Toilet Photo Incident At Lake Horowhenua
Rowing Club building toilet accounting discrepancy leads to Maori Environmental Activist Phil Taueki going to ground
By Alastair Thompson and Anne Hunt
The Levin Rowing Club building beside Lake Horowhenua.
A partial toilet was found behind the top left hand window (click for big versions).
An almost comical quest to
prove the non-existence of a toilet in the Lake
Horowhenua rowing club building has resulted in Maori
activist Phil Taueki going to ground pending his appearance
in the Levin District Court later this week.
Meanwhile
the Levin Police have confiscated a camera with pictures
taken inside the building by Mr Taueki’s companion Bryan
Ten Have of a disconnected toilet. Sergeant Willy Roy of the
Levin Police has advised Mr Ten Have that he cannot have the
camera back. After arresting him and initially threatening
to have him charged with burglary they have now released him
with a warning.
Nevertheless we can In fact show a
picture of the toilet – which the Mayor of Horowhenua
District Council Brendan Duffy – claimed was in the
building at a Maori Land Court Hearing last
Wednesday.
Click for big version
As you can see the toilet is not
connected to any piping.
Bryan Ten Have told Scoop he
believed he had a right to go into the building after being
told he had permission by Lake Trustee Vivienne Taueki, Mr
Taueki’s sister.
Mr Taueki and Mr Ten Have were
spurred to go to the building to take pictures of the
alleged toilet as a result of evidence presented by
Horowhenua Mayor Duffy to the Maori Land Court in Palmerston
North last Wednesday claiming that there was a toilet in the
building.
During this hearing Mr Taueki had raised
various concerns, including the lack of toilet facilities in
the building which is on Maori Land and is occupied by the
Rowing Club.
Mr Taueki said that when the Club holds
regattas on the lake, men urinate up against trees and women
squat in the bushes. Mr Taueki considered this behaviour to
be highly offensive, particularly so close to the burial
site of his ancestors many of whom died in the lake.
In
the witness stand on oath, Horowhenua’s Mayor Brendan
Duffy disputed Mr Taueki’s claim that there were no
toilets in the building.
Judge Harvey is due to make a
visit to the site in eight weeks time to determine for
himself whether there is in fact a toilet there or not.
Mr Ten Have says they found and photographed a toilet
seat in the building - but it was not connected to anything.
He said he understood from Mr Taueki (who we could not speak
to as he is on the run) that there was a plan some years ago
to build showers and toilets but these plans were never
completed.
When the police arrived at the scene acting on
a complaint from a member of the boat club they arrested Mr
Ten Have but My Taueki had by that time already left to
attend a meeting.
Mr Taueki faces
charges of wilful damage and threatening behaviour
this Thursday in a hearing set down for the Levin District
Court. He will be represented by Victoria University media
law specialist and blogger Steven Price. Scoop intends to
cover the proceedings.
The charges relate to two alleged
incidents last September 13 and 14 arising from complaints
made by Noel Procter, the father of Lake Trustee Dr Jonathon
Procter who had earlier in 2011 trespassed Mr Taueki from
his home on his own land adjacent to the lake.
On the
basis of this trespass notice, the police had woken Mr
Taueki at 1am one morning last June, and taken him down to
the police station to charge him with wilful trespass.
Mr Taueki was banned from returning to his home and
going anywhere near Lake Horowhenua until his trial eight
weeks later. At this trial the Judge dismissed the trespass
charge the ground that the trespass notice was invalidly
issued by Mr Procter acting outside of his authority as
chair of the Lake Trust.
The September complains occurred
two weeks after court proceedings taken by Phil Taueki and
two trustees to have Dr Jonathan Procter removed from the
Lake Trust as a trustee were heard in the Maori Land Court.
Dr Procter – a volcanologist – was not removed from his
position. The case has been appealed to the Maori Appellate
court, and was heard in February.
In the first incident
it is alleged that Mr Taueki committed wilful damage to Mr
Procter’s wing mirror. Mr Procter was parked outside Mr
Taueki’s home at the time of the alleged incident.
The
threatening behaviour charge relates to an alleged incident
the following day - in which Noel Procter is the
complainant also. Mr Taueki attended a formal ceremony at
nearby Lake Papaitonga where Minister of Conservation Kate
Wilkinson was in attendance.
Mr Taueki denies both
allegations.
Friday’s incident is the latest in
a long-running series of incidents as Mr Taueki
tries to establish his right as an owner to protect the lake
from those who abuse what he considers to be the privilege
of public access.
Lake Horowhenua and environs belongs to
and has always belonged to Mr Taueki’s iwi,
Mua-Upoko.
Mr Taueki is the direct descendent of Taueki
who signed the Treaty of Waitangi as paramount chief of
Mua-Upoko.
The lake is very sacred to Mua-Upoko as it is
the site of a revenge massacre of the tribe by Te Rauparaha
who had threatened to exterminate the tribe.
(The
legendary All Black Haka “Ka-Mate Ka-Mate” was recounts
Te Rauparaha’s intention to avenge the actions of the
Mua-Upoko.) There are some who dispute this.
When
approached by the Crown a century ago, Mua-Upoko refused to
sell the lake. As a compromise to avoid confiscation of
their ancestral home, legislation was passed placing control
of the lake into the hands of a Lake Domain Board appointed
by the Governor, and in more recent years the Minister of
Conservation.
