Disputes and death threats
A new book by Phil Taueki’s partner paints an unflattering portrait of Levin.
Phil Taueki’s repeated clashes with authority are documented in a new, self-published book by his partner, Anne Hunt, a former journalist and Horowhenua district councillor. In essence, Hunt’s book alleges Taueki has been the victim of sustained harassment by Levin police acting in the interests of what might loosely be termed the local establishment.
The book, Man of Convictions, paints an unflattering portrait of Levin (population 20,600) as a town where the police and district council act in concert to deter anyone from upsetting the status quo or threatening time-honoured ways of doing things – such as recreational use of Lake Horowhenua, which Pakeha townsfolk have regarded for more than a century as their playground by right. Taueki is widely viewed locally as a troublemaker and a disrupter.
His problems with the police have mostly arisen from confrontations with recreational users of the lake, notably members and supporters of the local rowing club whose lakeside clubhouse is a matter of bitter contention. Hunt alleges they deliberately goad and taunt Taueki – the result being he will react and the police will arrest him.
The book is littered with allegations of police responding, sometimes in force, to provocative behaviour by Taueki, but appearing to turn a blind eye to alleged offences – including assault and vandalism – against him.
Asked to comment on claims made in Hunt’s book, the Manawatu area police commander, Inspector Sarah Stewart, said the issue was complex and it would not be appropriate for police to give their opinion on a book.
She said the police accepted the outcomes of cases which had been before the courts, several of which resulted in Taueki’s convictions being quashed or charges being withdrawn, but she added that many of the cases involving Taueki were civil rather than criminal matters.
Stewart said the police were continuing to work with the parties involved in an effort to resolve what she described as “a complex and long-running dispute”.
Both Taueki and Hunt say threats have been made against their lives. Hunt writes of a phone call to her house in the early hours from a man who initially seemed friendly when he asked to speak to Taueki, but turned nasty when she refused because he was sleeping.
“I’m going to f---ing kill the c---,” she quotes the caller as saying. Twenty minutes later, he called again and vowed to kill her too.
According to Hunt, the constable who turned up in response to her complaint was reluctant to do anything other than mention the incident in his notes. “A fortnight later, he phoned to report that these calls had been traced to a Levin landline, but the police would not be taking my complaint any further.”
Hunt herself is quietly spoken and can give the impression of being fragile. But like Taueki she’s a battler, able to soak up setbacks that would crush less-resilient campaigners. In 2007, she succeeded in overturning a harsh and punitive High Court judgment banning publication of a book she had written about claims of sex abuse by a health professional, and holding Hunt guilty of contempt of court for disclosing details of a court settlement in the case.
The appeal victory ended a gruelling legal saga that lasted years and pitted Hunt, mostly representing herself, against a procession of heavyweight barristers.
Of course she’s open to the accusation that her book is a one-sided account of Taueki’s conflicts with authority. But she has clearly kept detailed notes, and even allowing for her own involvement, it’s a damning record. In several instances, Hunt’s version of events is backed by video footage filmed by Taueki supporter Bryan ten Have, a former chair of the Horowhenua Residents’ and Ratepayers’ Association.
aquatic weed that decomposes on the lake bed in the hot summer months, causing oxygen depletion and creating a condition known as anoxia.
Gibbs has said that the weir turned the lake into “a very large settling pond with about half of its original volume filled with sediment”. Taueki describes it as the equivalent of putting a plug in a dirty bath.
As long ago as 1975, scientist Helen Hughes – then with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research but later Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment – was warning that Lake Horowhenua exceeded the pollution rates of other “notoriously polluted lakes”. No one seemed to be listening.
The tribunal was told by Muaupoko claimant Tama Ruru that the lake, once rich in waterfowl, eels, flounder, mullet, whitebait and freshwater mussels, had “degenerated to a sewer that children cannot swim in and we cannot eat from”.
Even today, the big Queen St drain that runs from east to west across Levin continues to discharge stormwater into the lake. In fact, the council hasn’t ruled out the possibility that it will seek consent for continued stormwater discharge from the drain – this after signing a 2014 accord pledging to help clean up the lake.
MUCH WIDER CROWN DISREGARD FOR RIGHTS
But the Tribunal’s report doesn’t focus only on the lake. It also documents a history of much wider Crown disregard for Maori land rights in the Horowhenua district generally and lays bare the historical origins of divisions and acrimony that still beset the Muaupoko iwi.
