Nascent political party, One New Zealand, has again challenged the prevailing New Zealand political landscape. Last week they announced their presence on the New Zealand political scene with a bold statement demanding that the government does not sign the UN Migration Compact. Today, in response to last week’s government announcement of a $9 million compensation package for the Parihaka Papakainga Trust, deputy leader, Andy Oakley, blasted a hole in the mainstream historical account of events at Parihaka Pa in the 1870s and 1880s, bringing into question widely accepted assumptions about the relationship between Maori and Pakeha in the 19th century.
In a hard-hitting press release, Oakley goes on the offensive, accusing Minister of Maori Development, Nanaia Mahuta of not telling the truth when she states that “(at Parihaka) residents were forcibly evicted, unjustly imprisoned, their leaders arrested and held without trial, homes and sacred buildings desecrated, rapes committed and a regime imposed that deprived owners of control and ownership of their land."
The controversial author turned politician then goes on to explain, among other things, that it was the Waikato tribes who drove Taranaki Iwi from their land. Also pointing out that those who were not enslaved fled to Wellington where they were involved in the "extermination of the original Ngata Iri people of Wellington and Porirua”, and then went on to “invade the Chatham Islands, where they massacred the Moriori”. He also reminds readers that not a single injury was reported when the eviction at Parihaka (which he asserts was legal and justified) took place.
The statement will no doubt stimulate fierce debate in Taranaki where commemorating the events at Parihaka Pa has become something of a cult, with an annual peace festival being held there every year since 2006. Equally, there are plenty of people in Taranaki who question the consensus narrative which the political, educational and media establishment like to promote. This 2014 letter to the The Daily News by New Plymouth’s Deno Stewart is a good example, pointing out that the Treaty is clear in its objective: one country, one people. Iwi is not mentioned. Maori are not our treaty partners, they are our equals. The letter was headlined ‘Twisting the Treaty’, a reference to the 2012 book of the same name by John Robinson, Bruce Moon, David Round, Mike Butler, Hugh Barr, Peter Cresswell.
One New Zealand certainly don’t seem to be willing to play the politically correct games of the other parties on the New Zealand political stage, and there may be a hunger among a section of the voting public for this kind of refreshing approach.
Below is Andy Oakley’s press release in full:
Parihaka Reconcilliation Package
Press Release on behalf of the One New Zealand Party, Deputy Leader Andy Oakley 11.12.18
The One New Zealand Party find the proposed 9 million dollars of public funding being earmarked for the reconciliation package to the Parihaka Papakainga Trust to be paramount to another act of treason by this and previous governments.
Not only is the currently recorded version of history factually incorrect, it is being promoted to further divide New Zealanders into opposing race based groupings. The use of words such as “holocaust” and “invasion” - in reference to the interaction between the then natives and the government - is factually incorrect and divisive, and also an affront to peoples throughout history who have suffered these events in reality.
The Minister of Maori Developments Nanaia Mahuta stated "In the aftermath of the invasion residents were forcibly evicted, unjustly imprisoned, their leaders arrested and held without trial, homes and sacred buildings desecrated, rapes committed and a regime imposed that deprived owners of control and ownership of their land."
The Minister, Mahuta, was not telling the truth. Our Government's reaction to it - handing over 9 million dollars to the descendants and hangers on who have grown up in middle class New Zealand - is entirely inappropriate.
A truthful account of the behavior of tribes in Taranaki is as follows;
The first invasion of Taranaki was by the Waikato tribes who massacred the Taranaki people during the intertribal wars. The remaining Taranaki people were either enslaved by Waikato or fled to Wellington. After assisting to exterminate the original Ngati Ira people of Wellington and Porirua in 1835, about 900 of the Taranaki people, living in Wellington, invaded the Chatham Islands, where they massacred the Moriori. Of the approximately 1600 Moriori, 100 survived, to be farmed for food over the next few years.
These two events could perhaps rightly be called “holocausts”.
By 1840, when there were only about 150 people living in the whole region of Taranaki, the authorities began purchasing land from willing sellers. As a result of the Treaty and the ending of slavery, many of the estranged people of Taranaki took the opportunity to return and try to reclaim lands, which under tribal custom, they had forfeited when conquered by the Waikato tribes.
Wiremu Kingi and some of his fellow Taranaki tribesman violated the Treaty when they made an armed rebellion against the Crown. In a twelve month period between 1860 and 1861, 177 settler’s farms were destroyed and numerous mass burnings of the settler’s livestock took place. As a result of these atrocities there were land confiscations. Sir Apirana Ngata stated these confiscations were not a breach of the Treaty, in fact under the old system of utu their fate would have been much worse.
In 1864, self-appointed prophet and cult leader TeWhiti adopted a system of pacifism using the symbol of the white feather - the same symbol the pacifist Moriori had used before TeWhiti’s tribesman exterminated them by impaling them to the beach. TeWhiti squatted on Crown owned land - which became known as Parihaka - and proceeded to be evasive, obstructive and downright belligerent. Despite being told to move on to lands that had been set aside for them, they ignored all efforts to communicate while remaining for the next 14 years on land that had been confiscated from the rebels.
They stole horses and harassed storekeepers, they pulled down newly built store houses and extracted tolls from innocent travelers. Over those 14 years, European hating Hauhau moved in, weapons were stockpiled, and living conditions worsened. In September 1878, Hiroki, a well-known Maori fugitive murdered John McLean - a cook to one of the survey parties - and in defiance TeWhiti refused to hand him over.
After all diplomatic efforts had been exhausted the government decided in the interests of peace in the district, to move the squatters on. On 5th November 1881, 959 volunteers and 630 armed constabulary rode into the make shift town, arrested the vandals and murderers, and dismantled what was left. Not a single injury was reported. This was the so called ”invasion” of Parihaka.
So yes, as Mahuta suggested the illegal squatters at Parihaka were evicted, as they should have been and as they would be again today. They were moved on peacefully by a mixture of volunteers and armed constabulary. Hardly an invasion, and yet definitely a very strong show of force. This show of force was to dissuade TeWhiti from using any of the 250 or so rifles found in the grounds. It worked. The constabulary were met by Parihaka children holding flowers.
And what of Minister of Maori Development Mahuta telling the country that there were rapes committed at Parihaka? She states this as if there has been a trial and people who were convicted. Yet there is no hard evidence that any rapes took place and no one was charged with rape.
As a Minister of the Crown this is simply not good enough. The One New Zealand Party call for her to either provide the proof that any one was raped, or resign. How can a Minister forge Maori development by further perpetuating the victim mentality that is suffocating Maori communities? In particular the Maori youth, who are continuously told that they are imprisoned in a future of hopelessness, under achievement, and societal over representation in all of the negative indicators.
Secondly it is entrenching a false guilt syndrome on non-Maori children, as they are taught these lies at all levels of our education system, and now by Government Ministers such as Mahuta. This attempt to force a sense of guilt onto children for past events - largely by wrongly interpreting past events - is harmful to both those individual children and also to the health of our future society and culture.
The One New Zealand Party will commit to redressing the false history being taught in our schools and remove the divisive racial separatism from all levels of our society. Parihaka is symbolic of the racial division being imposed on our society and shoved forcibly down the throats of the public by our own leaders.