Ae Marika!

A column published in the Northland Age

By Hone Harawira

MP for Tai Tokerau

10 February 2009

By choice, I played a very low key role at Waitangi this year, supporting activities on the lower marae and mixing with everyone from mobsters to MPs. I stood aside from a lot of the action to focus on how I might better help organise activities at Waitangi, as MP for Tai Tokerau.

And I spent a lot of time listening to other people’s ideas about the treaty, because I like to think I can learn from anyone, even the whacko’s. Some people’s ideas are just bloody weird, based on flimsy or fabricated evidence, and sometimes without reference to any facts at all, but other people think very deeply about the state of the world, and take action based on their sincerely held beliefs.

Two young men arrested for protesting against John Key outside the gates of the marae at Waitangi, were immediately condemned by various kaumatua, but I didn’t because I could clearly recall not too many years ago being in the same position as them.

I strongly support the right of Maori people to protest on Waitangi Day because Waitangi is not just about warm fuzzies (and 2009 was very much about that); Waitangi is also about recognising the fact that Maori rights are still under threat, and while the National / Maori Party arrangement already shows signs of delivering more for Maori than Labour’s last nine years, educational, housing, health and employment statistics suggest Maori have more to protest about than to celebrate in 2009.

POLITICIAN EXTRAORDINAIRE

On Sunday, Mangu Awarau and I attended a service in Kaikohe to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the passing of Hone Heke Ngapua, who entered Parliament in 1893 as the MP for Northern Maori at only 24 years of age, and held the seat until he died in Wellington of tuberculosis on February 9, 1909, aged 39.

Ngapua was a contemporary of the more well-known Ngata, Buck, Carroll and Pomare, but chose to strike out on his own, proposing ideas which were dismissed as “fanciful” at the time but which are now considered normal, such as relocating endangered birds to pest-free islands, and adventure tourism.

Ngapua also called for Maori fishing rights guaranteed under the Treaty to be returned to tribal control, and for setting up a tribunal to investigate and settle Treaty grievances.

In 1894, Ngapua tabled a Native Rights Bill to establish a separate Maori Parliament to enable Maori to manage their own future, at a time when the imminent "extinction of the Maori race" was widely considered a foregone conclusion, and Maori society was desperately seeking positive solutions to a desperate time.

Although the Bill failed, it showed clearly that Hone Heke Ngapua was a man before his time, and a politician worth more than a cursory look by any Maori interested in politics.

End

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