Selwyn Muru interviews Joe Hawke on Takaparawhā/Bastion Point, during the Māori land protest at the site.
Joe Hawke comments on the concerns of Minister of Lands, Venn Young, about a wharenui being built on the site. He says the Minister is evading the issue, which is not about buildings on the land, but is about Māori land being alienated.
He refutes statements made by the Commissioner of Crown Lands, George McMillan, that Ngāti Whatua's actions are illegal and irresponsible. He says he is surprised at this, as the Commissioner must be ignorant of the illegal methods used by the Crown in the past to seize Māori land at Orakei. He says the protesters are not occupying the land as squatters, but as the owners of it. He talks about the methods used in 1869 to seize nearly 400 acres of Māori land at Orakei.
He also speaks about the burning of Te Puru o Tāmaki, a meeting house on the site at Orakei in 1950. He was nine years old at the time the original wharenui was burned down, and his grandmother was the last to lie in the whare before being buried. They have built a new whare on the land and have given it the name Te Puru o Tāmaki, to resurrect the old wharenui out of the ashes.
He speaks about community involvement in displaying their Māoritanga in building the wharenui, which took nine days to build. He then talks about the Government eviction of Māori from their land.
He describes their feeling that their tupuna are present at the protest. The land has Ngāti Whatua blood on it, and so it is tapu.
He ends by saying that if they have to, the issue will to be taken to the United Nations by Ngāti Whatua. He says there is a real danger that Māori will have all land rights taken away from them, so the protest Committee is concerned that they won't get satisfaction on the issue in this country.
[Possibly a continuation of MPT1914 - ID41525]