In its report, the Tribunal tries to untangle an extraordinarily convoluted history of land dealings that progressively saw the Muaupoko’s holdings reduced by the beginning of the 20th century to just over a third of the original 21,230ha Horowhenua block. It’s a story replete with manipulation, bad faith and deceit, and one in which some Muaupoko leaders appear to have been not entirely blameless.
The tribunal describes the iwi today as virtually landless. By the time of the tribunal’s hearings in 2015, the sum total of Maori freehold land in the Muaupoko rohe was only about 10% of the original block. The bed of Lake Horowhenua accounted for nearly a fifth of those remaining holdings.
Some of the Muaupoko land was acquired for the township of Levin, some for the privately owned Wellington-Manawatu Railway Company. More was taken for a 600ha state farm and a child welfare institution. Still more was compulsorily acquired under the Native Townships Act to create Hokio township on the coast west of Levin – a development intended not for Maori but for the benefit of Pakeha wanting holiday homes by the sea.
Litigation over land sales was “bitter and protracted”, the tribunal says, and it left the Muaupoko deeply divided. “Those divisions still cast shadows over the tribe today.” It says the Crown manipulated intra-tribal differences to get land converted from customary communal title to individual titles to facilitate sales.
Ironically, a lot of Muaupoko land was sold to pay litigation costs arising from earlier disputed land sales.
Much of the bitterness arose from the role played by colourful Muaupoko leader Te Keepa, who was otherwise known as Major Kemp or Taitoko. Te Keepa negotiated with the Crown on behalf of the Muaupoko and was involved in several land deals that saw the tribe’s holdings reduced.
In one deal, Te Keepa gifted 500ha to a chief of the neighbouring Ngati Raukawa iwi to settle a dispute. According to the tribunal report, the deal was kept secret from Te Keepa’s tribe at the time.
A further 320ha was transferred to settle legal debts incurred by Te Keepa through his involvement in a Maori trust at Whanganui that had failed spectacularly.
He also played a central role in negotiations over the Crown’s purchase of a large block of land for what was to become Levin. At one point the town was to be called Taitoko in Te Keepa’s honour.
The tribunal commented that the iwi ended up receiving nothing for the 1620ha block. All the proceeds were chewed up by litigation costs. “The Crown obtained the block from a chief whose debts meant, as a Crown official noted, that he ‘could not help himself ’.”
Te Keepa was also accused of gifting land to the privately owned railway company without the tribe’s knowledge. He was given shares in the company, but the iwi made no money from the deal. Te Keepa thought both the railway and the town of Levin would bring economic benefits to the Muaupoko.
Ill feeling over Te Keepa’s role in the disposal of Muaupoko land was exacerbated because he had fought on the Crown’s side in the New Zealand Wars and attained the rank of major in the colonial forces – hence
Almost invariably, the Maori owners were outmanoeuvred or outgunned. No compensation was paid.
Taueki’s description of him as a kupapa, or traitor. Taueki’s eponymous ancestor supported the Kingite movement and fought on the other side. The tribunal concluded that Te Keepa was invited to negotiate with the Crown on behalf of the tribe for the very reason that he had been aligned with the colonial government and knew how to deal with it.
Another chief, Kawana Hunia, also played a role in land sales. According to the tribunal report, Hunia was under financial pressure, like Te Keepa, and needed to sell land to pay debts incurred in securing his people’s land titles.
As a result of a Native Land Court ruling, Te Keepa and Hunia were recognised as the individual owners of the crucial block known as Horowhenua 11 – which the tribunal described as the tribal heartland – and each was free to dispose of his half-share as he saw fit. Bitterness still lingers over claims that both chiefs did deals that other members of the tribe were not aware of or did not consent to.
The tribunal said the Crown had conceded that it “purchased land in Horowhenua No 11 from a single individual knowing that title to the block was disputed and despite giving an assurance that the interests of the wider beneficiaries would be protected”.
The tribunal commented that the roles of Hunia, Te Keepa and Ihaia Taueki – Phil
Taueki’s great-great-grandfather – were hotly debated during the hearings. That tribal fissures persist to this day was evident from the fact that the tribunal held separate hearing days for the rival factions.
