accept compensation for the confiscation of their lands.
The reality is it’s fast reaching the point where the ones feeling oppressed are those of us who are not Maori.