Punk rockers plug into housing protest
Members of Russian feminist punkrock band Pussy Riot lent support to hundreds protesting against an Auckland housing development being constructed on Ma¯ ori land.
At Parliament, Greens co-leader Marama Davidson, who accepted an 18,000-strong petition asking the Government to block the project, told those gathered she had written to the Prime Minister, asking for the issue to be resolved in a “just” way. But her own view was the Fletchers development at Ihuma¯ tao in South Auckland should not go ahead.
Protest groups say the 33.8ha area was unjustly confiscated from mana whenua in 1863.
Fletcher Residential got consent to build 480 homes on the site near the sacred O¯ tuataua Stonefields Reserve.
At Parliament yesterday, Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina told those gathered that Ihuma¯ tao was Ma¯ ori land and should be returned.
“I think the Government should pay for this land, from Fletchers and give it back to the Ma¯ ori people.”
She said New Zealand had the opportunity to be an example to the world when it came to the displacement of indigenous people.
Labour’s Ma¯ ngere MP Aupito William Sio said he had asked Fletchers to consider giving some of the Ihuma¯ tao land back to mana whenua. He said Fletchers would consider it, if the mana whenua, their partner in this development, agree.