Sky City, Queen Street

The big February 4th Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement protest was a shot in the arm after many years of hard and sometimes thankless work on the TPPA in both Wellington and Nelson. Something big and heartening was called for. Perfect fine weather. With our friends, we got the link bus from Ponsonby into the city and alighted in Victoria Street where the road around Sky City was already blocked off by protestors and police. Things felt quite mellow. But as we made our way to the main entrance of the Sky Tower, the crowd thickened and the pace quickened.

The main entrance was blocked by two rows of police staring impassively forward. Labelled “Peacemakers” were moving among the crowd and had a strong presence at the point where the crowd met the police. Lots of chanting taking place but nothing aggressive or provocative happening and anyway those police were not about to engage (a very different feel from protests of earlier decades when that sort of face-off would have produced nasty police action very rapidly). At the same time, others were blocking various points on the motorway and it was there that a bit of biffo was used to move the protestors on but this was mild by historical comparison.

All roads led to Queen Street. About 12 p.m., the various assemblages were all drifting downhill to Aotea Square. A massive crowd built surrounding the truck on the back of which Jane Kelsey, Barry Coates, Robert Reid and others stood. When we eventually moved off, Ngati Whatua led the march, followed by the hikoi from Cape Reinga. And those on the truck led the chants. “T-P-P-A - Haere Atu Go Away” “Tahi Rua Tonu Wha - Kupapa Kaupapa” (meaning traitorous behaviour) and the famous Rewi Maniapoto cry  “Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou - Ake Ake Ake!” (we will fight on forever and never give up). A very obvious Maori presence, unlike our South Island protests. And a lot more Maori have become a lot more concerned about the TPPA in the wake of various iwi claims lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal in relation to the TPPA during 2015.

We slowly progressed down Queen Street. It was the only show in town with pedestrians stopped on the sidewalk and workers coming out on their balconies to watch. Big, colourful and peaceful. Every imaginable flag waving, the tino rangatiratanga flag and the flag of the Confederated Tribes (1835) dominant. Lots of young people there, many wearing the Anonymous masks. 15,000- 20,000 was the estimated total. Once we reached Britomart the speeches started. But by then the sound system was overheated and not functioning. Jane Kelsey, Hone Harawira, Sam Huggard and Marama Meikle from Rotorua spoke but even five metres away, it was hard to hear. As the speeches ended, there was a bit of hiatus. Most of the crowd stuck together  to block the area around Victoria Square but some went left back to Sky City where a few more hakas took place. An hour later all was over. Had the sound system been working, it may have been possible to organise more concerted action at this point.

Waitangi

The TPPA protest hikoi had come from Cape Reinga to Auckland and was now headed back up to Waitangi. My husband Dave and I had booked to go to Waitangi that afternoon but the bus didn’t materialise. However, we were squeezed into two different hikoi-affiliated vehicles heading that way and off we went about 4.30 p.m., now officially part of the hikoi. We made an interesting convoy. One car was completely electric, loaned to the hikoi for publicity purposes so it featured an odd mix of marketing - electric car promotion and anti-TPPA slogans. We all called into a garage in Kaiwaka while it went on the charger for 20 minutes. The police car driven by the Maori liaison officer for the hikoi took Dave.

In my vehicle was Josie Butler, about to achieve extraordinary notoriety for the dildo throwing, though we didn’t know it at that point. Eventually we all arrived at Waiomio Marae about 20 kms south of Waitangi, the marae strongly associated with Kawiti, known for his opposition to the Treaty of Waitangi and his alliance with Hone Heke in the Northern War of 1845-46. We were officially welcomed with a full powhiri before heading to the whare kai for a very welcome dinner about 10 p.m. It was a basic marae but very hospitable as the kuia from all parts took over the kitchen. But all were tired having been on the road for a week so there wasn’t too much distinction between tangata whenua and manuhiri when it came to clean up time. There was more korero about this marae after dinner. It seems it has always been a stopping point for radicals going to Waitangi or other events.

We all – and there were a lot of us - slept on the marae, under the photos of the dead tupuna. We were woken quite early to get moving. Dave got the boilers going to heat the water for showers. Karakia before a quick breakfast. Reuben Taipari Porter, leader of the hikoi, made sure all the newbies knew what was happening. Away we went, stopping at the turn off to Kawakawa to meet others so we would all arrive at Te Tii Marae together. By the time we got to Waitangi it had started to rain and 15 minutes later, it was bucketing down. Everyone on the hikoi - about 60-70 - was completely drenched.

But adverse weather conditions seemed only to inspire the ferocity of the chanting. Eventually we were welcomed onto the Te Tii Marae with a great haka and proceeded into the meeting house. It seemed that, in John Key’s absence, we got the Prime Ministerial welcome. It was a very comprehensive powhiri from Ngapuhi elders with the last speaker translating main points into English. At one point obsequies for a recently deceased member of the iwi became part of the proceedings. It was sub-tropical steamy in there after the rain. By the time we emerged from the whare kai, the Labour Party was at the entrance to the marae and now it was their turn to be completely drenched.

