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| Pania Newton talking to tamariki |
Early Māori gathered up the loose volcanic rock on the warm, fertile volcanic soils at Ihumātao to clear the land for cultivation. They built complex wall and drainage systems so that the tropical crops they brought with them from Polynesia, such as kūmara (sweet potato) and taro, could survive.
Government has taken a shortcut in purchasing the land from Fletchers at Ihumātao and returning it to its mana whenua. When the Auditor-General called the deal 'unlawful' until validated by Parliament (RNZ) , National and ACT plunged in. But as MartynBradbury in The Daily Blog points out, National’s own past deals leave much to be desired — and they had nothing to do with putting a past wrong right. Ihumātao was wrongfully confiscated from Ngāti Whatua in 1863 and then sold to a Pākehā farmer whose family kept it before selling to Fletchers. Click here to read what Wikipedia wrote about the site.
Bradbury writes:
“The screaming from National over a technicality in buying Ihumātao is funny because I don’t remember this level of outrage when National gave a $11.5m bribe to a Saudi Businessman, or blew $200 million on their PPP [public-private partnership] ideological mutation at Transmission Gully, or needlessly and spitefully pissed $100million against the wall on the meth contaminated state housing fiasco.
“So f..k National and their selective outrage and f..k the confiscating Neoliberal Settler State, buying Ihumātao was the right thing to do and we should be grateful for Labour’s leadership in finding a solution, even if there was some technicality breached.
“When Labour ‘break’ the rules it’s to return stolen Māori land. That cost $30m.
“When National ‘break’ the rules it’s to bribe Saudi Businessmen , make State Tenants Homeless and ideological mutations like Transmission Gully. Those cost $311.5m. "
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