Bastion Point protest mounting

Press, 4 May 1981, Page 6

Bastion Point protest mounting

PA Auckland Opposition mounted in Auckland yesterday to the Government’s decision to offer for sale a Housing Corporation subdivision on Bastion Point.

More than 200 protesters met at the Orakei Marae in the morning and decided to again ask the Government to put an immediate stay on work on the subdivision.

The Auckland Trades Council agreed to support the protesters. Criticism of the development also came from the Mana Motuhake movement and the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination.

The leader of the protest group, Mr Joe Hawke, said that the Trades Council had agreed to reinforce its green ban round. Bastion Point and to try to prevent supplies of materials reaching the contractor doing the development work. A picket might be placed on the work later in the week.

Mr Hawke said, “This work is a slap in the face to us. The Orakei Maori Action

Committee is committed to its mandate to stop private subdivisions on Bastion Point and to regain land formerly taken from our people. We have lost far too much land. We will not let another acre be stolen.”

Building contractors moved on to Bastion Point last week to prepare I.7ha of land vested in the Housing Corporation for residential development, leading the protesters to believe that the Government is reneging on its acceptance of a recommendation of a 1977 planning study into land-use proposals for the area.

The plan recommended that control of the land remain with a public agency and not pass to private interests.

The protesters want a stay on the work until the development plan is reviewed in the light of the 1977 recommendation.

The president of Mana Motuhake, Mr Matiu Rata, said yesterday that the decision to proceed with the subdivision could only be regarded as being provocative.

He said. “Once again we have actions by a Government agency callously indifferent to the feelings of Maori people and the public generally, I have approached the Minister of Housing (Mr Quigley) asking him to intervene in the matter immediately.” ■ The Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination said that the Government was confirming that it was hostile to even minimal recognition of Maori land rights. Mr Quigley said yesterday that he would report to the Cabinet this morning on the work at Bastion Point. He had been asked last week to place a stay on the work and had told the protesters that he would raise the matter with the Cabinet.

The work was being done in accordance with a Cabinet decision made after the recommendations of the study group. He was sure that the Government was not going back on its word. It was intended to have town-house-type residences built on the subdivision.