Got out of the rain into the big politics marquee, with an open mike. After Jane Kelsey and Annette Sykes had spoken, a series of  mostly Ngapuhi speakers  spoke very frankly about their problems, some linking issues to the TPPA, others not. Smoking, drinking, drugs, unemployment, lack of motivation featured large. Mike King, ex-comedian, hit sexual abuse very hard, saying it is the chief driver of Maori suicide. Levi, Reuben’s brother, delivered a very amusing but barbed challenge to all there, which could be summarised as: “Less hui, more doey”.

It felt like a privilege to be listening to what was very frank talk about the problems of that iwi. An elder from Tuhoe with full face tattoo paid tribute to the women - Jane and Annette - whom he said should be leading the charge because they act for all, not just themselves. Mike Treen from Unite union spoke about the practices of Work and Income NZ which impact so much on unemployed Maori. Kotahitanga, or the idea of a unified congress, was a recurrent theme. There was a very strong Green Party presence - I counted Co-Leader James Shaw, MPs Kennedy Graham, Catherine Delahunty, Denise Roche, Jan Logie, newest Parliamentarian Marama Davidson and candidate Jack McDonald. Catherine was circulating a petition calling for the Government to quit taking Maori land under the Public Works Act. Meanwhile, my husband had discovered his old friend Dun Mihaka at the back of the tent looking quite frail but still calling a spade a spade.

Dildo

As we all found each other and our respective vehicles at the end of the day, we were rejoined by Josie Butler who told us she had happened upon a National Party interview and had thrown a dildo at Stephen Joyce saying as she did so: “That’s for raping our sovereignty”. She had been confined to the paddy wagon for two hours but in modern fashion, no charges were laid. However she was trespassed from the Treaty marae for two years. I thought it was brave and mad and funny. As we made our way back to the marae she informed us that her friends in the Czech Republic and Japan already knew about it, an index of how fast the story was spreading. By the time we got back to the marae there were 116 Google entries on the subject and it had become the focus of interviews on the evening news.

But some were not amused. Back at the marae the kuia of the hikoi felt that this impugned the integrity of the hikoi. They told her this in no uncertain terms. Certainly it had taken the focus off the main message and put it onto dildo throwing. While I supported her action, I could see where they were coming from. By 9.30 p.m. Josie was talking of leaving the marae and hitching to Auckland in the dark and wet. We talked her out of that and sense prevailed. By the morning it felt like the climatic storm and the political storm had both blown over a bit. After the clean-up, there was a lot of korero on the marae and three very powerful hakas. There was only one reference to the dildo throwing. One who had done 16 years inside and couldn’t speak Te Reo spoke very eloquently from the heart about the need for vision not division and the need for Maori to decolonise themselves, give up the white man’s vices, if anything is to change. More karakia, some photos outside the marae and off to Waitangi Day celebrations. There we connected with our daughter and her friend who had driven up from Auckland that morning.

Final Act Of Hikoi

All the waka were pulled up on the beach, a truly awesome sight. Crowds everywhere. In the main marquee, Moana Jackson and Margaret Mutu presented their report about their parallel constitutional consultation during 2013, during which they consulted with many different groups of young Maori about their hopes for constitutional change. While the report is a truly impressive piece of work, neither of them was particularly optimistic about it being taken seriously. Then began the final bit of the hikoi, the march from the lower marae to the Treaty grounds.  A big, colourful, vocal crowd singing and chanting as we passed all the stalls outside the Treaty grounds. TPPA was centre stage again. 

As we went over the bridge a waka drew up and tautokoed us. At this point I took one pole of the big four pole anti-TPPA banner from Josie who was not allowed to go any further. Gil Hanly was ducking and diving in and out of crowd getting her photos, with one leg all bandaged up. John Minto was there from Christchurch. The korero began. I sat down in front of the Treaty house and drifted off to sleep fading in and out with different bits of rhetoric ringing in my ears. I felt completely exhausted. Woke up with my daughter shaking me, saying we needed to go. Couldn’t work out where I was….

We walked back to the lower marae, picked up our suitcase which we’d parked in the Green tent and walked another twenty minutes to get to the car  parked in an olive grove. Was I glad to get in and collapse. Dozed in the back of the car until we arrived at Algie’s Bay, a place I didn’t know existed, near Snell’s Beach. This is where Jane Kelsey has just built herself a house and she had invited us to visit. It was a nice way to finish our TPPA/Waitangi experience. Despite the signing, Jane was gearing up for more Select Committee action in March and was stressing the need for “unwelcome” committees around the country as the Government’s TPPA road show took off. As we know, TPPA still has a long way to go in the US Congress and it still needs ratification in all countries, but that might not stop the great cheerleader New Zealand from throwing itself over this particular cliff.