Bitter battle over Erebus memorial splits families, iwi, politicians and community

Friday, 11 June 2021

For decades, family members of the 257 people who died when Air New Zealand Flight TE901 crashed into Mt Erebus, Antarctica have wanted a national memorial. For more than 100 days, protesters opposing this have occupied an Auckland park, preventing its construction. Mike White investigates how a proposal meant to bring healing has split a community and caused more grief.

Paul Gilberd says don’t be scared. Don’t shy away from asking for details.

The details are these: His grandfather, Peter Tanton, was an Anglican minister, a WWII pilot decorated at Buckingham Palace for his heroism, a father of three.

His family gave him a ticket on an Air New Zealand sightseeing flight to Antarctica for his 60th birthday.

Gilberd, then nine, remembers huddling around the TV in his Lower Hutt home that night in November 1979, as news spread that contact had been lost with Flight TE901.

The whole country huddled with him.

**READ MORE:

* Erebus crash: MOTAT offers to home memorial, but victims' families not convinced

* It's time the families got what they have requested

* 'Nimbys' oppose Erebus park memorial: ‘You don’t drink a glass of wine next to a grave’

* Design for national Erebus memorial unveiled in Auckland

**

The plane had enough fuel to keep flying until 9pm. When that time passed, even a child like Gilberd understood what it meant.

The DC-10’s wreckage was found on the flanks of Mt Erebus, an angry streak of metal and machinery, and bodies in their best clothes.

Gilberd says ask whatever you want. No, they didn’t find his Poppa’s body. Just bits of it. There was a hand. A wedding ring.

What rescuers could gather was returned to Tanton’s widow, Molly. She had everything cremated and secretly scattered somewhere in Auckland. Gilberd only discovered this years later.

So he’s never had a grave to visit. Never had a place to grieve. Never had anywhere to see and touch his Poppa’s name. It rankles. Terribly.

Simon Stokes remembers walking with his father, Alan, up the hill from their Pakuranga home, the morning of the disaster. That’s the last memory he has of him.

Alan was a commercial artist who designed the advertisements, brochures and menus for Air New Zealand’s Antarctic flights.

The company gifted him a ticket as a thank you, and Alan, 51, chose to fly that day because it was the 50th anniversary of the first flight over the South Pole.

Simon was a 20-year-old law student at the time, and recalls his girlfriend’s father meeting him that evening, telling him there was a problem with the plane, and taking him home.

What happened that day massively changed the lives of everyone in his family, Simon says.

But he’s never felt the need for a memorial. If others want one, that’s fine. But not something this big, here in a precious part of a Parnell park, he says, pointing at a sketch of the planned Erebus memorial. Not this “insensitive” design, that looks like a runway.

Stokes lives a minute away from the park. Gilberd spent 10 years in Parnell, just a few hundred metres away.

Both lost men dear to them, their loved ones’ names barely separated on an alphabetical list of Erebus victims.

Yet the gulf between them is vast and visceral. They’ve never met, yet there’s resentment and rage at the other’s stance.

Their divide over a simple memorial is mirrored within Erebus families, Parnell’s community, and iwi.

It’s a standoff begging for empathy, but riddled with accusation, a stalemate one short step from confrontation.

Somehow, a quiet corner of a beloved garden with 5000 roses now reeks of acrimony, and a memorial that was meant to provide salve for a national wound has turned to salt.

How on earth has this happened? Who let it happen?

The Garden

On November 28, 2017, less than six weeks after becoming Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern announced a national memorial to the 257 Erebus victims would be built within two years, in time for the disaster’s 40th anniversary.

“We have waited too long already,” Ardern said, promising “a place where all New Zealanders can come to pay their respects and remember this sad event”.

There are several small Erebus memorials around New Zealand, including one for crew, and one for those whose bodies weren’t recovered, but no national memorial, nothing with all the victims’ names.

So, a year after her initial promise, Ardern revealed the new memorial would be built in Parnell’s Dove-Myer Robinson Park, famous for its rose garden.

The actual site is a grassy slope the size of two tennis courts above Judges Bay/Taurarua, surrounded by trees, with a view across the Waitematā Harbour towards North Head, Rangitoto Island, and a glimpse of Coromandel Peninsula on the horizon.

