Waiariki MP hopes Waitangi Tribunal report on Te Urewera claims is widely read

The MP for Waiariki - Te Ururoa Flavell - says people who don't believe Maori have reason to complain about the effects of colonisation and European settlement on them should read the Te Urewera claims report, part one of which has just been released by the Waitangi Tribunal.

"The Tribunal's report tells of unlawful confiscation, the killing of innocent people, unnecessary destruction of food crops causing more deaths by starvation, and breaking of peace agreements by the Crown against the Tuhoe people in the mid to late 1800's. It's hardly surprising that Tuhoe began to regard the Crown as an enemy after that," says Mr Flavell.

"And then when Tuhoe began resisting and fighting back, the Crown made war on the tribe and its people, killing innocents and carrying out wholesale destruction of crops, property and taonga."

The first part of the Tribunal's report explains how as part of its punishment of other iwi in the Opotiki/Whakatane area, the Crown unlawfully confiscated about half of Tuhoe’s most fertile land.

Te Ururoa Flavell says "It's a very sore point with Tuhoe through to the present day that this great wrong has never been put right; especially as people living in the Whakatane and Ruatoki every day drive past the rich lands occupied by others that were stolen from them 150 years ago."

"I challenge the people who say Maori get all the breaks round this place and are given special treatment to read this report and imagine how you would feel if it had been done to you.

“Come on read it so you will see what it is that your ancestors unlawfully and without any right did to the Tuhoe nation, and see how they are still suffering from those actions all these years later."

"The Tribunal says these wrongs must be put right and I say yes and quickly."