The report refers to tension between two groups of claimants. “Some believe that they have priority rights because of their ancestry [that group includes Taueki, who claims his ancestors continuously occupied the lake while others came and went], and others seek a more egalitarian approach to the leadership of the tribe.
“This tension between the two groups, who are also clearly aligned by whakapapa, whanau and hapu affiliations, is reflected in the nature of the governance arrangements in place concerning the lake. Everywhere there is dissent, even among the lake trustees and the beneficial owners of the lake.”
CLEANING UP THE MESS
Where to now, then? Moral vindication of the Muaupoko’s claims is one thing, but the damage to the lake is long term and will not be reversed overnight.
Several initiatives are under way. Under the five-party Lake Accord signed early in 2014, $1.27 million has been committed to a lake clean-up, but progress seems slow and the gains so far are modest. A wash-down facility has been installed for boats entering and leaving the lake, to reduce the risk from invasive water weed, but Taueki – who pushed hard for its installation – is sceptical about how often it’s used.
A fish pass has been installed to enable fish to bypass the Hokio Stream weir that kept them from getting to and from the sea, and preparations are being made to put a weed harvester on the lake – a crucial part of the clean-up operation. But even that has raised issues, because Taueki opposes the construction of a concrete launching ramp on what he says is Taueki family land.
Other improvements cited by Matt Sword, who chairs the Lake Horowhenua Trust, representing the lake’s Muaupoko owners, include a scheme to capture and filter out pollutants from surrounding farms and market gardens. He says farmers and growers are co-operating to minimise runoff, and a sediment trap has been installed on the Arawhata Stream, which flows into the lake and reportedly has the highest nitrogen levels in the country.
It’s fair to say that Taueki is deeply sceptical about gains so far – he identifies the town’s stormwater discharge as an issue no closer to solution – and even Duffy, the former mayor who was instrumental in developing the Lake Accord, told the Listener in 2014 that $1.27 million was “just a start”.
But in the meantime, money is materialising from other sources. Earlier this month, Environment Minister Nick Smith identified Lake Horowhenua as one of the polluted bodies of water to benefit from $44 million of Government grants aimed at improving water quality. The Government will contribute roughly half the cost of a $1.6 million community-led restoration project at Lake Horowhenua, although even that amount seems to fall far short of the sum required for a thorough clean-up.
Potentially of greater significance in the longer term is that the lake is likely to form a crucial part of Treaty settlement negotiations between the Muaupoko Tribal Authority and the Crown now that the tribunal’s report has been released.
The tribunal urged the Government to legislate as soon as possible for a new governance structure that would enable the Muaupoko to act as kaitiaki of the lake and the Hokio Stream. That would result in the dismantling of the Lake Horowhenua Domain Board, which effectively usurped the iwi’s property rights and which has been at the heart of Muaupoko discontent for so long.
The tribunal suggested using, as a model, the co-governance arrangement agreed between the Crown and the Waikato/Tainui iwi over the Waikato River in 2009, or the similar Whanganui River settlement legislation passed earlier this year.
Treaty negotiations are also likely to cover the cost of restoring the lake. Sword, who is the Muaupoko Tribal Authority’s lead negotiator, has made it clear that the iwi will expect the Crown, having admitted complicity in the lake’s degradation, to come up with money for its restoration.
Sword says that though the iwi wants to regain control over its own lake, it lacks the resources to clean it up. There’s no point, he says, in having control but no revenue to enable it to deal with pollution issues arising from the proximity of a large town, dairy farms and market gardens.
Nonetheless, he sounds positive about the work done so far, which he characterises as low-hanging fruit – the easier stuff. “I believe within three to five years we can really make some inroads in terms of people being able to swim in the lake.”
Taueki, needless to say, doesn’t share that optimism. It’s all PR, he says, adding that the Lake Accord is “a f---ing joke”. As far as he’s concerned, not much has changed: the lake and its Muaupoko owners are still being shafted.
Asked why more members of the iwi, apart from his own whanau, haven’t backed him in his fight, he says he believes it’s because there’s money in it for those who go along with the official process.
His scepticism suggests that cleaning up the lake may be the easy part of any post-settlement future. Restoring trust and harmony within the Muaupoko after more than a century of rancour and division – much of it exacerbated and even caused by the Crown – may prove a much greater challenge.
Earlier this month, Lake Horowhenua became one of the polluted bodies of water to benefit from $44 million of Government grants.