Statue debate heats up
City leaders could start thrashing out the future of the Captain Hamilton statue within days.
The bronze statue was hauled away on Friday following threats by Huntly kauma¯tua Taitimu Maipi that he would tear down the life-size monument during Saturday’s Black Lives Matter march.
Maipi attacked the statue using red paint and a claw hammer in 2018, arguing the British navy commander – whom the city is named after – was a murderer whose deeds shouldn’t be celebrated.
Southgate said removing the statue was about protecting the public’s safety. She’s unsure if it should go back on display.
‘‘The removal of the statue happened quite quickly, very quickly, for what I believe were the right reasons,’’ Southgate said.
‘‘We know this is of huge importance both locally, nationally and even internationally. So there’s no way I will pre-empt a decision before I’ve had a full conversation with my colleagues at council.’’
Southgate doesn’t believe the Captain Hamilton statue belongs in the city’s Civic Square. Asked if she favours displaying it elsewhere in the city, Southgate replied: ‘‘Probably not.’’
Elected members could start debating the statue’s fate ‘‘within the next few days’’, Southgate said, but she also wants to get feedback from the public and Waikato-Tainui.
When Stuff spoke to Maipi before the statue’s removal, he was not keen for it to go to another public place, such as the Hamilton Gardens.
‘‘Throw it in the bloody river, where it belongs. Let it sink.’’
Maipi’s suggestion the Mongrel Mob might help tear down the statue did not factor into the council’s decision to remove the work, Southgate said.
Waikato-Tainui spokesman Rahui Papa believes transporting Captain Hamilton to another public space will ‘‘be moving one problem from one place to another’’.
Papa wants discussions to take place between WaikatoTainui and the community about other appropriate figures or events that could be commemorated in Civic Square.
‘‘Having a statue that honours a person that tried to provide full-frontal attacks to the kı¯ngitanga, to Waikato and Ma¯ori in general, is just not appropriate,’’ Papa said. ‘‘I think it [Captain Hamilton] should be returned to the Gallagher family, because they were the ones who donated it to the city.’’
John Gallagher said he did not have a preference for where the statue should go.
‘‘I want to see what the options are in due course.
‘‘We’ve got to go through a system and discussion and I’ll wait and see how that turns out.’’
National Party Leader Todd Muller yesterday said the decision to remove the statue was part of a national conversation that he encourages communities to have.
‘‘It’s not for a leader of a political party to say what statue goes or stays,’’ he said. ‘‘One of the strengths of our country is we are able to have the capacity for conversations like this.’’
Former prime minister Jim Bolger, who stepped down as chancellor of Waikato University in 2019, has ‘‘very clear views’’ on what should happen to the Captain Hamilton statue but declined to share them publicly in case he contradicted Muller.
In 2019, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced New Zealand history will be taught in all schools by 2022. The announcement followed a grassroots campaign spearheaded by the Waikato Times pushing for the compulsory teaching of New Zealand history. Bolger said it is essential schoolchildren learn about New Zealand history.
The Black Lives Matter protests have resonated around the world and have ‘‘stirred up something that is very deep . . . in the soul’’, he said.
‘‘You’ve got history catching up with the world,’’ Bolger said, adding the adverse reaction to the Black Lives Matter protests from some has to be seen in a wider context.
‘‘The white race knows in its bones, as it were, that their dominance, which has lasted for a few hundred years, is virtually over,’’ he said.
‘‘The white race is not replacing itself anywhere with a birth rate that replaces it. So that only has one answer.
‘‘I think that’s what is causing a lot of frustration, why you’re getting these white racist groups.’’
Waikato University associate professor in Ma¯ ori and Indigenous Studies Tom Roa wants to see a statue of Dame Hilda Ross in Civic Square.
‘‘She’s a heroine, the first female parliamentarian of this region, the deputy mayor of Hamilton when it became a city. She’s a wonderful person who’s totally ignored in our history.’’
Roa believed there had been some consultation about the Ross statue before and that she was a strong supporter of the Ma¯ ori Women’s Welfare League.
He preferred the Captain Hamilton statue not stand in public.
Hauraki-Waikato Ma¯ ori Party candidate Donna Pokere-Phillips said she would like a memorial in Civic Square explaining the history of the city and region.
‘‘The next generation needs to be aware of the conflicts, and how some of these townships were developed and colonised by settlers, and what impact that had on the local, indigenous community at the time.
‘‘You would have to involve tangata whenua to be able to tell that story.’’
The process could be an opportunity to inform and educate the community, she said.
‘‘You’ve got history catching up with the world.’’
Jim Bolger, former prime minister