Waitangi protest little concern

Press, 23 January 1988, Page 4

Waitangi protest little concern

By JANE ENGLAND, Maori Affairs reporter Promised protest action for the Okains Bay commemoration of Waitangi Day has caused little concern for the Ngai Tahu Maori Trust Board.

The board’s deputy chairman, Mr Henare Tau, yesterday said that the board had been made aware of a protest which would be mounted by members of the Christchurch based group, Action for an Independent Aotearoa.

Those planning the protests were pakeha (European New Zealanders). A protest organiser, Mr Joe Davies, said the protesters would not disrupt Ngai Tahu activities at Okains Bay.

The protests would be aimed at pakeha “cele-

brants” of the activities, and representatives of the Crown which had yet to honour the promises it made in the Treaty of Watangi on February 6, 1840.

Mr Tau said Ngai Tahu would not be celebrating the treaty. The day would instead be a commemoration of the contractual obligations which bound the Crown.

"I will be protesting in the near future if the Crown does not provide a remedy for its breaches of the treaty and the promises that were broken in repeated dealings with us,” he said. The action group has vowed to support the Ngai Tahu land claim which is currently being lodged before . the Waitangi Tribunal.