For the crime of walking across his property …

For the crime of walking across his property, a New Zealander is facing retrial after a Judge quashed his acquittal for this same offence.

Human Rights lawyer Michael Bott is representing Philip Dean Taueki with his defence of this trespass charge in Levin’s District Court on 21 September 2017.

Justice Rebecca Ellis says that: “If push comes to shove, the owners’ rights are not to interfere with the reasonable rights of the public”.

Anne Hunt, a former Horowhenua district councillor and McKenzie Friend, says New Zealand’s flagrant breach of international criminal law stems from an election bribe.

Justice Ellis claims there was an agreement between the New Zealand Government and representatives of the Lake Horowhenua owners, the Muaupoko tribe. Mr Taueki is a descendent of this tribe’s paramount chief, also named Taueki.

Jane Luiton, a researcher for the Waitangi Tribunal, reports that in 1905, the local Member of Parliament had warned Prime Minister Richard John Seddon that Lake Horowhenua would become an election issue and arranged for Levin’s Chamber of Commerce to meet with the Prime Minister to form an agreement over public access to this privately-owned property.

Releasing the Muaupoko Priority Report last month, the Waitangi Tribunal confirms that: “There was no record of who attended the meeting. There was no signed document prepared at or approved by those attending the meeting. There was in fact, nothing formal or regular about this meeting whatsoever.”

Parliament passed the Horowhenua Lake Act on 30 October 1905, making this lake available as a place of resort for His Majesty’s subjects of both races and placing control of this property in the hands of a domain board appointed by the Crown. The owners received no payment from Parliament, and public access remains to this day, free of charge.

To mark the 110th anniversary of the enactment of this legislation, the Horowhenua Lake Domain Board passed a resolution banning all owners from their own buildings. Mr Taueki was arrested and charged with trespass a fortnight later.

Anne Hunt been working on "Man of Convictions" for the past seven years, after witnessing the way Phil Taueki has been treated by the police as he tries to stop the public abusing the privilege of access to the privately-owned Lake Horowhenua. During this period of time, more than thirty charges have been withdrawn, dismissed or quashed on appeal.

Hunt says she has chosen to make this book freely available to download from her web-site because it is important for New Zealanders to realise that complacency is the enemy of democracy.

It is available from her web-site: http://www.annehunt.co.nz/

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