Overlooking it is a giant pōhutukawa, the largest urban specimen in the country, estimated to be 140 to 180 years old.

There are already many other memorials and plaques in the park (“Virginia Webber: Rest now in my heart, my petalflower. xoxo”, “Dick Parker: Lover of snooker and roses.”)

And around the lawn slated for the Erebus memorial are monuments remembering Korean War veterans, Dutch soldiers who died in three wars, and Sir Dove-Myer Robinson, Auckland’s mayor for 18 years, after whom the park is named.

How this site came to be chosen is extremely contentious, with claims of a belligerent and blundered process.

Based on the premise the majority of passengers on Flight TE901 were from the upper North Island, along with all 20 crew, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage decided in early 2018 the memorial should be in Auckland.

By early July 2018, Auckland Council officials had drawn up a shortlist of possible sites, including the Viaduct, Auckland Domain, Maungakiekie/One Tree Hill, Bastion Point and Dove-Myer Robinson Park.

But emails reveal concerns about planning restrictions for most of these sites, and the council-owned Dove-Myer Robinson Park quickly became the officials’ favoured location, and the one most likely to meet the 40th anniversary deadline.

The Survey

The same month, a survey was sent to all the families of Erebus victims the ministry was in contact with. (Currently, the ministry communicates with the families of 144 victims from the 257 who died. Despite efforts, they are in touch with only three of the 60 overseas victims’ families.)

The Colmar Brunton survey didn’t ask families whether they wanted a memorial, or where it should be, or mention possible locations or designs. It simply asked what things were important to them about a memorial and its placement.

Most said they preferred a secluded location with trees and grass rather than a busy urban environment, and the three top priorities were that the memorial included victims’ names, it was a place to sit and reflect, and there was a reference to Antarctica.

While the families had been informed on July 5 that their views would help determine the memorial’s location, there’s a sense the preferred site had been, to all intents and purposes, identified by the ministry when the survey was sent on July 24, 2018.

This is indicated by the fact that on August 6, the day the survey closed, the ministry sent a report to the Prime Minister informing her that early feedback suggested Dove-Myer Robinson Park “would seem to be a very appropriate option”. (The ministry utterly rejects the site was pre-determined, but has mistakenly suggested family feedback was considered before the shortlist of sites was drawn up.)

Eleven days later, the ministry received a report from environmental consultants Boffa Miskell, who had been asked to evaluate the park’s suitability.

Their conclusions were described in an email by the ministry’s manager of memorials and taonga, Brodie Stubbs, as “not a glowing endorsement of the site”.

On a range of criteria, the site scored “poor” twice, “adequate to poor” twice, “adequate” four times, “good” once, and “excellent” in zero categories.

The authors pointed to the noise from the nearby port, heliport, commuter and freight train lines, and the artery of Tāmaki Drive, and questioned whether the memorial would be compromised by community celebrations that took place in the park.

“As there is a desire to have a memorial for all those who perished, it may be more appropriate to identify a location close to Auckland Airport, with a view over Manukau Harbour, that has a connection and symbolism to Flight TE901. This could be viewed as a destination in its own right and a true place for reflection and remembrance.”

The Officials

The Boffa Miskell report was largely buried and its conclusions didn’t lead to reconsidering Dove-Myer Robinson Park.

Instead, the ministry labelled it not “a fatal blow” and forged ahead, aware they were already behind schedule.

When Auckland Council saw it, senior executive Ian Maxwell offered to look for other sites nearer the airport.

However, Brodie Stubbs replied within hours: “We think that a site overlooking the airport would not be acceptable”, but they would test this “with some family members”. It appears this didn’t happen on any widespread scale.

Troubles kept coming.

On October 9, 2018, Maxwell contacted Stubbs, beginning his email: “We have a problem.”

It had become apparent nobody had sought iwi approval for the site, so hasty entreaties were made to Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, the hapū considered mana whenua for central Auckland, who endorsed the proposal.

So, by November 2018 and the 39th anniversary of the disaster, Prime Minister Ardern was able to announce to families the memorial would be built in Dove-Myer Robinson Park.

After the hurdles encountered thus far, those behind the memorial must have imagined it was plain sailing from thereon.

In truth, their problems were just beginning.

The Design

Facing time pressures to meet the now May 2020 deadline, choosing the memorial’s design was squeezed into a few months over summer 2018/19.

