'We all pay': Waitangi Tribunal hears Crown failed to protect Māori from alcohol-related harm

Monday, 14 March 2022

Raawiri (David) Ratuu is the lead claimant in a Waitangi Tribunal claim that alleges the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 has failed to protect Māori from alcohol-related harm. (Video first published March 2022)

Alcohol-related harm began for Māori 150 years ago with colonisation and needs to end now, the Waitangi Tribunal has heard.

In a rousing submission to the Tribunal on Monday, lead claimant Raawiri (David) Ratuu laid bare claims surrounding the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 and the harm Māori have suffered since colonisation, when alcohol (waipiro) was introduced.

”The fight against waipiro and disproportionate and unequal harm it has, and continues to have on Māori, is one that has been fought over generations, beginning with our tūpuna in the 1800s and earlier,” Ratuu told Judge Damian Stone.

”I’m merely the latest in a very long line of Māori fighting, in my role, to pick where they left off and to move the kaupapa along,” Ratuu (Ngāti te Ata Waiohua, Waikato-Tainui, Ngāti Maniapoto) said.

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Ratuu says there are 37 alcohol stores within a 1.5 -kilometre radius in Ōtara, South Auckland – a suburb densely populated by Māori.

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Raawiri (David) Ratuu wants the Crown to overhaul the Sale And Supply of Liquor Act to give Māori an equal say on where liquor licences are issued.

Ratuu is executive chair of Kōkiri ki Tāmaki Makaurau Trust, an organisation that aims to prevent and protect Māori from harm caused by alcohol.

Ratuu said he was sexually abused by his late uncle between the ages of five and 10, only ever when his uncle was drunk.

Speaking after his submission, Ratuu said he wanted the Crown to admit the harm caused through the Act, particularly in relation to fetal alcohol syndrome, and overhaul the Act to give Māori an equal say on where liquor licences are issued.

“If you look at Ōtara, 37 licensed premises within a 1.5-kilometre radius, you tell me what’s wrong with that,” he said. “If you look at where those bottle stores are located, (it’s in) high Māori populated areas.”

Ratuu laid his claim in 2017 and his kuia, Dame Ngaaneko Kaihau Minhinnick, hung it in the whare tūpuna just weeks before she died.

His claim is one of more than 200 that make up the Wai 2575 Health Services and Outcomes Kaupapa Inquiry. Wai 2575 will examine breaches of the Treaty in health services and outcomes for Maori regarding smoking, mental health, alcohol and substance abuse, cancer, obesity, and suicide rates.

Ratuu told the Tribunal his forefathers tried to avert alcohol-related harm through a sacred pact Maniapoto entered into with the Crown in the late 1800s, which stated King Country would be a dry area.

The Crown revoked the pact without speaking to Māori leaders, Ratuu said, and efforts to get it reinstated under former prime minister Peter Fraser failed.

Many whānau had said to him they didn’t know how bad it was to drink while pregnant, and their children were paying the price, he said. “But then, so are they. They all pay. We all pay.”.

“Where was the education and prevention for them? Even now, where is the education and prevention. What does exist certainly does not reach Māori in a kaupapa Māori way.

“The Crown has failed, and we all know that. The bottom line is how many more Māori and babies have to suffer through the neglect of the Crown? They have been complicit.”

Senior Crown counsel, barrister Craig Linkhorn, asked Ratuu what timescales were needed to empower whānau through Government and community-funded support. “Are we talking a transition of five years, fewer than five years? More than five years?”

Ratuu said: “If we look at how long Maori have suffered alcohol related harm, for 150 years… to put a timeframe on it, I would be reluctant to do that.”

“Can I take your answer to be yesterday, but as soon as possible?' Linkhorn asked.

“Last week,” Ratuu replied.

Linkhorn said over the weekend, he’d seen the Stuff Circuit documentary on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), and said the documentary would be treated as “contextual information” for the purposes of the inquiry.

A separate claim on FASD is due to be heard in 2023, Ratuu said.

The Tribunal is sitting in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, where the online hearing continues till Friday, March 18.