Chatham Island peace shattered

Police were called after a Moriori leader and his former operations manager came to blows at a remote reef on the Chatham Islands.

The clash between Maui Solomon, who led Treaty of Waitangi negotiations with the Crown which resulted in an $18 million settlement for Moriori, and David Prater, an Australian sacked for calling Solomon a c..., happened at Manukau Point, at the south-eastern tip of Chatham Island in October.

Prater lodged an assault complaint with police after the incident but no charges were laid, police saying there were inconsistencies in his version of events.

Solomon claims Prater punched him in the jaw when he asked him to leave the spot where he was fishing as it was on private property.

Prater claims the contact was accidental after Solomon reached for his rod, and alleges that Solomon left him with a bloodied nose, abrasions to his temple and a black eye.

The clash was the culmination of a bitter employment dispute which has rocked the Hokotehi Moriori Trust, of which Solomon is chairman and chief executive. He hired Prater to be general manager of operations but the pair fell out.

Prater was sacked for bringing the trust into disrepute by calling Solomon a c... in two separate conversations with local men. He has taken a case to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) alleging unjustified dismissal.

The dispute is the latest in a series of feuds that have split the trust and the tribe since the turn of the century.

Solomon himself went to the ERA in 2012 after he was suspended from his then-position as general manager for allegedly rigging trust elections. He won the case and was reinstated.

Solomon, a lawyer, is the grandson of the legendary ‘‘last Moriori’’ Tommy Solomon and was also a Treaty fisheries commissioner.