The winning design, Te Paerangi Ataata, Sky Song, is a 17m curving, cantilevered walkway, constructed from white concrete and stainless steel. The names of victims will be engraved on one wall, the other wall featuring 257 unique snowflake shapes, cut out and given to family members.

Visitors will hear sounds from Antarctica, and read Bill Manhire’s poem, Erebus Voices.

It will occupy 95m² (175m² with the footpath) within the 5.5ha park, and the total footprint will cover about 20 per cent of the lawn area.

The memorial’s cost has now risen to $4.1 million.

But when the memorial’s design was announced by the Prime Minister in April 2019, serious opposition began building.

Anne Coney, who has lived in Parnell all her life, noticed a small news item about the proposal, and started asking questions.

When she couldn’t get answers, she began the Save Robbie’s Park campaign, regularly sitting under the pōhutukawa, handing out brochures and speaking with passersby about what was planned.

A dedicated gardener, Coney felt the loss of a green space for the Erebus memorial was disastrous.

“That’s the only thing I care about, for future generations, for children to be able to run around the tree, climb it, and then do roly-polies down the lawn.”

The Vote

To build the memorial, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage had to get approval from the Waitematā Local Board, which oversees the park on behalf of Auckland Council.

The board had already agreed in principle to the memorial, but was forced to postpone its final decision for two months after acknowledging wider public consultation was needed.

(This delay derailed plans for a ceremonial sod-turning event by the Prime Minister on the 40th anniversary, where she was to apologise to Erebus families on behalf of the Government.)

The board received more than 950 submissions, with around three-quarters of local residents opposing the memorial’s placement in the park.

And then things got strange.

Shortly before its December 2019 meeting to decide whether to grant approval for the memorial, board members were asked by chairman Richard Northey at a private meeting to indicate how they intended voting. Some claim the show of hands was 6-1 against, others 5-2. Northey says it was 4-3 against.

Northey says he didn’t inform the ministry about this, though he may have told Auckland Council staff the upcoming vote was likely to go against the memorial.

Whatever happened, on December 2, the day before the board’s vote on the memorial, the ministry suddenly withdrew its application for memorial approval, saying it now wanted to get resource consent, and archaeological approval from Heritage New Zealand, before coming back to the local board for a vote.

Critics claim the ministry panicked it was going to lose the vote, and pulled the application at the very last minute so 18 months’ work on the memorial site wouldn’t be wasted.

Tamsin Evans, the ministry’s deputy chief executive, utterly rejects these accusations, saying the ministry felt the board’s newly elected members would be better informed if they knew other consents had been granted.

However, why the ministry’s withdrawal was left until the day before the meeting, more than seven weeks after it was obvious new board members had been elected, isn’t clear.

By now, the 40th anniversary of Erebus had passed, and Ardern’s hopes for a memorial were postponed until the 41st commemorations.

But still more hurdles emerged, along with claims the process was being rushed.

In March 2020, an independent commissioner for Auckland Council concluded the memorial’s impact would be “at most minor” and its resource consent was deemed non-notifiable, meaning there would be no public hearings.

This was despite the commissioner realising the issue was controversial, and the Waitematā Local Board specifically asking for consent to be publicly notified, given the high public interest. The fact it wasn’t, left many feeling deprived of a crucial chance to be heard.

As another anniversary loomed, nearly three years after Ardern announced the project, not a single sod had been turned to begin the memorial.

But in an emotional, often angry, seven-hour meeting on November 17, 2020, the Waitematā Local Board finally voted 4-3 to allow the Erebus memorial.

The ministry began planning for construction.

Its opponents began planning another strategy.

The Occupation

In late-December 2020, Dame Naida Glavish, one of Māoridom’s most influential leaders, was invited to visit the park by memorial opponents.

A former Māori Party president, Glavish chairs the runanga (tribal council) of Ngāti Whātua iwi (of which Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei is one of four hapū), escorts the Prime Minister on to Waitangi Marae, and holds numerous government appointments.

Glavish says when she arrived at the park, she was immediately embraced by the giant pōhutukawa.

“And I heard a speech from the ether, which I believe was from the tree. And the message I received was one I grew up with from my grandmother: ‘When you see something wrong in front of you, you are duty-bound to correct it. For if you do not, you will be like it.’”