To access the lake, members of the public
must cross Maori Freehold Land. Despite the fact that the
Crown neither leases this land nor has paid the owners any
compensation for the use of their land, the Crown has leased
portions of this land to organisations such as the
Horowhenua Sailing and Rowing Clubs for clubrooms.
At
court in Palmerston North last Wednesday the Department of
Conservation gave evidence that the lease for the Rowing
Club expired several years ago. According to Mr Tenhave DOC
acknowledged during these proceedings that under the terms
of that lease the building reverts back to the owners of the
land. Counsel for DOC then claimed that DOC – via the Lake
Domain Board that they administer – has control over who
is allowed to go into the building and suggested that a
peppercorn rental might be a possibility.
Lake
Trustee Vivienne Tuaeki says she feels somewhat
responsible for the toilet photography incident going to
horribly wrong as she was going to arrange permission for
Bryan Ten Have to be there.
“I was called down there
after the police came and everybody was very upset. I
apologised and said it was my fault. I felt
terrible.”
To compound the grievances for the
Mua-Upoko owners, the once-pristine lake and
generous kai basket is now rated by NIWA as one of the ten
worst lakes in the country. Dr Max Gibbs from NIWA recently
stated that the water is so toxic that a mouthful could kill
a child or animal.
Dog owners have in fact been told to
keep animals clear of the lake to avoid them becoming ill
and possibly dying.
In Mr Gibbs report to the Horizons
regional council last February, he stated that the danger to
the lake from the introduction of exotic weeds is that the
aggressive growth habits would irreversibly change the water
quality and character of the lake.
Levin’s stormwater
drains into the lake, and for thirty years from the 1950s to
the 1980s treated effluent from town’s wastewater was also
discharged into the lake. Horizons confirms that there are
still periodic overflows into the lake.
Mr Taueki’s
actions to protect the lake first came to police attention
on 14 September 2008, when he tried to remove Horowhenua
Sailing Club members who were launching unwashed boats into
the lake. He was arrested on three counts of assault which
are currently subject to appeal, and will be heard by the
Court of Appeal on 15 May this year.
As it was
relevant to these charges, Mr Taueki filed an application in
the Maori Land Court on 7 January 2009 to determine
ownership of the buildings on Maori Freehold Land that the
Sailing and Rowing Clubs continued to occupy. These leases
had expired in 2003 and 2007 respectively.
This matter
was finally heard by the Maori Land Court at a special
two-day sitting in Palmerston North last week. As fixtures
under existing land law, ownership of these buildings passed
upon expiry of the lease to the owners of the land, being
the Maori owners.
It was at this hearing that the
mystery of the Rowing Club toilet arose as recounted in the
introduction to this story.
Mr Taueki had raised various
concerns, including the lack of toilet facilities in the
building still occupied by the Rowing Club. In the witness
stand on oath, Horowhenua’s Mayor Brendan Duffy disputed
Mr Taueki’s claim that there were no toilets in the
building.
After first contacting his sister and
Lake Trustee Vivienne Taueki to let her know what
he planned to do, Mr Taueki and Mr Ten Have decided to take
a quick look inside the building and take some photographs.
Upon confirming there were no toilets in the building, Mr
Taueki then went on to a meeting while Mr Tenhave remained
to take other photographs Mr Taueki needed for Thursday’s
court case.
A rowing club member contacted the police.
Arriving in four police cars, the police arrested Mr Tenhave
on a burglary charge, confiscating his camera. Mr Taueki
was visible in one of these photographs.
When Mr
Taueki’s sister, a lake trustee, heard there been an
arrest down at the lake, she went down to speak to the
complainant and the police.
Ealier this week
Police were visiting homes throughout the Horowhenua
district searching for Mr Taueki to jail him on a
technical breach of his bail conditions.
It would appear
that the police are intending to use photographs taken by Mr
Ten Have showing Mr Taueki at the property as evidence of
this breach.
At present Mr Taueki is barred by his bail
conditions from going to buildings beside the lake other
than his house. He is only able to go to his house between
9.30am and 12pm each day.
Mr Taueki had earlier sought a
variation of these current bail conditions which once again
banned him from the lake. According to Mr Taueki these
oppressive conditions make it impossible for him to live in
his house, do his work, or monitor the lake which he
considers he is a guardian of.
In the Levin
District Court this week, Mr Taueki will be
represented by Steven Price, while Felix Geiringer will be
handling his appeal in May.
Meanwhile, Mr Taueki has
still not been charged with any offence relating to another
incident in which he was led away in handcuffs from an
Armistice Day commemoration at the Foxton RSA where he is a
member. Horowhenua MP Nathan Guy was in attendance at the
event.
In this incident police tapped him on the shoulder
as he was speaking to a relative. Mr Taueki offered to leave
to avoid spoiling the occasion for returned serviceman, but
was told he had to wait until police reinforcements arrived
from Levin. Eventually several cars of police officers
arrived and Mr Taueki spent the remainder of the day in the
police cells.
(coverage continuing…)
AUTHORS NOTE: Alastair Thompson is Scoop’s
editor. Investigative journalist and author Anne Hunt is Mr
Taueki’s
partner.