MOA POINT te take, te toko, te taniwha

Tu Tangata, Issue 30, 1 July 1986, Page 2

MOA POINT te take, te toko, te taniwha

THE pa site ofßangitatau occupies a prominent hilltop at the entrance to te Whanganui a Tara, Wellington Harbour. With a full 360 degrees viewpoint, Rangitatau proved a formidable defence for the Ngai Tara iwi, the mana whenua ofPoneke.

W f ith the pa site of his tupuna, Tuteremoana virtually on his backyard and dominating his skyline, Ray Ahipene Mercer is finding that his whakapapa has proved that the best defence is offence as he battles to prevent the continued desecration taking place below Rangitatau.

The fight is over the sewage outfall of Wellington city at Moa Point. Untreated sewage has been pouring from this outfall pipe for many years despoiling kaimoana and desecrating a fishing resource guaranteed to the Maori people under article two of the Treaty of Waitangi. It is equally an affront to pakeha with flow on effects to health from the polluted water.

For Ray and his allies, the Clean Water Campaign, the take is quite simple. All the people in Wellington contribute to the tiko, so all should share in its removal.

For the operators of the outfall, the Wellington City Council, it’s equally clear unlike the moana around the outfall. Sewage is a necessity of life and must go somewhere. Moa Point has proved handy for many years but the increasing community concern regarding environmental issues means improvements must be considered.

The council has been involved in a battle with the Clean Water Campaign for the past year over plans to build a milliscreening plant at Moa Point. The council says this would reduce the sewage in size and so make it easier to be broken down and absorbed by the sea.

Opponents say milliscreening would be no more than a giant sieve and make less obvious, dangerous pollution. They say it could even give a false sense of security to people that the shellfish and surrounding beaches are safe for use.

Ray lives at Breaker Bay, just around the corner from Moa Point, and along with local residents and other allies such as the environmental action group,

the Clean Water Campaign, has worked to get improvements. This has included adequate warning signs at Moa Point. Rays says the old ones were almost illegible through weathering. Even newer ones are so full of jargonese that they are not effective as a health warning. He says many times people in the water even collecting shellfish have to be told about the outfall. He provided Wellington City councillor David Bull with warning messages in Samoan and Maori as well as English, but says nothing came of it. Ray is a 37-year-old musician and guitar maker by trade. He spent most of his life in England, returning to his homeland in 1981, the time of the Springbok protests. For him it was a rude awakening to divisions in New Zealand society, divisions that cut right across racial, economic and political lines. In the aftermath of a more conscious New Zealand, Ray found a vitality and an increased social concern. In a linking of this concern with his musicians background, Ray has received the support of the Wellington Musician’s Union in opposition to the outfall at Moa Pt. He also received the backing of the recent Maori Trade Unionists’ Hui at Rotorua. He says his involvement in the

Clean Water Campaign came more from a cultural viewpoint than just environmental concern. “I am a Maori first. I’ve avoided getting wrapped up in the technical aspects, the dispersal rates, the flow rates etc, and stuck to the principles.” He has the support of his parents, mother Romona Ahipene and father Gene Mercer. Ray is most angry that two alternate sites have been investigated by the Wellington City encompassing primary and secondary treatment. Both Gollans Valley among the hills on the east side of the harbour, and Karori Stream mouth were found to be environmentally superior and similar in cost to Moa Point according to Ray. That cost was estimated at more than 70 million dollars. The milliscreening plant at Moa Point is costed at ten million dollars for which the council has to get a loan. However ratepayers rejected the loan proposal in a recent poll. Other sites are now being considered. The council has said a milliscreening plant is just the first stage with secondary treatment, so to speak, in the pipeline. The debate has raged equally fiercely within the council, with Labour and Citizen party politics, each accusing the other of timewasting.

What the battle has shown is the inability and in some cases, unwillingness of local authorities to acknowledge their obligations under article two of the Treaty of Waitangi, where the Maori were guaranteed the use of their taonga, included in which were fisheries.

The findings of the Waitangi Tribunal in the recent Manukau decision showed how successive local authorities around the Manukau harbour, ignored local Maori fishing areas and built drainage systems, outfalls and even prohibited marae building and fishing in one area because of an airport extension that never came.

Wellington city has been no different, with lip service only being paid to cultural sensitivity. In cases where it is needed the pakeha bureaucratic response is to seek out the definitive “Maori” view, that is the viewpoint that all Maori people are expected to hold.