She says the tree (rākau) is a tūpuna, an ancestor that was here when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed.

The memorial’s construction will mean excavating about 1.25m in an area where the pōhutukawa's roots reach, to a depth of 23cm (about a hand-span).

While arborists insist this will have no impact on the tree, Glavish responds, “Stick a nail in your big toe and see how that impacts on your growth.”

The memorial’s construction was due to begin on March 1.

But before contractors could start, protesters occupied the site, erecting tents, a kitchen and a toilet, and blocking the park’s main service entrance every morning in case construction machinery arrives. (The first protester to camp there was art consultant Paul Baragwanath, son of lawyer David Baragwanath, who assisted Peter Mahon during the Erebus inquiry.)

At the same time, a rāhui was placed on the site by a group of kaumātua concerned about the memorial.

More than three months on, the occupiers are still there, an inner-city Ihumātao, with no end to the impasse imminent.

Those camped at Dove-Myer Robinson Park also claim it was part of the former Mataharehare Pā, though this is widely disputed.

It has, however, seen opposition to the memorial metamorphose from the preservation of green spaces of Save Robbies Park, to new branding as Protect Mataharehare, with an emphasis on the pōhutukawa and pā, alongside Glavish becoming the opponents’ public face.

Glavish has called on the Prime Minister to find a solution, but says Ardern’s responses are, “like a Claytons drink – it’s the drink you have when you haven’t had one.”

“I’m prepared to go in front of the bulldozer – she’d better not be prepared to drive it.

“Absolutely, I will give my life for that rākau. Let that be said loud and clear.

“I think they’re hoping we’ll all get cold in our tents, and it will just go away. But we are as determined to save this tūpuna rākau as they are to put that thing there. They can move the monument, but we cannot move the tree.

“We’re here in protection mode. I just hope it doesn’t turn from protect to protest. We’re highly skilled at protest.”

The Tree

“I actually think there’s zero compromise on that tree,” says Whāngārei arborist Paul Gosling. “What the memorial will do is accelerate its decline.

“There’s no pretty way of putting it, it’s just the wrong placement, and it’s not going to be in symbiosis with the tree. In my experience, whatever man stuffs around with, he buggers.”

Long-term, the memorial will inhibit the tree’s roots and pruning will be needed as it grows over the memorial.

But when asked why the tree remains healthy, when a path already runs under it and another memorial sits near its trunk, Gosling admits, “Yeah, I don’t know what to say to that.”

Arboriculturist Matt Paul says these things show how hardy pōhutukawa are, and the memorial will have virtually no impact on the tree, during construction, or beyond.

Paul wrote a detailed report for the ministry and says Gosling’s comments are misleading and are based on a perfect-world scenario, not an urban park.

“Making out it’s something in cotton wool, and we’re going to destroy it and turn it into decline – it’s ridiculous. Most Aucklanders know pōhutukawa hang off the side of cliffs.”

Even if future pruning was necessary to keep the path or memorial clear, it would only affect around 5-10 per cent of the tree’s canopy, Paul says. Best practice allows up to 20 per cent of a tree to be pruned annually.

Paul says he’s spoken with Glavish, “but despite all the things we’ve said, coming from a technical, arboricultural perspective, she still maintains her position”.

The Hapū

Glavish’s intercession hasn’t pleased Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei, who’ve given approval for the memorial in Dove-Myer Robinson Park.

“It’s unhelpful,” says Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust’s deputy chair, Ngarimu Blair.

“We are the home people. It’s our decision to make on any matter. So we regard anyone from another part of the wider tribe coming into our area to make decisions over the top of us as a breach of tikanga.”

Blair questions the rahui’s legitimacy, saying it doesn’t have substantial backing from Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei; and shoots down claims the site is part of Mataharehare Pā.

”They’re wrong. Mataharehare Pā was located approximately 1.5km to the south. These are some of the problems we have when overnight Māori heritage enthusiasts appropriate parts of our culture to use in their lobbying campaigns.

Blair says there was a headland pā site near the memorial lawn, but it was mostly destroyed when the nearby port and railway were created.

The trust was confident any remaining archaeological features would be protected, and if anything was uncovered during construction, they would be on site to manage this.

While Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei firmly supports the memorial site, Blair says discussion about the structure’s size could help kickstart talks between the different parties, and the trust was willing to be a mediator.

However, not all Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei members support the memorial.

Steve Phillips has served on the hapū’s board and says members have been kept in the dark about the proposal. So when he heard the site had been occupied, he came to see what the concerns were.

Now he joins the protesters at their early morning vigils, during smoko breaks from his job driving straddle carriers at the nearby port, and camps there several nights a week.

And he says the disparate group of Māori and Pākehā drawn together to fight the memorial is exactly what his ancestors signed up to in 1840.

“Our worlds would never have collided if it wasn’t for this. And it’s actually the treaty partnership working.”

The Claims

If certainty is the first victim of battles like this, civility has often been the second.

Both sides report personal attacks, both sides claim they’re victims of misinformation. And, during weeks of investigating this story, Stuff has witnessed numerous examples of this.

One of the most pervasive claims, both stated with surety and whispered in secrecy by memorial opponents, is that Kathryn Carter, the eldest of Erebus pilot Jim Collins’ four daughters, is largely responsible for Dove-Myer Robinson Park being chosen for the memorial.

This seems to stem from comments made by Anne Coney claiming that “after the Erebus crash, the Collins family moved from St Heliers to our street in Parnell,” and around 2007, “we heard talk of Kathryn wanting to bring her father back to Parnell Rose Gardens”.

Coney says she heard this from others in Parnell, and that residents had laughed at how ridiculous Carter’s suggestion was.

However, Coney admits she can’t remember exactly who told her this, or when exactly it was, but insists several people talked about it.

“That’s crazy,” says Carter. “That’s just made up.”

The truth is, the Collins family never shifted to Parnell.

Carter moved there 30 years ago, and two of her sisters rented there for a time, more than 20 years after Erebus. But Carter is the only one living there now. And their mother, Maria, still lives in the Grampian Rd house her husband left from the day he died, 8km from Parnell.

Carter says her father was buried in Purewa Cemetery, about 3km from their family home, a week after his body was returned to New Zealand, and asks why anyone would think she would want him transferred to Parnell.

“The whole thing is so ridiculous. I mean, it’s quite hurtful, but I won’t let it. It’s like being in a witch trial, and you’re not a witch.”

Carter insists she had no role in suggesting or choosing Dove-Myer Robinson Park, and in fact opted for the memorial to be in a busy, metropolitan CBD setting when families were surveyed. She heard about the Parnell site at the same time as everyone else, and while she likes the site, it’s pure coincidence it’s near her home.

Another claim commonly asserted by memorial opponents is that Carter is best friends with the Prime Minister, which resulted in the Parnell site being chosen.

Again, Carter is flabbergasted at the accusation, saying the only times she’s met Ardern were a glancing interaction in December 2017 at an airport, and official Erebus functions.

“As God is my witness, on my father’s life, and my mother’s life, I swear I had no involvement in the site selection at all, I have no connection with government or Jacinda.

“I mean, what’s wrong with these people? My father was killed when I was 15. Why blame me?”

The Twists on Truth

The standoff has gone on so long, emotions are so high, and the divide so deep, it’s hardly surprising things have got weirdly conspiratorial.

Memorial opponents claim a web of Labour Party links pervades the process, from Ardern to Auckland mayor Phil Goff, to Waitematā board chairman and former Labour MP Richard Northey.

Meanwhile, proponents suggest opposition to the memorial has its roots in a resentful National Party rump, with protest leader Jo Malcolm being the daughter of Aussie Malcolm, a Cabinet minister when Robert Muldoon’s Government and Air New Zealand blamed the pilots for the crash. (A subsequent Royal Commission of Inquiry led by Justice Peter Mahon cleared them, and Ardern has clearly stated they weren’t responsible.)

Aussie Malcolm lost his parliamentary seat to Northey. And the chairwoman of Motat (the Museum of Transport and Technology in Western Springs), the alternative site opponents are pushing for the memorial, is Sue Wood, National Party president under Muldoon.

So it goes on, an unimaginable tragedy infected by political jousting.

When local real estate agent Ross Hawkins said he supported the memorial, the Save Robbie’s Park Facebook page asked people to blacklist his business.

