Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Orakei Claim

09 Pride and Protest 1977-1978

9.2 The Bastion Point Protest

The protesters camp at Bastion Point mushroomed in the spring of 1977. The
Maori Action Committee had mobilised support from most of Ngati Whatua,
trade unionists and the Matakite movement and about 150 persons took
occupation in January 1977.

Dame Whina Cooper was amongst the first to visit the protestors. She was to
acquire a large shed for their use, from engineering contractors in Penrose.

From a few tents and caravans the initial camp grew to a large meeting house
('Arohanui') with cooking, sleeping and office accommodation. Extra servicing
buildings surrounded it and all on a 'marae' with gateway and watch tower.
The untilled clay soil was laid in pasture or cropped to provide food. The
group was supplemented by several hundred supporters, Maori from many
tribes, Europeans from many disciplines, mainly young but including the old.
Many groups especially tribal groups, visited the protestors' marae, if not to
stay then at least to express sympathy and encouragement before leaving.
There was a danger the protest would spread to other tribes (as indeed, it
did).

Ten years after this spectacular event Maori views of it are still coloured by
differing philosophies. It epitomised, in one opinion disoriented dissidents in
search of a cause. In another view, it was the course of last recourse for a
people who had tried every alternative for too long and had nothing left to
lose. J P Hawke's submissions referred us to the long history of letters,
petitions, pleas, Court hearings and enquiries - but for what? The people has
lost the whole of their 700 acre reserve to end up as tenants on Crown Land.
One did not have to investigate the details, he said, but to consider only the
end result. The people had nothing and that spoke volumes in itself. For this
they were branded 'willing sellers'. Well, a pile of petitions and Court cases
didn't fit the brand, and what of the morality of the 'willing buyer'? He did not
start the protest he claimed. For him his grandmother did. What grandson had
any pride who could sit idly by, knowing of how his 'kuia' had travelled to
Wellington (with Te Puea in 1950) filled with hope, to return, laden with
despair, to die under the weight of an edict to vacate her home. Had he not
made submissions too in the 'proper' way? They merely added weight to
Government files, he said. What were the alternatives? Could any son love his
family if he loved not honour too?

It was argued by some the action was fundamentally wrong, bound to fail for
it was founded on a wrongful breach of the law. The trouble was, Hawke
claimed, there was not one Court in the land that could consider the issue in
a direct way. The Indian's treaties were at least upheld in American and
Canadian Courts. The Treaty of Waitangi was a lawyer's joke. The Indians had
Claims Courts. The Maori could petition only a partisan Parliament.

If protest was not the Ngati Whatua way, the Ngati Whatua way seemed
wrong. Where had reliance on the law got them? It is good to rely on the law,
he said, provided the law is just, but a law where the Maori is always morally
right but legally wrong is a law in disrepair, and protest was needed not to
destroy but mend it. He went on to the Point, he claimed, not to invite an
arrest but to arrest a wrong.

The protesters, others claimed, were spurred not by their principles but
massive media coverage. That coverage, Hawke replied, was necessary to
mobilise the widest possible support or at least to bring Maori claims to an
otherwise disinterested public.

Some trenchant criticism revolved around the Action Group taking the claim
to Maori outside Ngati Whatua ranks. The Action Group replied the broad
issue was not limited to Ngati Whatua. It was a case example of Maori land
issues throughout the country, a symbol of the plight of indigenous minorities
throughout the world. They had a responsibility to a much wider group than
the home tribe, and in any event, the past showed the need not just for a
settlement of present claims, but a better law for the future. The latter was a
national concern.

Many Maori groups flocked to Bastion Point to give encouragement and
support. They could tell of similar cases 'at home' and if the stories differed
in detail, the plot was still the same. Did they take the mana of the case from
the people to whom it belonged? Some say they did but the Action Group said
'no'. They came to give support, and get support, reinforcement of their own
views on their own issues and support for the Action Group seemed necessary
for the Action Group was advocating a case example that illustrated others.

It needs to be said it was only after 'Bastion Point' that a new caution was
apparent in the Crown's dealings with Maori land throughout the country and
there was an awareness that something had to be done about old claims if
only to properly research them before things got out of hand. It was
appropriate that the lead came from Orakei for one hundred years earlier Orakei
was the scene for the settlement of Maori issues of national concern. In that
sense, Orakei belonged to many. It was the place where many forebears had
gathered from all over, to plan a Maori strategy and as early as 1879, to call
upon the Government to honour the Treaty. 1977 merely showed the failure
of the Kohimarama conference, and the need for another. But others of Ngati
Whatua considered the first need was to restore the mana of their own tribe.
In their view that had to be done before the wider issues could be debated
with the sort of direction that Tuhaere had given in 1879, and before 'all
Maoris' could be invited to the camp.

Although the Maori issue was confused by the desire of many to retain as much
as possible as open space, or for low cost housing, Hawke and the Action
Group succeeded in opening to public gaze the Maori case and the
complicated and troubled history of Orakei. There is criticism that they took on board
a number of students and others who had nothing to do with the matter. They
reply without their help, in researching the past and exposing new interpretations
on what had happened, in the claims and counter claims that were being
made, a great deal of evidence may not have seen the light of day, or the Maori
perspective given a wider debate.

