Margaret Mutu Must Be Challenged

Wednesday 25 Aug 2004

Ken Shirley - Press Releases - Treaty of Waitangi & Maori Affairs

Auckland University Professor of Maori Studies Margaret Mutu's irresponsible threats and outrageous assertions before the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Foreshore and Seabed Bill must be challenged, Committee Member and ACT MP Ken Shirley said today.

"While I believe that Labour's foreshore and seabed legislation is misguided and inappropriate, Margaret Mutu asserted that her iwi, Northland's Ngati Kahu, has full unrestricted ownership of all foreshore and seabed within her tribal boundaries with sole powers to regulate, manage and control all activities," Mr Shirley said.

"She claimed that this power of ownership extends to Tahiti, the ancient homeland of Hawaiki.

"Prof Mutu's obnoxious submission threatened that any restrictions on this asserted ownership would result in acts of terrorism and civil war, She openly condoned the type of terrorism operating in Palestine to resist any denial of the extensive rights she asserts.

"Prof Mutu dismissed pakeha law, and pakeha legislation, which forces ordinary decent working people - Maori and pakeha - to pay her generous salary at Auckland University. It appears we are paying her to fill the heads of our young academics with mush," Mr Shirley said.

ENDS

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