“Sure, have your views, but you don’t need to be personal about it,” says Hawkins. “Don’t start causing scraps with neighbours and residents.”

Both Coney and Malcolm stress they’ve also been subject to online abuse, and insist they’ve always striven to stick to the facts.

But even facts seem up for grabs, sometimes.

The opponents’ website features graphics of the memorial, stating it was “designed to emulate a crashed plane”. This is completely false.

When questioned by Stuff, a commitment was made to remove it from the website. This still hasn’t happened.

A frequent claim by memorial opponents is that, when surveyed, Erebus families didn’t want picnicking at the memorial site. But a close look at the responses shows while 37 per cent slightly or strongly disagreed with picnicking, 41 per cent actually slightly or strongly agreed with it. (The remainder were unsure or ambivalent.)

Another point highlighted by opponents is that families wanted any memorial to face south.

However, the only survey of families simply asked them to rank a list of things that might be important to them. Of the 18 things suggested in the survey, a southward-facing memorial placed 11th among family members, and 15th among those who recovered the bodies.

Nothing is simple, much teeters on interpretation, everything is contested.

Heat overwhelms empathy. Polarisation long ago laid waste to potential compromise.

Everyone calls for wise heads. And then carries on with the war.

The Petition

On a sparkling May morning, 15 memorial opponents arrived at Parliament to present an 11,500-strong petition against a memorial being built in Dove-Myer Robinson Park.

The petition was in the name of 77-year-old Margaret Brough of Mt Maunganui, who lost her father, Aubrey, on Erebus.

Aubrey, 68, a King Country farmer, had been to Alaska earlier in 1979, and he saw the Antarctic flight as the southern equivalent of that.

Brough says when Ardern announced the memorial site to families in 2018, numerous people voiced opposition. She thought any memorial should be in Christchurch, near the Antarctic Centre – not in a rose garden.

But despite fronting the campaign against the memorial’s location, Brough admits she’s never actually visited Dove-Myer Robinson Park, though she’s seen photos.

“Why does it have to be in the middle of a city? We’d never go there because we don’t drive to Auckland because we don’t know where to go, and it’s scary.”

Brough says the memorial’s opponents invited her to start the petition.

“Well, they wanted an Erebus family name. But I thought, fair enough, if you’re going to speak, you’ve got to do as well.

It was Budget Day, but three MPs met Brough on the steps of Parliament to accept the petition, an unlikely triumvirate of Māori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi, Labour’s Shanan Halbert, and National’s Paul Goldsmith.

Missing was the MP for Epsom, which includes Parnell, ACT’s David Seymour. But not because he’s disregarded the issue.

“I’ve had tears; I’ve visited people’s homes; I’ve spoken to the CEO of Air New Zealand, now a National MP; I’ve spoken to the Erebus families’ group; I’ve been to Anne Coney’s home and heard her version of it. I don’t think there’s anyone involved who has a wider perspective of the situation, frankly.

“And the conclusion I’ve come to is, while the process and the design may be imperfect, and even the location, this is the best and perhaps the last chance for our nation to heal the terrible, terrible tragedy.”

Seymour says the Parnell community should accept the local board’s vote, be gracious, and welcome the Erebus victims’ families.

“I just say to them, bad things happen in life. Sometimes the government builds a memorial in your park that you don’t like, other times a plane crashes into a mountain and 257 people die. Which one are you more concerned about?

“Even when we don’t like the outcome, we accept the outcome. I’m not particularly happy with the result of the last election, but I’m still paying my taxes and following all the laws.

“And people that say this can’t be done because it will harm a pōhutukawa. Um, have they seen the New Zealand coastline? There are some things we’re short of in New Zealand, such as Erebus memorials – but we’re not short of pōhutukawa.”

The Protesters

When the petition was delivered to Parliament, Jo Malcolm told those gathered there was one voice missing in the debate – the Erebus families.

“It’s time to stop, it’s time to rethink, and it’s time to get it right for the Erebus families. Because at the end of the day, they’ve been forgotten in all this.”

Many who oppose the memorial in Dove-Myer Robinson Park, are too scared to speak out, Malcolm claims.

But some have.

“I want those who are so adamant, so certain in their mind that this is the place to put this memorial, to come here and discuss with us what it is about this site that’s so important,” says Malcolm’s husband, Simon Stokes, who lost his father. “And what is the connection between the accident and this site that’s so, so real, that this is the only place it could possibly go?”