The kaupapa (tribal policy) some say was wrong, for the whole tribe did not
approve the action taken and later, elders distinctly disapproved. The kaupapa
was fixed, said Michael Rameka, before the action was taken, on the basis that
there would and could be no retreat. It was fixed by the Orakei Maori
Committee, he said which included some elders and significantly, the
residents, and which was the body most representative of Ngati Whatua at the
time. Others changed the kaupapa later, it was argued, without prior
consultation, and the elders 'on the outside' had by then as much responsibility to
the group then encamped as they to them.

The protesters, some say, nearly jeopardized the 'handsome settlement' the
Government eventually offered, with the result Ngati Whatua nearly got
nothing. The protestors claim to have stimulated the move to a settlement,
broadening the area for compromise making more moderate proposals,
considered extreme only months earlier, appear quite tame. But they do not
retreat from their view that the settlement was not nearly enough.

Trade unions and Churches came too, the former offering the weight in
numbers the protestors lacked, the latter the weight of moral conscience.
Officials had referred to the law, and the declared legality of past transactions
by Courts and Commissions. Father Dibble referred to Galatians 3 v 11 which
he paraphrased as 'the law will not justify anyone in the sight of God'.

The protestors included young and old, Maori and European, some trying to
understand the present, others to understand the past. They came from many
disciplines. One claim, most strenuously opposed by the Action Group, was
that it was taken over. Michael Rameka insisted that throughout the Action
Group was never comprised of other than members of Ngati Whatua and they
alone set the rules and direction. The control, he said, never passed to
,communist infiltrators' or 'student activists' as was alleged.

The debate on the Bastion Point protest will no doubt continue, but the
significance of the protest camp for some, transcends the immediate issues.

Many young people were there, knowing that they were Maori but not much
more than that, seeking to discover what it was to be Maori and sensing in
Hawke's protest, a picture of Maori pride, a pride they had not formerly
known. Hilda Harawira described to us what this meant to her. Alcohol was
not allowed in the protestors' camp. Drugs were forbidden. A strong sense of
family and belonging made such things unnecessary and proved that young
people could be held together without them. Classes were started, teaching
things in both Maori and non-Maori and there was actually a joy in learning.
Maori and European were there as one, learning from one another.

Language, custom and history were taught. Building, cleaning and catering
for large crowds using open wood fires was learnt by both sexes. Children
continued to go to school and additional instruction continued in what she
thought were good homely conditions, one teenage protestor passing six
subjects in school certificate. It was for her a new and better home and a
turning point in her life.

For Emily Karaka it was a return home. She was one of Ngati Whatua lost to
the city, her grandparents having left Okahu papakainga before her birth,
carefully avoiding reference to it in her presence as though the pain would
be too great for her to bear. She knew what it was to be rootless, to have a
past withheld in whispers, but found her roots after reading of the protest and
visiting the protest camp. There she found countless cousins, a large loving
family, and not so much a mood of protest as of pride. Like Hilda, she stayed
until eventually arrested.

Father Dibble, who joined the protestors, explained

In that meeting house I saw the flourishing of a vigorous Maori culture that I had
never previously experienced. The people in occupation, led by Renee and Joe
Hawke, demonstrated to the highest degree, ingenuity, skill, organisation and
perseverance under adversity. I saw the development of a sense of pride, discipline
and aroha. I saw young Maoris absorbing their language, their culture, their history
and their customs. Many admitted to never having had real contact with anything
specifically Maori before. Together, on Takaparawha, in the meeting house, which
itself was a masterpiece of ingenuity, Maori people discovered a sense of purpose
and identity.

Father Shirres had a similar view

Most of my life I have worked with young people. In the years that I worked with
the Ponsonby Work Trust I came to some slight understanding of the plight of so
many young Maoris - locked out of most of the opportunities for progress in
European society, unsure of their identity, economically insecure, and with little
access to the better things of either Maori or Pakeha culture. Here at Bastion Point,
during the occupation of 1977-78 1 saw those same young Maoris rediscovering
themselves, their inheritance, their pride and their identity ...

Forty-six 'Young Maoris of Orakei' who were there, signed a submission in
which they explained their involvement as follows

Many marched for many different reasons. And many were the reasons for the
occupation of Bastion Point (Takaparawha) in 1977. Those of us who were young
were ignorant of the politics, but felt in our hearts that this was what we had to do.
AD our lives we were told what was right and what was wrong. We felt that what
we were doing was right. Then ignorance turned to understanding which affected
our lives, the things we learned, heard, saw and felt were experiences of a life time.

Those things were fine but back amongst the Orakei people was a more
pragmatic concern that the protestors would lose themselves in a host of
causes, and if the younger ones did not understand the politics, they need not,
for the older people presumed to know them well enough. Their difference
of view was not in reality a philosophical one, but one based on the reality of
practical politics. In asking for the return of the parks, uncommitted lands and
the homes the Action Group was seeking too much.

The question was not whether they were right, but what, having regard to
the politics of the time, was the most that might be asked for. The political
reality was too, what Government could negotiate with a large and many
faceted group, for whom consultation was restricted by a confrontation stance
and for whom loyalty to the group might be more compelling than loyalty to
the case. Some of Ngati Whatua appreciated this. They felt the need to offer
a more constrained negotiating front, as an alternative more in accord with
the Ngati Whatua way, and due to the exigencies of the situation, as quickly
as possible.