ALT Protect Pūtiki has welcomed a High Court decision released yesterday, which is highly critical of the actions of Kennedy Point Boatharbour Ltd, the developers of the Waiheke marina.   The judgment of Justice Gault makes findings against the marina developers, concluding that their action inside and outside of court was improper and in some cases possibly unlawful.   Justice Gault has found “it was a mistake for KPBL” not to disclose the background of violent incidents on the breakwater. He has found that it was wrong for the developer not to disclose the relevance of tikanga Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi. He has also held that KPBL exaggerated the urgency of the need for an injunction: “the need for urgency was not acute”, he has said.   Justice Gault has said that points raised by KPBL are sufficiently arguable to keep in place an injunction, but in heavily modified form.

ALT Several of the orders made in the earlier ex parte injunction have been changed as a result of today. Justice Gault has made explicit that the existing order does not prevent protest outside the developer’s exclusion area, & has removed the 20 metre setback area outside of construction hours. The Judge said that an order made against “persons unknown” cannot stand unless the developers make further submissions justifying it.   The Judge has also suggested that the developer may have acted unlawfully in not getting express consent from the Council to extend its fencing.   “We are glad to see the judge recognising that the developer went too far and failed to be honest, responsible and open when it came to court to get a secret injunction,” says Emily Māia Weiss, spokesperson for Protect Pūtiki. “The community as a whole is increasingly opposed to these aggressive legal tactics, which the developer is resorting to because he is losing any remaining public support,” added Weiss.

ALT Te Tiriti, an evolving and dynamic document, is foundational to the decolonised country and world we want to live within. PROTECT PŪTIKI; Mana whenua, tangata whenua and tangata tiriti fight for what we collectively believe to be envisioned in Te Tiriti, ways to co-exist while living through Māori values and caring for te taiao, sovereignty that we already had re-affirmed in order to allow for a co-existence. Protecting Pūtiki *is* honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi and acknowledging it as a foundational document for Māori and non-Māori partnership is not just a verbal act. It is not a one-off, either. It means taking ongoing actions aimed towards creating unity and partnership authentic to the co-existence that was seen as very much possible in 1840.

ALT This is not the way the Crown has conducted itself, and this is not the place we are in now. If it were, we would not need to be sacrificing our lives to Protect Pūtiki from the harmful decisions of Auckland Council, NZ Police, the Government and the developers. We would not need to be protecting 7.5 hectares of moana from theft. In 2022, the Crown must take urgent actions in the name of honouring Te Tiriti, consulting with the people as to what these look like. Today we point to our kaupapa as a representation of how the Crown has a deep, massive opportunity and responsibility to truly honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

ALT We do not accept a “resource consent to build a Marina” as a fundamental right. We do not accept that a resource consent issued by Auckland Council, a Crown body, can override the absolute authority of mana whenua to protect our whenua and moana. We do not accept the tactics of the developers, using the colonial law to find Māori as illegal within our whenua and moana. We do not accept that mere consultation is in any way a substitution for rangatiratanga. It is our duty to uphold the promise of tino rangatiratanga enshrined in Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and this is what we are living by every - single - day. If the Crown is interested in honouring this relationship, they need to act now. Ka whawhai tonu mātou.