Auckland Maori Council backs 1990 boycott call

Press, 6 September 1989, Page 14

Auckland Maori Council backs 1990 boycott call

PA Auckland Leaders of the Auckland District Maori Council have called for a Maori boycott of the 1990 commemorations in support of a similar call last week by the Waiariki District Maori Council. The Auckland council chairman, Dr Rangi Walker, said Maori people had “nothing to celebrate and everything to commiserate” in 1990, which marks the 150th anniversary of the Treaty of

Waitangi. Dr Walker said he and other executive members were preparing papers outlining Maori grievances, and these would be presented to a full Auckland Maori Council meeting on September 17. If the full council supported the call it would put a recommendation to the national body, he said. The 1990 Commission chief executive, Mr Don Hutchings, said he was

disappointed that there were people who wanted to use the events as “a political tool.” “I think we have invested a lot of time and money in endeavouring to meet the needs and desires of the Maori people,” he said. “We spent the first six months as a commission doing nothing else but consulting those people who perhaps felt that 1990 was not their favourite subject.”