No winners, only losers in legal battle

Tu Tangata, Issue 6, 1 June 1982, Page 10

No winners, only losers in legal battle

Alastair Morrison

WHENU A/Land

Four Aunties from Manukorihi Marae headed the small party that filed into the plush armchairs at the back of the new Court of Appeal in Wellington.

They wore their white feathers Te Whiti's symbol of passive resistance. They had come to the highest court in the land to seek justice. Above and beyond sat throned the top judges in New Zealand. Below them a host of highly paid legal brains, looking like a colony of penguins in their wigs and gowns, conferred and argued in a seemingly foreign language. It was hard to see any of them as the hired servants of the aunties. At the back of the courtroom there was an anger. Why?

Many months before, the legal battle began at home in Taranaki, at Waitara. The issue was the waste pipeline from the proposed synthetic petrol plant. It was going to travel across burial grounds, over the seafood reefs, and discharge chemicals into the sea that washed over the foods. The Maoris raised objections at the tribunal. During the hearing they took time out to invite all parties onto the marae. Judges, lawyers and people from all sides received the traditional hospitality of the marae and a grand seafood dinner a first hand taste of the fruits of the sea the Maoris said were threatened by the waste pipe. Now the argument had taken them to the Court of Appeal. It was a wet, long, tiring day. The court showed no hospitality, not so much as a cup of tea. Perhaps the point seems trivial. Pakeha tradition does not expect the

highest judges in the land to dent their dignity by offering tea. But to the aunties it was an afront. The stark contrast was a symbol of cultural difference, a reminder that Maori and Pakeha do not have inherent cultural harmony on which we can rely. Frustration Behind the anger there was a deeper feeling of frustration. It was born of a knowledge that those who sat in judgement had no real understanding of what was at stake. As Aunty Mary Turner put it; “They don’t know what they’re bloody talking about. None of them have been collecting in their lives”. Think Big was a programme designed by the politicians to use New Zealand’s energy resources: its gas, water, coal, wood and so on.

The National Development Act was designed by the politicians to build the Think Big projects as soon as they could (the “fast track”) but still give everyone

a chance to have their say to one big planning hearing. In the process landowners, conservationists, local authorities and thousands of ordinary blokes have been

challenged to sacrifice their land, or their ideals, or their way of life. Such is progress. In Taranaki the Maoris have met it in a big way. Maui gas has so far spawned the ammonia-urea fertiliser plant, the methanol plant and the gas to synthetic petrol plant. The issues those projects have raised leave very little room for compromise. Issues like; How do you weight the merits of a ripe, plump mussel against a litre of synthetic petrol; How do you observe tapu over an urupa and still bulldoze it up for a pipeline; How do you keep the seafood reefs clean and still pipe chemical waste into the seas that wash over them. Simple issues The answers provide only winners and losers. Yet these simple issues, the right to treat the dead with traditional respect, the right to gather clean seafood from the rich coastal reefs, lie at the very heart of the culture and traditions Taranaki elders are fighting so hard to preserve. Taranaki Maoris are a conservative lot. The excesses of Bastion Point or the Raglan Golf Course find little support among their leaders. So in recent years they have learned to play the system, and in some respects they have made inroads. When they started out at planning

hearings they tried to present their case with photographs and spoken explanations. The judges at the methanol hearing would not allow them to present their case this way, but at the synthetic petrol hearing it was ruled that they could. Now they have a very effective visual and spoken presentation of the traditions they are trying to preserve, and a legal precedent to use it.

They have also won some victories. They fought a proposal by the New Plymouth authorities to pipe sewage out to sea, arguing it would pollute the seafood as it has done at Waitara. They won, and the sewage will now be treated in a land-based plant.

At the methanol plant hearing the Maoris objected to the closing off of a section of the Waitara river. They argued it was the only area where the large worms for eeling could be dug, and they won.

