Seven more arrested at contested Ihumātao

Friday, 26 July 2019

Protesters have been locked in a stand-off with police since being served with eviction notices on Tuesday.

Seven people were arrested at long-contested Ihumātao on Thursday night, for trying to block a highway near Auckland Airport.

Police Superintendent Jill Rogers said the arrests came as a protester chained themselves to a van on George Bolt Memorial Drive, while 'several more' protesters linked arms to block the northbound lanes.

Three men and four women, aged between 20 and 26 years old, were in custody. Rogers said their actions were 'totally unacceptable' due to the risk they posed to motorists.

The group were supporting Ihumātao's occupiers, known as Save Our Unique Landscape (SOUL), who are against Fletcher Building turning the land into a housing development.

Police officers head for the protest site at Ihumātao in Auckland.

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A generational divide is at the heart of the ongoing battle to stop a housing development at Ihumātao. The protests are being lead by mana whenua Pania Newton and her cousins, who have been pushing for the land - owned by Fletcher Building - to be

Musician Stan Walker, Shortland Street actress Ngahuia Piripi, and Green Party MPs Marama Davidson and Chloe Swarbrick have also shown support for the movement.

SOUL has illegally occupied the land, in Māngere, for the past three years was served with an eviction notice on Tuesday. That sparked the current fracas.

Ihumātao has cultural significance for Māori. The area, bordering the Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve, contains some of New Zealand's oldest stone-walled field systems, windbreaks, heat-conservation areas for tropical crops, burial caves, and the foundations of whare.

The land was confiscated from Māori and given by the Crown to Gavin Wallace in 1867. It was been passed by inheritance to his descendants, the Blackwell family, who sold it to Fletcher Building – which plans to build 480 houses on it.

SOUL's spokeswoman Pania Newton has said the land is a 'national treasure … where Polynesians became Māori'.

'Don't let 450 millionaires own this space, let five million New Zealanders enjoy it.'

Auckland Council voted unanimously to get the parties of the Ihumātao standoff around the table, in a bid to settle the dispute.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it would be inappropriate for the Government to intervene as the local iwi, Te Kawerau a Maki, is supportive of Fletcher Building's development.

Police would remain at Ihumātao overnight on Thursday.