- All of the history of protests
that have happened at Waitangi
from, when it was initially signed.
It feels like it's honoring my ancestry,
and honoring my tūpuna.
(haka)
This is my first Waitangi day
back since I've been trespass five years ago.
Reporter: Did you take anything away from you meeting today?
- Absolutely. We always take something away
from every meeting we have
- That's for raping our sovereignty
- Oh yes yes
- I've been campaigning for the war against the TPPA
for about two and a half years
and had gone through every possible democratic means
that I could to try and stop her and nothing had worked.
So things finally got
to a point when they signed the TPPA the day before,
I decided to throw the toy.
I'd Googled beforehand
what is a really effective means of protest.
and it came up with throwing things,
seem to be quite a good form of protest.
So I thought, okay, maybe I'll expand
on that and do something a bit funny.
And I chose Waitangi
because I've been involved in the blockades the day before,
down in Tāmaki
Uhm, and they'd just signed the TPPA.
So came up on the TPPA
hikoi to Waitangi first time at Waitangi,
and yeah,
decided that was the appropriate spot to do that.
straight after, I was arrested.
- For raping our country
because of the TPPA and selling my our rights
and our freedom
- Taken down to the police station.
But then when I got there,
a Sergeant came down and he was like, that was hilarious.
We'll just let you all away
with a warning.
And so I got a formal warning
and was trespass from Waitangi
and then the weeks afterwards, it was quite overwhelming
really with all the media response to it.
- I think it's appalling, it's appalling
because, that image has gone around the world.
And now there's people in countries all
over the world who were saying the way New Zealand is
theoretically commemorate or celebrate their national day,
is with a senior politician having a sex toy thrown at them.
- We had Al-Jazeera turning up on my doorstep and mum had to
turn the sprinkler on them to get them to go away
and just ridiculous amounts of people buying me beers when
whenever I would go to the pub and stuff.
So, yeah, it was quite out of it really,
all of the history of protests
that have happened at Waitangi
from when it was initially signed,
it feels like it's honoring my ancestry
and honoring my tūpuna
- Let's face it.
If it wasn't for the protest movements,
then and the hikoi movements
then we certainly wouldn't be where we are today
We've moved
and removed,
a lot of barriers
that created,
friction
between, Waitangi national trust, the commemorations
as well as those
who were protesting or, or marching on kaupapa
that were important to us as a nation and a people.
So to move all of those barriers and to embrace
that as a part and included as a part
of the Waitangi day commemorations, huge difference.
One of the key barriers that was put
in place and it wasn't here long
before we arrived, was our flagstaff here, just to
just to out left here, this used to be completely roped
off right around the flagstaff.
And it had uniformed officers protecting it
from getting damaged
or getting climbed or anything like that.
So one of the first things that we did was we removed
that rope line.
We removed the rope line
and we removed the police from around the, the flagstaff.
The second thing was, welcoming them onto
the Whare Rūnaga (meeting house)
Third thing, opening the doors to our whare
that never been opened the doors every time they come here
they were locked.
So those are some
of the key barriers that we've removed every year
we have conflicts,
you know they can be small and they can be big,
though we haven't had many big ones in the last couple
of years since we've, you know, made this a more inclusive
and uh,
hospitable,
festival and commemorations.
(background instrumental)
So #ProtectPuketiti is a movement that was stopping,
any development on the maunga.
So we want absolutely no,
no development on the maunga.
They wanted to put the 17 luxurious apartments on it.
We've been historically using,
Māori activism,
historically using,
Waitangi as a platform for a long time,
our specific movement
#ProtectPuketiti
we, we went a bit early for the festive commemorations
just so that we could get their attention
and air our grievances to the country.
So we came to Waitangi under a peaceful banner
airing our grievances, and uh,
directly, taking our agendas
face-to-face to the government.
Using Waitangi as a platform
has been going on for a long time.
People like Annette Sykes
and Donna Awatere
have lead the way,
Ngā Tamatoa
So we're just,
building off the people that have paved the way before us.
And we are carrying on the whawhai (fight) for our tūpuna
They wanted outcomes
and for us to have,
prestige
and for us to have our own autonomy.
And until we get that, we'll be staying right here.