Again at the methanol plant hearing a proposal to pipe waste into the Waitara river rapids was turned down and now the waste must go through the Waitara sewage outfall.

That outfall has a crack in it, and raw sewage has polluted the reefs close by and made the beach unsafe for swimming. Next year the Waitara authorities and others who discharge through the outfall (the freezing works and methanol plant) will face the full force of opposition when they have to apply again for a water right to discharge.

Losses too

But there have been losses too. The latest decision to go against them is approval for the synthetic petrol plant to build its waste discharge pipe over the urupa, across the reefs and out to sea.

And there are personal losses. Aila Taylor won a seat on the local borough council and is now a strong voice on that body for Maori rights. But it has cost him a lot in time and money. And financially the huge cost of legal advice and attending the long National Development Act planning hearings places a burden on the local community. The marae is up to its eye-balls in debt.

But perhaps the greatest loss is the sense of disillusionment that you know you must try, but in the end you can’t win. That’s not just a Maori problem. The chairman of the North Taranaki Environmental Protection Society, Dr Ben Gray, puts the problem as simply this. If you want to object about your neighbour building a chook house too close to your fence, the planning processes work very well. But if you want to object about a multinational company building a chemical plant close to your fence, the planning processes simply can’t handle it.

Other groups are similarly affected. Many find a common interest in the Wellington-based Coalition For Open

Government. There, spokesman Keith Johnston said the concern is that the Government has made up its mind about the big projects and it doesn’t want their future discussed.

Little issues only So the Planning Tribunals have been restricted to talk only about the little issues, the fringe problems. The Commission for the Environment has had its powers restricted and the Commission for the Future has been dumped. Putting time and effort and money into Planning Tribunals is not, according to Keith Johnston, worth the effort. With the Government unwilling to discuss the big issues, such as how energy resources should be used, Keith Johnston says the Coalition is trying to provide the forum for this. “That takes initiative and time, and we’re only beginning. I’m not exactly hopeful,” he said.

Dr Gray shares that feeling. “The National Development Act is designed for them to build what they want, where they want, the way they want,” he said. That feeling of disillusionment is creeping in to the thinking of leaders among the Taranaki Maoris. Vera Bezems, who has argued before tribunals, points to the site workers on the synthetic petrol project. The tribunal restricted construction to certain time limits but the noise of earthworks has gone beyond them from the outset. Concessions won, said Vera Bezems, are not worth the paper they are written on.

No-win situation In a wider sense Aila Taylor too sees a no-win situation ahead. “We don’t want to end up like Bastion Point, but those kind of protests may be the only thing left. I’ve told the younger generation that. I’ve said, don’t laugh at the people at Bastion Point or the Raglan Golf Course. You may have to do it yourself.”

Section 3(g) of the Town and Country Planning Act includes among the list of matters to be recognised of national importance and provided for: “The relationship of the Maori people and their culture and traditions with their ancestral land”.

Maori Affairs Minister Mr Ben Couch adopts the view that Maoris too drive the cars, use the flush toilets in preference to a hole in the backyard and so on. So Maoris too must share in the compromises.

It’s another version of the “give a little, take a little’ philosophy that is drilled into our way of thinking. The reasonable person accepts graciously the losses along with the wins.

What the planning laws don't tell anybody is how you can go on tinkering with something as basic as your culture and traditions and still retain them.

Aila Taylor believes over the years the Maoris have lost more than they’ve won. Now he says the point has been reached where it’s a question of retaining the little that is left.

Energy Minister Mr Bill Birch says the planning process is designed to listen and take into account the Maori view along with all other views. But Mr Birch says if you give absolute priority to any one viewpoint projects would never get built.

Taranaki Maoris on the other hand say their relationship with their culture and traditions and ancestral land is an absolute, guaranteed under the Treaty of Waitangi.

And that in the end is the dilemma. Simply put, will the Maoris ever get a cup of tea out of the Court of Appeal?