Gaynor Gallagher, 82, believes it’s too late for a memorial.

She lost her parents, Alf and Molly, and her nephew, Mark Mitchell, who was 17 and had just finished college.

The family’s memorial is the grave of her parents and Mark, in Tauranga, which they often visit, she says.

Oak leaves carpet the lawn and the sun tracks low over the Waitematā as the occupation that began in summer passes 100 days, and protesters don puffer jackets and promise to stay till their demands are accepted.

Concerns about the memorial are multi-faceted and go far beyond lazy tropes of Nimbyism: Some decry flawed process, others the design. Some lament the intrusion on a grassy park area, some see the pōhutukawa as an untouchable totem, some say a former pā site is inviolable.

For Dove-Myer Robinson’s daughter Heather Levack the whole park is already a memorial to her father, and her family was never contacted about the proposal.

“They’re saying we’re being disrespectful to the [Erebus] families. Well, I think they’re being disrespectful to Robbie. You don’t put a monument on top of another monument.”

At the edge of the proposed site, King Alfred daffodils are just breaking the earth around the tītoki tree and plaque honouring her father.

“My father had four wives – some of them not for very long – but he said he was actually married to Auckland.”

Levack, 80, brings protesters baking at weekends. Banana and date loaf, cookies, slices. And she encourages them to hold firm, hold out for a memorial that’s more appropriate, and somewhere else.

She’ll chain herself to the pōhutukawa with the rest of them, if necessary.

Jo Malcolm says the memorial would “repurpose” part of a park they hold dear, where she got married, where her now-14-year-old daughter, Charlotte, played in the pōhutukawa, where the family sit and eat fish and chips.

It would turn a joyful place into one that evoked grief, sadness and loss.

“I get why they want the memorial there, because it’s such an amazing space. But it’s such an amazing space because there’s no memorial there.

“Why does a normal suburban, self-employed housewife give up most of her business, really impact herself financially, and kiss her husband goodbye every morning at 5.30 as she goes and stands on a gate to stop a memorial to his father?

“And I’m a normal person. I’m not a tree-hugger, I’m not an activist, I’ve never protested before in my life. But this process has been so wrong, and the outcome is so wrong, that you have to do something about it.”

Persisting with Dove-Myer Robinson Park will never work, she maintains.

“If you drive it through, all you’re going to have is a whole bunch of really angry people making Erebus family members feel really uncomfortable in what’s meant to be something to heal them.

“And whether that’s right or wrong, or my fault or someone else’s fault, is irrelevant. It’s not going to actually be able to bring the peace it’s meant to bring.”

The Ministry

Tamsin Evans bridles at suggestions the ministry has rushed things through. For something that’s been planned for more than three years and still hasn’t seen a spade in the ground? No way.

The ministry’s deputy chief executive says delays have been extremely frustrating, and opponents’ claims riddled with misinformation, particularly concerning damage to the pōhutukawa.

“People have signed up for something that was never going to happen. Never, ever.”

Evans says there’s never going to be a perfect site that satisfies everyone. But she’s adamant only a small number of Erebus families oppose the memorial in Dove-Myer Robinson Park, and is confident that’s where it will be built.

“As designed, as consented, as planned.”

Evans is very aware the delays are causing many Erebus families considerable distress. And costing taxpayers considerable money – nearly $100,000 has been added to the budget to the end of May, keeping the main contractor on standby.

However, while protesters remain on site, they can’t start work, and they’ll only seek to remove the encampment when discussions are exhausted.

Evans stresses the ministry will make any decisions on this, not the Prime Minister, despite Ardern being Associate Arts, Culture and Heritage minister, with responsibility for memorials.

Ardern wouldn’t be interviewed for this story, but in a written statement, said she remained committed to having the Erebus memorial built in Dove-Myer Robinson Park.

The Ice Men

They named the mission to retrieve bodies from the crash site, Operation Overdue. Maybe that’s also apt for efforts to get an Erebus memorial, sighs former policeman Greg Gilpin, who co-ordinated the Erebus body recovery.

“I just cannot work out why these people are so opposed to it. They think they should have it all to themselves. Well, they can share it with the rest of New Zealand and the families of those who died.

