Q+A: Paul Holmes Interview with Te Uroroa Flavell
Q+A: Paul Holmes Interview with Te Uroroa Flavell,
Maori Party MP
Points of
Interest:
Maori Party MP says that
King’s revelations about Solicitor-General on Q+A “open
up the door on a bigger inquiry” into Urewera
raids.
On Urewera raids, Flavell says, “I’d
hope it never ever happens in a community in Aotearoa ever
again.”
Police actions during raids amounted to
“an ugly scenario” that was
“heart-wrenching.”
Police relations with Maori
have “taken a hit” as a result of Operation
Eight.
Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE.
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TE
UROROA FLAVELL Interviewed by PAUL
HOLMES
PAUL
Now with me is Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell. What do you
make of that? Is that police inquiry, is that
enough?
TE URUROA FLAVELL – Maori Party
MP
Well, I think that the
revelations given by Annette King this morning open it up to
a far wider terms of reference. That may well come from a
royal commission of some kind that really gets to the heart
of the case, because we’ve got here an admission in front
of the whole country that the person who gave advice about
saying, “Yes, go ahead and do the operation” all of a
sudden turns around and says, “No, the law is
inappropriate.” I mean, that surely is enough for us to
open up the door on a bigger
inquiry.
PAUL
I know, that’s extraordinary. We get Annette King
asserting this morning that, um, was it the Prime Minister
turned to David Collins: “Is the use of this act
appropriate?” “Yes, it is appropriate,” he says. The
whole investigation’s been done under this act. And a
month later, out he comes as says, “No, the act’s no
good in this case.” So everyone’s left up in the air.
The whole thing was a cock-up. Is that your
impression?
MR FLAVELL
I think that’s a good description of the whole scenario
right from the beginning to the end, even to the outcomes of
the police wanting to keep everybody locked up and not allow
bail, right through to the end of the case, and it’s
on-going, because there's still a lot of unanswered
questions still to be
considered.
PAUL
One gets the impression the cabinet were almost deceived by
the police leadership.
MR
FLAVELL I think that sounds
like... On the face of it, what Annette King’s given to us
is that it sounds like very much the case, and I can talk
back and reflect into discussions with other Maori members
of Parliament – the Labour ones at the time – that they
were pretty astounded at what had gone on as
well.
PAUL
Yeah, I mean, were the police out of order?
MR
FLAVELL Well, I suppose they
acted on whatever they decided was the criteria to make it
happen, but, boy, the ramifications of that action on that
day – I’d hope it never ever happens in a community in
Aotearoa ever
again.
PAUL
What was your reaction, Te Ururoa, when you saw on the news
that night – well, you would have heard through the day
what was going on, but when you actually saw the pictures of
the police in these incredible outfits and the scale and the
scope of this operation?
MR
FLAVELL I was astounded, like
pretty much I would suspect most Maori and most New
Zealanders, that such an action would be taken. Because we
didn’t get all the information. We didn’t know who was
involved. But as the operation tracked out and as more
discussion came about, we had people that we personally knew
involved in some of the situations. We had families... As an
MP, I received a number of calls from families who had had
their houses tipped over by the police. It was an ugly
scenario. And then to go across and participate in a hikoi
with Kōhanga Reo kids and the parents and the grandparents
involved in the Kōhanga Reo – it was
heart-wrenching.
PAUL
Do the cops have it in for Tūhoe?
MR
FLAVELL Well, you’d better ask
them, I think, about that, but on the face of it, the
actions that were taken on that day were way out of order to
have happened in the Ruatoki Valley, and the Tūhoe consider
that as part of an on-going, I suppose, battle with the
state that started over 150 years ago on the arrival of the
constabulary into the
Urewera.
PAUL
In the 1860s, that’s right. Nevertheless, you see, we have
to put... Do we have to be fair to the police? Do we have to
put this into context? This was six years after 9/11, and
strange things are happening all around the world – bombs
are going off in London, Madrid, God knows what. And here we
have people running around in the bush with semi-automatics,
Molotov cocktails. What was going on? What were they doing
that for? Do you know? What was the endgame?
MR
FLAVELL Oh, I have no idea. I
have spoken to one or two people about it, but it would be
just conjecture on my part, so most of the information’s
come out in the public arena through the court case. It’s
best to leave it at
that.
PAUL
How badly do you think the reputation of the police has been
hit amongst Maori?
MR
FLAVELL I think it’s taken a
hit. I think it’s definitely taken a hit amongst the
Tūhoe people. The lack of trust... I mean, there has, over
the last maybe 15, 10 years or so, been built up a positive
relationship, with the use of the Maori Liaison team that go
about work at Waitangi, work at major Maori hui and are
always seen to be around and about, and the involvement of
Maori wardens as well has been quite important. But they had
a Maori, a Tūhoe, a community person there that was well
able to be able to take part and give advice on the
operation...
PAUL
Annette King mentioned this to me yesterday. She doesn’t
know why police didn’t make better use of the Maori
Liaison officers.
MR
FLAVELL Well, absolutely. Even
at the top end of the police organisation... You know, our
discussions with some say that even at the top end of the
police organisation, Maori were pretty much left out of the
discussion and any sort of notice about what was going to
happen at
all.
PAUL
I thank you very much for coming up this morning, and all
the best.
MR FLAVELL
Kia ora,
Paul.
PAUL
Kia
ora.
ENDS