Cook arrival to Aotearoa event 'encourages awkward conversations', MP says

Wednesday, 10 July 2019

Indigenous rights advocate Tina Ngata travelled to the United States to lay a complaint at the United Nations over the 250th anniversary commemorations of Captain Cook.

A $23 million event marking 250 years since Europeans arrived on Māori shores has been labelled 'tone-deaf' by indigenous rights activists.

An online petition asking to stop replica Captain James Cook ship Endeavour coming to Aotearoa shores has more than 1800 signatures.

One of four petition organisers Tina Ngata says they were opposed to the whole Tuia 250 event, but the 'most unnecessary and hurtful part of it' was the re-enactment of Cook's journey.

'It's just tone-deaf to the hurt embedded in that experience.

HMB Endeavour is coming to New Zealand for Tuia 250 commemorations.

* Captain Cook party takes 'two birds with one stone' approach

* Human rights advocate takes Cook concerns to United Nations**

Indigenous rights advocate Tina Ngata says opposition to a 250th anniversary commemorations of Captain Cook is growing.

'They came here, they killed our people and claimed our land, and we're still reeling from that.'

The event website says it is a 'time to share, debate and reflect' in a more balanced, open and respectful way towards history.

'Use Tuia 250 as an opportunity to hold some honest conversations about Māori and European settlement of New Zealand to guide us as we go forward together.'

Māori Crown Relations Minister Kelvin Davis says the Tuia 250 event is a chance to allow for ''awkward conversations'' about NZ history.

It will take place in October, incorporating a three-month Endeavour replica ship retracing Cook's voyage from Gisborne up north as far as the Bay of Islands, and down as far as Rāpaki, Christchurch.

Ngata took her complaints about the commemorative event to the United Nations 17th Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues, in New York, in 2018.

National MP Paul Goldsmith wants the fact that Māori and Pākehā did meet, 'imperfections and all', to be celebrated through Tuia Encounters 250, which marks 250 years since the arrival of Captain Cook and the Endeavour.

'It's not an opportunity for Māori to tell our story. We've been telling our story a long time.'

Millions spent on the event could be better used to help right past wrongs, she said.

It would be better for 'Treaty partners to recognise the impact of colonisation and their role in it'.

The petition states that the 'very roots of racism' started with Cook's arrival in 1769.

'This began a history of British supremacy over the lands, and bodies, of Māori that still exists to this very day.'

Indigenous rights advocate Tina Ngata laid a complaint at the United Nations over the 250th anniversary commemorations of Captain Cook.

'For many communities, the return of the Endeavour is anything but healing, it is hurtful, unsafe and unnecessary.'

The petition would be delivered to Parliament before the planned October event.

'I would hope that they are a kind government, and reconsider,' Ngata said.

Canterbury University head of Māori and indigenous studies Sacha McMeeking is ''on the fence'' about the Tuia 250 event, but hopes focus is not too heavily on the Western side of history.

Māori Crown Relations Minister Kelvin Davis understood the differing reactions to the event – which had been planned since 2013 – but said, 'this is not a celebration of Cook'. It was a 'nation-building exercise'.

'We know that the first encounters weren't a fairytale. People died.'

Māori stories would have prominence, he said.

The first thing he did when taking over responsibility for the event was visit local iwi at 14 of the 15 landing sites of the Endeavour and waka flotilla.

'Māori are really driving the events at each of the landing sites.

'It encourages those awkward conversations we should be having.'

Taxpayers were contributing $13.5m towards an opening ceremony in Gisborne in October, the Endeavour voyage, and education and communication, plus another $400,000 for iwi to host the ships.

Lottery funding provided $9m for community events.

University of Canterbury head of Māori and indigenous studies Sacha McMeeking said the event would only have value if it opened discussions about how 'colonisation has got a really long and nasty hangover'.

Focusing on the Cook journey for example, as the part of history to collectively acknowledge had the potential to 'inflame tender points'.

'When we choose to do a really significant commemoration of the Western side of history when in a context of ongoing imbalance, then I think it distorts the type of stories that we have the opportunity to share.'