Taranaki iwi representative Peter Moeahu asked councillors if they honestly wanted a relationship with iwi. Photo: LDR / SUPPLIED
A fight over the Government's Treaty principles bill has prompted a brutal history lesson for Taranaki Regional Council (TRC) - and an apology.
Councillors have voted to investigate why a debate on the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill was shut down by conservative councillors at TRC's December meeting.
The council will also apologise to the people - mostly Māori - who wanted to discuss the contentious Bill, which aims to change how Te Tiriti is interpreted and applied.
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The response has neutralised a threatened High Court judicial review.
For the December meeting staff were asked to draft a submission to Parliament on the Bill, but veteran councillors Neil Walker and Donald McIntyre used a little-known meeting rule to halt discussion.
Peter Moeahu - the Policy and Planning committee's Taranaki iwi representative - lodged a conduct complaint saying TRC "wilfully abandoned its legal obligations and denied open and transparent discussion".
He spoke at the year's first full council meeting on Tuesday.
"The council submission said the Treaty Principles Bill will undermine your relationship with iwi.
"You showed you didn't give a stuff about that. You didn't even care enough to discuss it."
The farmer-lobby councillors Walker and McIntyre have collectively spent 41 years in the chamber shaping submissions to Parliament.
In December, councillor Neil Walker invoked a never-before-used part of council rules - a closure motion - to quell any discussion of a submission on the Treaty principles bill. Photo: LDR / SUPPLIED
But at December's meeting Walker suddenly declared the council "not a political body" and the Treaty bill was "too divisive" and "not appropriate" for discussion.
Moeahu said current Government bills are core council business.
"The Treaty Principles Bill, the Fast Track Bill, the Regulatory Standards Bill and the RMA Amendment Bill all share the same kaupapa, the same purpose.
"Their purpose is to diminish, reduce or expunge environment protection and as this council is responsible for the environment I would have thought this council would be raising hell over and over."
Moeahu asked councillors if they honestly wanted a relationship with iwi.
"What have we ever done to you, your family, your community? What have we ever taken from you? Tell us. What rights have we ever denied you?
"Because honestly, we don't know. But what we do know is what your kith and kin did to us."
Moeahu insisted councillors needed to know their history before considering issues like the Treaty Bill.
"We were invaded," he said, "and greed drove that invasion."
"Greed for our lands and our resources. The very things protected and guaranteed to us under the Treaty."
Moeahu spoke of the murder of hundreds, the theft of over a million acres, and the destruction of homes and villages with crops burned and livestock stolen.
He recalled the hundreds of men and boys - including his great grandfather Tāmati Whanganui - were imprisoned as forced labourers without trial "because they had committed no crime".
"And while our men were imprisoned, our defenceless girls and women were repeatedly raped by white men at Parihaka," said Moeahu, speaking of assaults the Crown admitted in the 2017 Parihaka Reconciliation Act.
"That rape and pillage went on for years. It wasn't a one-off, one-day thing."
"Can you understand the trauma that our people have had to suffer under for generations?
Moeahu's son - New Plymouth District Councillor Dinnie Moeahu - had approval to address the December meeting but was left fuming as councillors debated when he might speak and moved him down the agenda, described by TRC iwi rep Mitchell Ritai as "really appalling" treatment.
Dinnie Moeahu said he had come to praise them for the draft submission and "the type of leadership that the rest of Taranaki could follow."
"I was incredibly proud of the staff, the ones who wrote the report, the CEO, and also [of you] as elected members to provide an opportunity to have a robust discussion."
The rudeness he instead experienced was "perplexing", he said.
Council chief executive Steve Ruru advised councillors that procedural failings and other deficiencies had left them at legal risk.
Ruru suggested three options - a Conduct Review Committee, an external reviewer, or an internal review - recommending the latter as best and fastest.
He also recommended TRC apologise to Dinnie Moeahu, the iwi representatives, the Taranaki community and to councillors blocked from debating.
Moeahu said he'd expected to seek a judicial review as he didn't trust the council to referee itself - but the iwi reps now favoured Ruru's suggested internal review.
"We had lengthy discussions about what is best for this council…. and we'd be satisfied with that."
Councillor Bonita Bigham said she was deeply concerned about "discussions and pre-determination" from which she and councillor Susan Hughes KC had been excluded.
Despite the debate clampdown, TRC would be mentioned at the Treaty bill Parliamentary hearing.
"I'll be appearing before the select committee next week… and I'll be making reference to what happened at this Council and these actions," said Bigham.
"I just invite you… as another great-granddaughter of a Parihaka prisoner, to invite discomfort into your life, to understand that we still live with the trauma and the legacy that Peter outlined.
"So this is very important to us."
Councillor Charlotte Littlewood - who earlier in the meeting stood down as chair - said perceptions of council behaviour were vital.
"The perception of, say, a councillor sitting there reading the newspaper and… not taking any interest in the discussion while we all have a debate I find it quite offensive."
New Plymouth's David Lean was the councillor reading the newspaper while his council's response to historical trauma was debated.
Walker and McIntyre have remained publicly silent on the issue since the December meeting.
Moeahu was satisfied with Ruru's recommendation.
"We had lengthy discussions about what is best for this Council…. and we'd be satisfied with that."
The recommended investigation and apology was voted for by all councillors but McIntyre, who said he'd prefer a full conduct review committee.
LDR is local body reporting co-funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