As well as being extremely simplistic, it is patronising in that pakeha people aren’t expected to hold all the views of Sir Robert Muldoon, so why expect all maoridom to agree with Sir Graham Latimer?

And usually the consultation process defines what is accepted as the definitive Maori view.

Maori planner, George Asher has always stressed this in his dealings with local authorities. He says because Maori people are not part of the planning process from the beginning consultations, it is very hard to introduce cultural sensitivity part way along the road.

He’s found that when Maori views are understood by local authorities, it is quite a different matter to firstly rectify past mistakes and secondly make sure they don’t happen again.

The Wellington City Council has heard the views of Te Atiawa elder, Ralph Love, as has Ray Ahipene Mercer.

Ray says the council has preferred to accept the more conservative view of Mr Love.

Frustration with not getting the support of the Te Atiawa elder, drove Ray to seeking the opinion of other Te Atiawa and Raukawa people, who are seen as being the custodians of Te Whanganui a Tara from the pakeha settlement of Poneke.

Ray’s tupuna, Ngai Tara are acknowledged as being occupants of Wellington

prior to Te Atiawa and Raukawa, hence Te Whanganui a Tara, the sheltering harbour of Tara. It was at the Wellington District Maori Council that this support came through. They’ve resolved to approach the Wellington City Council over this concern for the continued disposing of sewage from Moa Point. Whatever the Wellington City Council response to the ratepayers loan poll, Ray is aware that the battle is being fought on many fronts. He’s watched the successful appeals

to the Waitangi Tribunal over the dumping of sewage into the Kaituna River by the Rotorua City Council. Also the Te Atiawa appeal over sewage disposal by the New Plymouth City Council, and the Motunui Synthetic Fuel Plant siting of waste pipes, in the traditional kaimoana gathering area. Ray’s seen that the Treaty of Waitangi does have significance, and soon teeth, in a bureaucratic world. An appeal to the Tribunal over Moa Point is an option that makes more sense to Ray day by day.

Atrip to the Moa Point sewage outfall is not my idea of a pleasant journey. Nor was that the experience of about seventy predominantly Maori people who gathered by the outfall, on Saturday the twelfth of March. The occasion was to see with our eyes what was happening to the shoreline and surrounding sea area and to hear how our tupuna viewed the area. One Te Atiawa man said the common expression of solidarity, “tatou, tatou”, had been turned into “tutae, tutae”, and the time had come to bring this message home to the decision makets in the capital. It was pointed out that Moa Point, by the flight path to Wellington International Airport and the seaway into Wellington Harbour, was a shocking introduction to a so-called ‘civilized’ capital. Later the group were taken to the peak of Rangitatau, overlooking Moa Point. There the full majestic creation of Te Whanganui a Tara lay in a full circle around the pa site. From there could be seen, te Pito-one, the sandy end (anglicised to Petone) and the Hutt Valley. Closer was the area of Kilbirnie that geologically recently was uplifted. This coupled with the levelling of the area around the airport, contributed to the runway which now extends far into the harbour. From Rangitatau could equally be seen the Pencarrow sewage outfall on the east side of the harbour and how the coastal currents and winds drive the effluent carrying waters to many parts of the harbour. At that time looking out over the har-

hour the quoted words of a Hutt Valley city councillor came to mind that a strong South Atlantic current carried the Pencarrow primary treated sewage away. And then much closer at hand was the fatty slick clearly visible coming out of the Moa Point outfall. I there and then resolved never to swim at Lyall Bay or even Island Bay. On the descent the bay adjacent to Moa Point was pointed out. Called Tarakena Bay, it was long recognised by the tribes crossing te Moana o Raukawa, (Cook Strait) as the best place to launch or beach a waka in rough southerly weather. This has been recognised by the Civil Aviation in the last twenty or so years because it is designated as the official launching ramp for rescue craft in the event of an aircraft going down in the sea approach to Wellington Airport. Just around the corner into the harbour entrance is Breaker Bay and Steeple Rock, known as Te Aroaro a Kupe, the entranceway of Kupe. This was the area the inter-island ferry the Wahine sunk in. After seeing what Ray sees at Moa Point, it is easier to understand what Ray is on about. “Coming against what is being done at Moa Point, it is fairly easy to see what has to be done. I’ve had to establish my whakapapa within my own understanding first before asking others to support this take. “It’s then I realise the incredible depth we all have to draw on and see I’m sitting on top of a mountain of what has been. “We owe it to our children to look after that heritage.”