CHALLENGE TO DEBATE

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29851, 18 June 1962, Page 14

CHALLENGE TO DEBATE

Maori Elder And M.P.

(N.Z. Press Association) ROTORUA. June 17. A leading Rotorua Maori elder has challenged Mr H. K. Lapwood, M.P. for Rotorua, to debate publicly a statement made in Parliament on Friday by Mr Lapwood that an obstructionist Maori element had delayed airport works in Rotorua. The challenge was made today by Mr D. King, an elder of the Ngati-Whakaue tribe. "I would like to see Mr Lapwood come straight out and talk about explicit examples of obstructionism, instead of making innuendoes,” said Mr King. "The allegations must reflect on the Ngati-Whakaue. the only people to make gifts of land to Rotorua city. "The whole thing is that people want to change the trusts. If they are changed the land should revert back to the owners, the NgatiWhakaue” Mr A. M. Linton, Mayor of Rotorua, and chairman of the Rotorua Airport Committee, supported Mr Lapwood. He said today that the owners of the land at Rotokawa, where it was proposed to build the Rotorua airport, knew some time ago that there was no other land in '.he district for an aerodrome. “Yet in spite of earlier attempts to negotiate, the land had to be taken under the Public Works Act. If the land had been made available earlier, it is possible there would have been an airport by now.”