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Iwi advocate: Ihumātao protesters are there under misinformation

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 25 Jul 2019, 4:55PM
Pita Turei says protesters are protecting what was once wheatfields, not scared land. (Photo / NZ Herald)

Iwi advocate: Ihumātao protesters are there under misinformation

Author
Newstalk ZB,
Publish Date
Thu, 25 Jul 2019, 4:55PM

Sacred sites won't be touched if a controversial housing development at Ihumātao goes ahead as planned.

Hundreds are in a stalemate with Police at the proposed Fletcher Building housing development over land destined to become a housing development.

The SOUL group has spent years fighting for the land to be returned to mana whenua, despite it being privately owned.

However, iwi advocate Pita Turei told Heather du Plessis Allan SOUL's website is misleading.

He says the land destined to become a housing development used to be wheat fields, not ancient burial grounds.

"It comes from the SOUL page. It doesn't match up with history, it doesn't match up with the map, and it also doesn't match up to the archaeological reports. It is deliberate."

Truei says that nothing sacred will be built upon. 

Some believe, however, that building the development would be akin to building houses in the fields near Stonehenge.

Turei says iwi elders have already negotiated for the remainder of the Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve to be handed back to mana whenua.

"[SOUL are] making out they're protecting the Stonefields. Council already brought 100 acres of Stonefields 10 years ago and the little bit that was left out was negotiated by those elders to be returned."

He says that Ngaitai leave it up to those who have mana in the land to decide what is done with it.

Turei says that he wants the protesters to go home and look at the land around their houses and apply the same principles they are applying in the protest. 

"All of our unique landscapes is threatened, all of it needs protecting, not just the wheatfields where Fletchers is intending to build houses." 

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