Digging in at Bastion Point

Q. The tents have been standing for eleven weeks now—what has actually happened in that time?

J.H. On the 5 January, at 3pm, we put up the first tents: We spent the night on Bastion Point and by the morning the tent city had grown to a dozen or so tents and more were coming in the next day. At 6 that morning there were a hundred people there to stop the bulldozers coming. The bull-dozers never arrived and instead we heard on the news that the Government had postponed the subdivision on Bastion Point.

Then we started building our wharekai which was just a make shift building and began to build up the cooking and eating facilities for our people. We started the cultivation on the 9 January—about 100 people clearing an area of 4 acres mainly by hand. And we hired a cultivator to dig up the ground.

On the 10th we had our first meeting with Venn Young when he indicated that unless we moved off the Maoris would lose out on everything. It was a bribe that we couldn't accept so we stated so.

Over the first few weeks interest was generated by the media and Bastion Point was in the news every day.

Meetings were conducted practically every day for the first 5 weeks. We had a meeting with the Auckland City Council—they reversed their first decision and came out in opposition against the subdivision deciding that the land either be returned to the city council or vested in an appropriate Maori body.

There followed various meetings around Auckland with the Auckland District Maori Council who came out in full support of the stopping of the subdivision and restoration of the land to the Maori people of Orakei.

We started to get replies and reports and letters of support from unions, political parties, community committees in Auckland. We sent two delegates around Tai Tokerau (Northland) to the Ngati Whatua hapus and over 200 elders signed our petition which was handed to Mr Young on the Orakei marae last Sunday (13th). Also we had been gathering signatures from all over the country and were also able to give Mr Young. Mat Rata, Duncan MacIntyre and the Commissioner of Crown Lands Mr McMillian signed petitions with about 4000 signatures.

We have had visits from Indian chiefs of some Canadian tribes, an Aboriginal Civil Rights Leader, the Leader of the World Peace Movement, Australian Union Delegates, editors of well-known New Zealand Womens' Magazine and visits from Auckland City Councillors.

One of the main reasons for us still being there is the Auckland Trades Council 'Green Ban' on Bastion Point which means that no union labour will be provided for the subdivision. At a recent meeting they decided to keep the ban on until the Government cancels its plans for the subdivision completely.

Q. What is the next step in the pro test?

J.H. The tents are staying. We need a lot of support from the public to establish ourselves. The winter months will be a particularly hard time and we'll have to reinforce our present accomodations. The building of the whare-moe and also the whare-kai will have to be accelerated. Then we have the speaking tours throughout the country and a planned tour to the United Nations in New York—perhaps to the Land Rights Committee or the Racial Policy Committee.

Q. Would you be presenting a case for the Land Movement as such or just Bastion Point?

J.H. It will be a broad issue because the Bastion Point problem is duplicated right around the country All you have to say is that less than 3 million acres, out of an area which once measured 66 million acres, is under the direct control of the Maori people to get across the seriousness of the problem.

Two hundred acres in the eyes of the UN would not warrant attention.

Q. Apart from Young and other officials meeting with you at Orakei, what is the Government doing to solve the problem of Bastion Point?

J.H. A select committee has been set up to hear submissions from the Maori Land March committee (Matakite o Aotearoa) and to study the Memorial of Rights which was presented to Government at the end of the march. They have taken our submission that Bastion Point be ruled back under Maori title and tabled it, and they will be sitting again in June to discuss it further. Also copies of our petition have been given to Jim Bolger, head of the select committee, and to the other eleven members.

The tour which began in Palmerston North with addresses at the Trades Hall and Massey University was undertaken in order to widen the protest at Bastion Point by bringing it to the attention of as many people as possible. In Auckland support has been steadily building since January and by Jack Rameka's estimates there are eighty tents, twelve caravans, and about seventy people at the camp during the week—some going out to work and returning at night—and in the weekends the crowd numbers as many as three thousand.

As Joe Hawke has said, Bastion Point is merely the tip of the iceberg and there are many other land struggles going on around the country. Bastion Point just happens to be the most publicised. The important thing is to keep it in the public eye so that the real issue—the continual eroding away of Maori land by the Crown—and the meaning of the 1975 land march does not become lost.

This speaking tour is intended to be seen as a continuation of that historic march. At least one more tour is planned before the select committee sits in June when students and non-students alike will be called on to demand of the government that Bastion Point and the other land struggles he given a just and immediate solution.