“It’s disrespectful. I’m disgusted with them actually.”

Gilpin was a cop for 47 years, and was part of the Wahine rescue too. There are three memorials for that. Nobody opposed them, Gilpin says.

No day goes by without Gilpin, 75, remembering what he saw and was asked to do on Erebus. And having a memorial marking that, would mean an awful lot.

“But I’m concerned I’m not going to see it, the way things are going.”

The man Gilpin shared control of the crash site with, Mark Penn, says he’s visited the park and listened to memorial opponents. He thought their position was selfish. He thought the site was “almost spiritual”.

Penn was the last searcher to leave Mt Erebus, and says the event has been a thorn in his side ever since.

“That’s New Zealand’s greatest disaster, and we’re 42 years down the track and there's still no bloody memorial to it? I mean, it’s bloody outrageous.”

Gilpin and Penn recovered the body of Philippa Lewis’s niece, Philippa Broad – the 21-year-old named after her.

But despite their efforts, they never found her father, and Lewis’s brother, Jon Broad, a Hamilton GP.

He was one of 44 Erebus victims who couldn’t be recovered or identified, who are remembered on a memorial at Auckland’s Waikumete Cemetery.

Philippa’s body was cremated, and her ashes returned to Antarctica and spread on Mt Erebus.

But there’s no plaque for her, and nowhere Philippa and her father are remembered together.

That’s why a memorial to everyone who died on Erebus is incredibly important for Lewis, now 82.

Lewis visited Dove-Myer Robinson Park recently and was dismayed by the protest encampment.

“I thought, if this is what it’s about, what’s the world coming to. I mean, there are far more important things for people to protest about than this. And why did they leave it to the 11th hour?

“I just thought, 'oh why, why are they doing this to us?’ What conscience have these people got?”

Lewis says what happened on Erebus devastated her family.

“So, when the memorial is there, I’d like to just quietly go up and sit and remember. The good times. And what they both meant to me. But there’s nowhere for me to go right now.”

The Cost

David Ling lost his mother, Alison.

Kathryn Carter and Adrienne Collins lost their father, Jim.

Jim was Maria Collins’ husband.

Dan Moloney lost his father, Nick.

Gathered together in Carter’s home, there’s grief and anger, bewilderment and frustration.

None of them can comprehend the opposition that’s evolved against the memorial, or that the controversy that’s forever clawed at the Erebus disaster, still won’t relent.

No other memorial has faced such opposition.

Ones to Cave Creek and Pike River victims were unveiled within a year.

The Canterbury Earthquake National Memorial was built on the banks of the Avon River six years after 185 people died.

“Can you imagine there being a protest against the Christchurch earthquake memorial?” Adrienne asks. “What would New Zealanders say if there was a 10,000-strong petition against that?”

In 1983, after the Privy Council considered Peter Mahon’s report on the Erebus disaster, it noted the painful disputes that followed the accident, concluding, “The time for bitter feelings is over.'

Would that this advice had been followed.

“This memorial will be born out of agony,” says Maria Collins.

In Greek mythology, Erebus was the god of darkness, son of chaos, brother of night.

And for many families, the continued controversy has perpetuated this.

“It just brings back all sorts of thoughts and memories that have been buried away,” says Ling. “It’s just a nightmare, really.”

Ling says those protesting have little if anything linking them to Erebus, virtually none suffering the loss of a loved one.

Yet, those most affected now sit on the sidelines, he says, as they have for 41 years, while others make decisions about how their grief should be expressed.

Opponents insist they’re not against an Erebus memorial, it’s just the wrong place.

“But, to be honest, no location would be right for them,” responds Carter. “The moon wouldn’t be right. Where could you have it that someone wouldn’t object?”

The longer the delays, the more people directly affected by Erebus were dying, Moloney says. His mother died last year, without seeing a memorial including her husband’s name.

And they all swear if this memorial is abandoned because of local opposition, there’ll never be a national Erebus memorial. Everyone is bruised, exhausted, nobody could face going through this again.

“Why do we have to keep defending it? asks Maria Collins, now 86. “It seems extraordinary.”

“When this finally happens, and I hope it happens in my lifetime, I can hear people saying, ‘What was all the fuss about? What was all the fuss about?’”